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This class explores the complex and fruitful relationship between mid- and late nineteenth-century American writers and the visual arts, in particular painting and sculpture. Hawthorne and James both wrote fiction with sculptor protagonists and engaged in discussions of the process of artistic creation. The role of the artist is examined through readings in major aesthetic works, fiction, and relevant background material, including works of art and architecture. We also discuss the place of women artists, as American women increasingly became both consumers and purveyors of literature and art. The connections between literature and art are placed in the context of American culture of the time, including such phenomena as American tours of Europe and the influential Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893. Readings include Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables (1851) and The Marble Faun (1860); Henry James, Roderick Hudson (1875) and selected short stories; Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, The Story of Avis (1877); selected aesthetic writings of Ruskin, Emerson, and James; excerpts from Mark Twain's A Tramp Abroad (1880).