Class Notes
Each year, the Ackland teaches thousands of UNC students in hundreds of courses across dozens of disciplines. We developed Class Notes so that you — and all of our visitors — can listen in and participate. Grab a gallery map from the front desk, and let this interactive guide lead the way!
Comparative Literature, Fall 2024
Click the arrow below to listen to an Ackland lesson plan for a course called “Great Books, Romancing the World.”
Click the transcript button below to read the transcript of the audio file.
Great Books, Romancing the World transcript
Welcome to Class Notes. My name is Fowota Mortoo and I am the Ackland’s 2024-2025 graduate fellow in museum practice. Today you’ll be sitting in on an introductory comparative literature class called “Great Books, Romancing the World.” This is one of over a hundred University classes that come to the Ackland each semester for a guided session. We developed Class Notes so that you — and all Ackland visitors — can listen in and participate.
This class explores the development of romance as a genre across time periods and cultures, into the contemporary moment. Considering the role of personal and collective identities, students explore how romance can be expressed in vastly different ways while reflecting a particular social or historical context. Students learn the basics of comparative scholarship and literary analysis and are encouraged to consider how human attitudes towards romance have developed over the course of history. Exploring the enduring allure of romantic stories, students examine the complex themes embedded within them, from intimacy and vulnerability to conflict and care.
Today, we are going to look at two contemporary works of art. We’ll discuss the choices artists have made in depicting figures in various mediums and how these artists engage with ideas of romance in their work.
Let’s begin with Family Pain by the American sculptor, Archie Byron. It’s located in Gallery 12, which you can find on your map. You can also just head straight past the elevator and take a right once you enter the first gallery space. Walk a few steps before turning left and the artwork will be just ahead of you on the white wall.
Now that you’ve found it, take a few moments to look at this work. What’s the first thing you notice? Take a moment to notice what words come to mind as you’re looking. Pause here and discuss if you’re with someone.
So, what came to mind? Perhaps unity? Intimacy? Gender? Other words? What aspects of the work inspired your choices?
Now that we’ve discussed your initial reactions, let’s focus more on formal qualities like line, shape, and color. Let’s begin with line and shape; how would you describe them?
Next, take a moment to describe the color of this work. Students often note the uniqueness of the deep, earthy brown and red. They often notice the texture as well. This is an example of Byron’s “sawdust art” where he mixed sawdust from his own studio with glue, water, and other pigments. Born in 1928 in Atlanta, Georgia, Byron became well known for relief structures that used sawdust leftover from his wood carvings. What associations do you have with the color and texture of this work? What mood or emotions does it inspire?
Now, let’s shift to talk a bit about the title of this work: Family Pain. How are the male and female figures depicted in relation to each other? Students often note how the legs of the male and female figures are intertwined with a hole at the center. Describe the expression on their faces. What do you notice about the position of the child? Take some time to pause the audio and discuss or reflect.
Byron was committed to holistic depictions of families that showed both joy and despair and specialized in portrayals of African American daily life. He actually created Family Pain during his second term as an Atlanta city councilman where he once said, “Part of my work is a reaction to what I see on a daily basis. The average request […] is […] a kid needing food or a person needing shelter.” Where do you see ideas of romance or intimacy through Byron’s depiction of this family? Consider the societal conditions Byron mentions here — where do you see the possible pains of romance depicted in this work? Point to specific elements that inspire your answers, and if you are here with someone else, take a moment to share your thoughts.
Now that we’ve taken a look at a work that depicts how romance can exist alongside pain, let’s shift to a piece in a different medium that explores romance through other means. It’s titled Peaches by Hung Liu, who was a Chinese American painter. This painting is in the same gallery. Turn to your left and walk to the other side of the room. You’ll see three large paintings — we’re going to spend time with the one on the right. Take a minute or so to look closely at this painting.
We’ll begin with formal qualities again. Take some time to describe the colors in this painting. What do you notice about the shapes? What patterns do you see? Take a moment to list out a few.
Note how there are some areas of the painting where the brush strokes are carefully considered. How does this differ from the drip marks that cover much of the canvas? What effect does this contrast have on the mood of the painting?
Let’s now take a moment to look more closely at the figure in the center. What words would you use to describe their facial expression? Pause and come up with a few.
What adjectives came up for you? When I’ve taught with this painting in the past, students have said things like stoic, reserved, and depressed. What are your adjectives? What elements of the painting inform each of these words?
Born in China, Hung Liu’s training as an artist began at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, where many artists were trained to create hyperrealist and larger than life depictions of government officials, akin to presidential portraits. Where do you see the influence of that training here? What do you assume about the figure based on their scale and expression?
Now, let’s explore the relation between the figure and the other aspects of the painting. What other objects do you see depicted? How might you describe the relationship between these other objects and the figure? Press pause and take a moment to think about it.
Students often describe the fruits and flowers, noticing how they introduce a warmth that contrasts with the coldness of the figure’s facial expression. Peaches are often associated with happiness and romance, and in this case, Liu borrows imagery of peaches from a Qing Dynasty plate while the representation of the bird comes from a Song Dynasty painting.
In addition to drawing upon Chinese dynastic material culture, Liu’s artistic practice frequently drew upon archival imagery, and this figure comes from an archive of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century commercial studio photography depicting Chinese women including sex workers, child street acrobats, women laborers, and war refugees. Speaking about her artistic practice, Liu said “I hope to wash my subjects of their ‘otherness’ and reveal them as dignified, even mythic figures on the grander scale of history painting.” Consider this quote alongside the different visual elements in this piece. What about this painting might reflect Hung Liu’s desire to unsettle assumptions about who is worthy of honor? How does this reflect ideas of romance? What about her artistic practice shows care in her depiction of a marginalized subject? Take some time to reflect.
That brings our session today to an end. I encourage you to wander around the galleries for some time, looking for other depictions of romance or intimacy. What new insights do these pieces reveal about these ideas and their varied meanings? After you’ve lingered for a little while, class is dismissed! We hope you’ll visit us again soon.
Archie Byron, American, 1928-2005, Family Pain, 1988, glue, sawdust, and pigments on plywood, 48 1/8 × 43 7/16 × 2 3/8 in. (122.2 × 110.3 × 6 cm). Gift of Ron and June Shelp, 2020.30.2. © 2024 Estate of Archie Byron / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Hung Liu, American, born in China, 1948-2021, Peaches, 2002, oil on canvas, 72 x 60 in. (182.9 x 152.4 cm). Ackland Fund, 2002.7. © 2002 Hung Liu
Anthropology, Spring 2024
Click the arrow below to listen to an Ackland lesson plan for a course called “Canine Cultures.”
Click the transcript button below to read the transcript of the audio file.
Hello and welcome to Class Notes. My name is Jo Klevdal and I am the Ackland’s object-based teaching fellow. Each year we teach thousands of students in hundreds of courses across dozens of disciplines. We developed Class Notes so that you — and all of our visitors — can listen in and participate.
Today you’ll be sitting in on an introductory anthropology class called “Canine Cultures.” This class explores the idea that anthropology “makes the strange familiar” and the “familiar strange” by exploring the evolving relationship between dogs and humans. Students are asked to challenge assumptions that they have about dogs — as loyal companions, beloved family members, or personal property — and consider how human attitudes towards canines have developed over the course of history.
We are going to look at two seventeenth-century European works of art to explore different depictions of the human/canine relationship. We will discuss the choices artists have made in depicting dogs and what these choices tell us about human attitudes towards dogs.
We will begin with Landscape with Fishermen, Hunters, and Washerwomen by the Italian painter Domenichino. It’s located in Gallery 15, which you can find on your map. You can also just head straight past the elevator, all the way to the back of the Museum. Keep to your left and you’ll see a dark blue wall. The painting is to the left of the entrance to this gallery.
Now that you’ve found it, take a moment to look at the painting. There’s a lot going on here so get close! Try to notice two to three small details. Once you’ve absorbed some detail, step back and look at the painting from a couple of feet away. Make an inventory of what you see. If you’re with someone, compile a list together. Pause and actually do this.
So, what did you see? Maybe you noticed the groups of people posed in various postures and clothing: men pulling in boats and nets of fish, women washing clothes in the river, men and women gathering firewood, a group of men hunting. Maybe you discussed the dark earth of the foreground and the lighter landscape in the background. Maybe you paid attention to the gleam of the water in the cascade to the left, or the serenity of the lake and the building in the background. Maybe you even saw the horse on the right side of the background and the two dogs in the center and left corner of the foreground.
Domenichino created this painting in 1604, a moment in his career when he was hoping to get more commissions for larger, narrative work. This painting was likely not drawn from a literary source — it simply displays people involved in daily tasks, showing off the artist’s ability to capture motion and action in a variety of figures, both human and canine. Compare and contrast the way Domenichino chose to depict these figures, from brushwork, to color, to detail. What connections can you draw between the humans, the dogs, and the landscape? Pause here and discuss.
A far cry from the animals we cherish as family members today, dogs were not pets in seventeenth-century Italy. Often, they were not even individual property. “Roaming dogs” existed on the periphery of settlements, scavenging discarded scraps and trash, and living alongside, but not necessarily with, humans.
Describe how the dogs fit into the larger scene in this painting. What story does Domenichino tell us about the role of dogs in Italian society? Pause and think about it.
In this piece, dogs are not central figures, or symbols of loyalty, or the property of individuals, but part of a larger, mostly harmonious whole. We are now going to take a look at another, perhaps less harmonious, seventeenth-century painting that speaks to a different aspect of the relationship between dogs and humans.
Turn around and you will see a free-standing, dark blue wall that divides this gallery. Walk around to the other side of this diagonal wall. There is a large painting in the middle, titled Still Life with Hunting Trophies by the Dutch painter Jan Weenix.
Stop for a moment to take it all in. Pay attention to what catches your eye and then how your eyes move around the painting. What choices has the artist made to guide this movement? What aspects of the painting stand out to you and why? Pause and discuss.
Now, I want you to focus on the dogs in this piece. How are they depicted? Pay attention to their posture, their color, expressions. What do you know about them based on these depictions? Pause and discuss their relationship with the rest of the painting.
What did you come up with? Maybe you saw the dogs in the background, in the act of taking down a stag. They are lighter, and painted with less detail, but they are active: running, jumping, and biting. In contrast, the dog in the foreground is quite still. He is also much darker and is wearing a collar. You might have noticed the direction of his gaze or his relaxed yet alert posture.
Still Life with Hunting Trophies depicts the relationship between the hunters and the hunted. Weenix painted this around 1680, a time in which hunting large game, like deer, was restricted to the aristocratic class in Dutch culture. The middle class could not hunt animals like deer, but many could afford large hunting paintings like this one, which they would proudly display in the home. Owning one demonstrated the spending power they had acquired and, perhaps, an aspiration to a certain social class. Considering this, what connection can you make between the multiple depictions of dogs and power? Pause one last time and discuss.
What did you come up with? Maybe you talked about the dog as part of a system of power: related to hunting, as well as an expression of human mastery over nature and social status. Maybe you thought about representations of physical power and violence. Or maybe you thought of something else entirely.
In any case, this brings us to the end of our class today. I encourage you to keep looking around the galleries and see what other dogs you can find. How do their depictions overlap with or diverge from the two paintings we looked at in class today? You can look for other animals, too, and see what they tell you about human culture. Thank you for joining me and I hope to see you again soon!
Domenichino, Italian, 1591-1641, Landscape with Fishermen, Hunters, and Washerwomen, c. 1604, oil on canvas, 25 1/2 x 32 in. (64.8 x 81.3 cm). Ackland Fund, 66.18.1.
Jan Weenix, Dutch, 1642-1719, Still Life with Hunting Trophies, 1680s-1690s?, oil on canvas, 47 15/16 x 62 3/8 in. (121.8 x 158.4 cm). Ackland Fund, 84.43.1.
Image at top of page: Photo by Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill