ART 212 In the Picture: Overlooked Women at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
This Social Justice Seminar illuminates the fascinating lives of some of the most important and most often overlooked or misunderstood women in history through the collection of the world’s greatest museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Located a mere 20 minutes on foot from Marymount Manhattan College, the Met contains works of art representing and created by these women, although this feature of its collection is rarely discussed. Students will be introduced to some of these figures, including the powerful Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut (ca. 1470 BCE), the anonymous ancient Greek girl with a dove, the ancient Roman Cominia Tyche, the often-misinterpreted Mary Magdalene, the early sixteenth-century African Queen Idia, the confident eighteenth-century painter Adélaïde Labille-Guiard (and her students), the early twentieth-century indigenous artist Carrie Bethel, and the stained-glass artist Agnes Northrop, who worked anonymously during the Gilded Age for Tiffany & Company. Several classes will be held in the galleries of the Met, where students will study and draw works of art. As students learn the fundamentals of visual analysis and gain a sense of familiarity with the Met’s vast collection, the thematic focus of the course will introduce them to the cultural, political, religious, social, and economic factors that have historically subjugated women. They will gain valuable lessons in how to recognize and confront gender discrimination. They will also learn how to apply their knowledge to pursuing social justice for women in their own way. Additional fee for museum admissions applies.