Accent, Paris

This course examines modern society's progressive aversion to war through the exploration of changing visions of war across artistic media from Old Regime France to the present, in relation to, and as a reflection of, the evolving socio-political and cultural context from which they emerge. The course begins by addressing historical perspectives on representation and war, and continues by embarking on a chronological visual history of war through selected major conflicts involving France taking place from the seventeenth century to the present. Throughout the course, students seek to define war, revealing how this definition is bound to social context, as part of a larger reflection on the nature, purpose, and impact of the art of war over time. The course addresses how artists act as harbingers of society's evolving mentalities on war, modifying their forms and styles to capture conflict as it becomes increasingly ideological and destructive, and art less constrained by convention. The course discusses topics including representations of monarchical quests for glory, post-revolutionary ideological campaigns, orientalism and colonial conquest, war and technology (both in terms of weaponry and means of representation), war and nationalism, war as the clash of civilization and barbarianism, and the role of identity (including race, class, gender) and military experience in representing and perceiving war. Paris and its museum collections provide the material background for the discussion of representations of war in art, and the course's reflection on the art of war is enriched by selected theoretical and literary texts, and cinematographic depictions of conflict.