Teaching

General

Rachel Esner teaches in the following BA courses:

• Inleiding in de Kunstgeschiedenis (Nieuwste Tijd)
• Benadering in de Kunstgeschiedenis
• Kunst in Nederland

Museumconservator

The core curriculum of the MA program "Museumconservator" consists of two seminar-modules, Theorie en geschiedenis van het verzamelen en presenteren, and Museumproblematiek. For information please consult the UvA Studiegids and the syllabi below.

Museumproblematiek 2010-11

Verzamelen en Presenteren 2011-12

Paris: Art Capital of the Nineteenth Century (Master)

This seminar deals with the city of Paris as the capital of the nineteenth-century art and architecturalworld. A crucible of innovation, where, however – in the words of Walter Benjamin – the new always intermingled with the old, Paris may be said to stand symbol for this crucial periodin cultural history. From the advent of the Romantic architecture of Henri Labrouste to the Belle Époque Opéra ofCharles Garnier; from the conservative Salons of the Restoration to the struggles of the burgeoning avant-garde, from the revolutionary élan of Courbet to the religious fanaticism of the Symbolists,Paris and the art it gave rise to was contradictory and paradoxical. As the center of enormous technical innovation and urban transformation - The World’s Fairs, Hausmannization, the invention of the department store and the mass spectacle - the city was the inventor of new ways of seeing and being.
Taking as its starting point a variety of crucial themes, the seminar will look at the city and the artand architecture it produced from diverse perspectives, providing insight into the most important works and artists (painters, sculptors, architects, engineers, designers) and an in-depth examination of their meaning in the wider historical andsocial context of France in the nineteenth century.

Co-taughtwith Dr. Petra Brouwer

Paris Art Capital Course Manual

Het Kunstenaarsatelier (Onderzoekswerkgroep)

Het atelier van de kunstenaar is niet alleen een werkplek. Het heeft grote symbolische betekenis; rond het atelier zijn taalloze mythes zowel ontstaan als geproduceerd. Het atelier is dus smeltkroes van creativiteit en tegelijkertijd een probleem. Hoe kunstenaars het atelier afbeelden,welke relatie ze met hun ruimtes aangaan, welke mensen er toegelaten worden, hoe het atelier ingericht wordt, etc. kan ons veel vertellen over hoe ze hun kunstenaarschap opvatten en over het begrip kunstenaarschap in de moderne tijd. Zelfs het (blijkbare) verdwenen van het atelier in onze postmoderne tijdperk zegt iets over hoe kunstenaars vandaag de dag zich zelf en hun werk concipiëren. In deze werkgroep wordt het fenomeen “kunstenaarsatelier” van alle kanten belicht – in kunstwerken, in de literatuur, en in film en video.

Kunstenaarsatelier Studiehandleiding

Spring Semester 2010-2011

Parijs Excursie (Propedeuse)

Voor een kunsthistorische opleiding is een excursie een belangrijke en discipline-eigen onderwijsvorm. De kunstgeschiedenis kent namelijk een grote mate van plaatsbepaaldheid. Daarom kan de kunsthistoricus niet alle kennis thuis of in bibliotheken vergaren, maar moeten kunstcentra bezocht worden. De keuze om daarvoor Parijs te kiezen ligt voor de hand, aangezien deze stad eeuwenlang gold als culturele hoofdstad van de wereld. De inleidende colleges behandelen Parijs als kunststad, waarbij belangrijke momenten en thema’s uit de Franse kunstgeschiedenis, kunstenaarsleven, enverzamelgeschiedenis aan de ordekomen. Daarnaast presenteren de docenten die de excursieinParijs ter plekke begeleiden van tevoren een excursiethema met referaatonderwerpen. In Parijs wordt onder leiding van de docent een thematisch samenhangend programma gevolgd in een groep van ten hoogste 12 studenten. Binnen dit thema presenteert de student een referaat. Na afloop schrijft hij/zij over hetzelfde onderwerp een eindwerkstuk van 3500 woorden. De paper wordt beoordeeld; de docent zal het toegekende cijfer motiveren.

Van Gogh Museum Visiting Fellow in Nineteenth-Century Art

The aim of the annual Van Gogh Museum Visiting Scholar in the History of Nineteenth-Century Art Seminaris to provide Master’s students withthe opportunitytostudy a single yet wide-ranging subject innineteenth-century art through an intensive one-week workshop taught byaleading scholarin the field and supported by the Van Gogh Museum. The seminar will introduce students to important issues in the study of nineteenth-century art and provide an impulse for furtherresearch.Its aim is toencourage interestin various aspects of the discipline, and to provide students not only with factual information,but more importantly with new methodologicaland theoretical perspectives on this important period in the history of art.

For more information see the UvA Studiegids

Horizontal History: Rethinking Later Nineteenth-Century French Painting

Van Gogh Museum Visiting Fellow in Nineteenth-Century Art 2011

Professor Emeritus John House, Courtauld Institute, London, 22-27 May 2011

This series of three three-hour seminars will argue that a richer understanding of French painting in the second half of the nineteenth century can be gained by examining as wide as possible a range of the pictures produced in the period, rather than analysing it in terms of a linear development or focusing exclusively on the work of a select few artists (the “avant-garde”). The principal public exhibition forum, the Paris Salon, offered painters the chance to define their own art in relation to, and by contrast with, the other pictorial modes on display; by recreating these contrasts, we can reach a grounded historical analysis of the distinctive characteristics of the work of the various artistic groupings, as they appeared in their initial context on the Salon walls. 

Syllabus - Horizontal History

Illusions of Reality: Naturalist Painting, Photography and Early Cinema

Van Gogh Museum Visiting Fellow in Nineteenth-Century Art 2010

Professor Gabriel P. Weisberg, University of Minnesota,23-28 May 2010

The series of three three-hour seminars will investigate the ways in which the Naturalist movement was established throughout Europe during the last decades of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century. By examining the themes artists selected from countries as diverse as England, France, Belgium, Scandinavia, Russia and the United States a common awareness ofsocial and religious issues emerges, addressed in large-scale paintings that were oftenon extended public view in Salons and museums. These paintings frequently contained a didactic message that the general public could easily understand, thanks to the readability and accuracy of a painting style that was both photographic and modern.
The seminar will investigate the ways in which Naturalist paintings were identified by critics and the types of themes that were singled outfor discussion. It will also explore the role of photography as a tool assisting painters in constructing their compositions, the types of photographs used and their display, which helped increase the late nineteenth centurypublic’s awareness of the medium. Finally, we will look at the ways in which films for the public advanced progressive Naturalist themes by referencing both popular literary sources and Naturalist paintings, therebyfurther disseminatingthe Naturalistmessage.
Use of a specific painting byJules Alexis Muenier, Aux Beaux-Jours, and an examination of a range of his photographs will provide a key starting point for further discussions.

Syllabus - Illusions of Reality

Gauguin: Decorating Our Dream

Van Gogh Museum Visiting Fellow in Nineteenth-Century Art 2009

Professor June Hargrove, University of Maryland, 24-29 May 2009

Inlittle more than two decades, Paul Gauguin made the leap from anartistdependant on the observation of nature to a visionary plunged into the subjective realmof the imagination to stimulate the next generation “to dare all.” This seminar will explore the artist’s changing perceptions about the creativeprocess over three phases of his career. The goal is to examine the development of his art and ideas in a largercontext.  An autodidact, he drew inspiration from everywhere – from Old Masters to his contemporaries and from poets and musicians to fellow artists, prompting accusations of plagiarismand of literary excess. It also made him one of the most audacious innovators of his day. 

Syllabus - Gauguin

Word and Image, 1780-1900

Van Gogh Museum Visiting Scholar in Nineteenth-Century Art 2008

ProfessorPatricia Mainardi, City University of New York
14, 16 and 18 April

This series of four three-hour seminars will examine the printedimage from 1780 to1900, with an emphasis on more popular manifestations where theword/image relationship is mostmarked,namely in broadsheets, caricatures,comics, and illustrations. The period saw the developmentofnew processes such asaquatint, mezzotint, wood engraving, lithography,as well as photomechanical processes including photography and color printing. There were new genres such as illustrated periodicals, comicbooks, illustrated travel accounts, advertising and children’s picture books.Thispopularization of images resulted in their widespreaddissemination  - attimesplagiarization - acrossnationalborders. Arthistory as a discipline has, however, not been able to encompass the study of the vernacular printedimage,focusinginstead on images produced by the “peintre-graveur,”the artist who made prints. This seminar, however, will look at the broad spectrum of printed imagery produced during this period in an attempt to integrate it into our understanding of nineteenth-century art production. The seminar will consistof lectures and discussions covering the basic reproductive methods, basic methodological issues, and major landmarks, witha visit to the Van Gogh Museum print room.

Syllabus Word and Image

Style vs. the State

Van Gogh Museum Visiting Scholar in Nineteenth Century Art 2007

ProfessorRichard Thomson, Watson Gordon Professor of Art History,University of Edinburgh
23, 24 and 26 April 2007

This series of three three-hourseminars willtake asitspremise that naturalism was the favoured aesthetic of the ThirdRepublic, preferredbecause its ostensiblecharacteristics –legibility, modernity, accuracy – matched the state’s ideology of social egalitarianism and scientific progress. First the differentmanifestations of naturalism will be considered, dealing with both urban and rural subjectsand idioms as different as the narrativepainting and the grand mural. This will cover artists as different asJean Béraud, LéonLhermitte and Jean-Paul Laurens. Second, the avant-garde’sresistances to naturalismwill beassessed, notably inartists’conscioussearch for ‘style’ as an antidote to description. Georges Seurat’s Neo-impressionism, Maurice Denis’‘deformation’, and Van Gogh’s awareness of style will be discussed. The third meeting will explorehow artists we normally view as avant-garde made adaptations of naturalism or eventually surrenderedto it. This will bringinto play Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and the caricatural, and the failureofNabism withPierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard. The seminar series will consistentlyenquire towhat extent such varied artistic idioms were integrated with orresponded to thebroader patterns of political and social culture.

Syllabus - Style vs.the State