| Course | Title | Instructor | Description |
|---|
| ART HIS 40A | ANC EGYPT GRC ROME | MILES, M. | The first quarter of a year-long sequence (40A, B, C) that provides an overview of art in its various forms within the context of Western civilization, from the prehistoric period to the present. 40A surveys prehistoric art, and the art and architecture of ancient Egypt, the Near East, Greece and Rome. We will consider how and why the peoples of antiquity around the Mediterranean created art and architecture, the significance of art within its social, religious and historical context, how the visual arts can illuminate cultural issues, and how ancient art takes on various meanings to us today. One mid-term examination, one paper based on a visit to a museum, quizzes in discussion sections, final examination. No prerequisite. |
| ART HIS 42A | ARTS OF INDIA | PATEL, A. | The Arts of India explores the art and architecture of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka from ancient through contemporary times. We will learn about the Indus Valley, the Bamiyan Buddhas, Hindu temples, the Taj Mahal and other architectural masterpieces. We will look at contemporary works of art and the effects of nationhood on cultural and political identities. Our study of the Indic visual traditions will include the world’s great religions such as Islam and the wide pantheon of gods and goddesses of Buddhism and Hinduism. No prerequisite. |
| ART HIS 103 | GREEK SANCTUARIES | MILES, M. | A study of the art and architecture of the sanctuaries of ancient Greece, with special attention to how archaeology helps illustrate the history of Greek religion. The sanctuaries served as centers of worship of the gods, and were focal points for Greek politics, athletics, medicine, art and architecture. This course covers the panhellenic sanctuaries of Delphi and Olympia; selected city sanctuaries; Eleusis, the site of the Eleusinian Mysteries; and Epidauros, the primary center for the healing god Asklepios. One mid-term examination, one paper, final examination. Recommended prerequisite: Art History 40A or background in Classics. |
| ART HIS 123 | NORTHRN RENAISSANCE | POWELL, A. | An introduction to the visual culture of northern Europe circa 1400 -1550, with an emphasis on painting, sculpture, and print making in the Burgundian Netherlands and Germany. The course traces the transition from the middle ages to the early modern period in the work of Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Matthias Grünewald, Hieronymus Bosch, Albrecht Dürer, Hans Holbein, and Pieter Bruegel the Elder, with special attention to the issues of gift giving, the private devotional image, art and liturgy, the print revolution, artistic self-awareness, and the emergence of genres including portraiture and landscape. |
| ART HIS 140B | POP ART | WHITING, C. | What was Pop art? How and why did Pop artists incorporate commercial imagery (advertisements, celebrity photos, comic strips) and techniques into their art works, and what impact did they have on pop culture during the 1960s? This course also considers how artists including David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, Marisol, and Andy Warhol referred to Civil Rights, the Vietnam war, counterculture, feminism and sexual politics among other pressing and controversial topics of the day. |
| ART HIS 151B | LATR IMPERIAL CHINA | WUE, R. | This course is an exploration of art and visual culture in early modern dynastic China from the Song through the Qing dynasties (1000-1900 CE). The course will proceed chronologically through this time period, while approaching art as historical and social documents that explore and explicate how art was used and practiced at court, by the elite, in the city and by a popular audience. [Different themes that will be discussed in this course include art as an instrument of power and propaganda, as a tool for social and religious ritual, as an expression of social status and prestige, as a medium for social protest and as a product for the marketplace. Beginning with landscape and genre painting for the Song court, topics covered include literati painting under the Mongol Yuan dynasty, the urban arts of the Ming including women’s painting and printed books, and the multi-ethnic court arts and commercial painting under China’s last dynasty, the Manchu Qing dynasty.] |
| ART HIS 155C | MODERN INDIA | PATEL, A. | This course spans the 16th-21st centuries of the visual traditions of South Asia – India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. We will begin with the Mughal empire (1526-1857), one of the great Islamic states of the early modern world, and conclude with the contemporary artistic production of an increasingly globalized South Asia. The course will cover the changing political, commercial, religious and artistic landscape of South Asia as British, Dutch and French colonizers-adventurers came to the region. We will also examine changing religious identities and the creation of nation-states against the backdrop of expanding European colonialism in Asia. Weekly readings; mid-term, final examination, museum assignment; no prerequisite. |