| Course | Title | Instructor | Description |
|---|
| ART HIS 40C | HISTORY OF WESTERN ART | NISBET, J. | Come open your eyes to the major artists of Baroque and Modern art—including Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Turner, Manet, Monet, Picasso, Pollock, and Warhol. We will explore the meaning and function of works of art—painting, sculpture, architecture—in Europe and America at various moments in time from the dawn of the seventeenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century. In each case study, we will examine the mechanisms through which works of art formulated, preserved, and propagated certain ideas, social and political as well as artistic. |
| ART HIS 42C | ARTS OF JAPAN | WINTHER-TAMAKI, B. | This course examines compelling images and objects of spirit and power created in Japan over many centuries, presenting an overview of developments in art in the Japanese archipelago from the prehistoric period to the present day. Focus will be placed on religious expression, artistic technologies, urban design, painting formats, political functions of art, and art historical methodology. Topics include Buddhist icons, narrative illustration, popular prints, architecture, manga, and the avant-garde. Japanese interactions with Korean, Chinese, and European culture are emphasized. This course fulfills General Education Requirements IV (Arts and Humanities) and VIII (International/ Global Issues). |
| ART HIS 107 | ROMAN ART & ARCHITECTURE | KENNEDY-QUIGLEY, S. | This course will survey the art and architecture of the Roman civilization from its 8th century B.C.E. inception through the age of Constantine. The course will be structured chronologically, examining monuments within the context of Roman religion, history, and politics, with particular attention to the function of visual art, whether public or private, as an expression of the patron’s loyalties, ideals, ambitions, and identity. Prior exposure to the Classical tradition is helpful, but not required or presumed. Course requirements include participation in class discussions relative to required readings, a research paper, and midterm and final examinations. |
| ART HIS 110 | ISLAMIC SPAIN | BAUER, D. | At the Very Edge: The Art of Islamic Spain as a Furtive Introduction to ‘Islamic Art’
The course aims at introducing the problematics of Islamic art by focusing on the art of Al-Andalus (Islamic Spain), where cross-cultural encounters shaped an art that had simultaneously both indigenous and ‘Islamic’ characteristics. |
| ART HIS 120 | GLOBAL RENAISSANCE | POWELL, A. | Cultural, intellectual, and technological exchanges between Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe during the early modern period—very broadly conceived (roughly the 14th century through the 17th century)—with an emphasis on how these exchanges manifest themselves in visual culture, from prints to paintings, sculptures, architecture, porcelain, textiles, furniture, and more. |
| ART HIS 125 | BAROQUE ART | MASSEY, L. | In this course we will explore the painting,sculpture and architecture of Baroque Europe (roughly 1543-1690). Art historian Erwin Panofsky characterized this era as “a lordly racket, so to speak: unbridled movement, overwhelming richness in color and composition, theatrical effects produced by a free play of light and shade, etc.” This class will explore the social, political and cultural parameters of the Baroque “lordly racket." From the moving, naturalistic works of Caravaggio, to the virtuosic sculptures of Bernini, from the extravagant interiors of St. Peter's and Versailles to the lush nudes of Peter Paul Rubens and genre paintings of Velazquez, this class will explore the courts, churches and plazas of Europe's grandest cities. Requirements: midterm, pop quiz, participation and final. |
| ART HIS 134E | MADE IN ISRAEL BABY | BAUER, D. | The course focuses on artistic production in Israel and Palestine as an opportunity to better understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and some of the major challenges both societies have been facing. |
| ART HIS 140A | JUNK ART | NISBET, J. | For the last hundred years, visual art has taken on a junkyard imaginary—turning to things used, discarded, and even grimy, contaminated, and polluted. This course will examine the development of this approach to art and criticism. Beginning with techniques of repurposing in European Modern Art, we will open with cubist collage, surrealist visits to the flea markets of Paris, and Duchamp’s invention of the readymade. These set the stage for a return to the scrapheap at midcentury with the torn signage of Nouveau Réalisme and piles of discarded consumer objects in Assemblage. An important aspect of Junk Art is also the move of art production beyond the studio, and the course will conclude with the local example of the Watts Towers and examples of contemporary art’s concerns for resource management and ecological recuperation. Throughout, emphasis will be placed on the changing relationship of art and consumption in late modernity. |
| ART HIS 162A | ARTS OF EDO JAPAN | WOLFGRAM, J. | The Edo Period (1603-1868) in Japan was marked by 250 years of peace and prosperity during which the sociopolitical and economic foundations for Modern Japan were established. While the Emperors sat on their palatial thrones in Kyoto, the militaristic Shoguns ruled the nation from their castle in a vast swampland known as Edo (modern day Tokyo). Both groups patronized the arts as visual venues of power, authority, and cultural sophistication, but it was the general populace, the townspeople, who eventually dictated the aesthetic tastes of an emerging world power. Learn how artists developed distinct styles within a Confucian based society overlaid with Buddhist practices, permeated by Shinto ideology, and engulfed in witty humor. |
| ART HIS 190W | PRACTICUM FOR MAJORS | KENNEDY-QUIGLEY, S. | As a required course for Art History Majors, the Art History Practicum is designed to facilitate student investigation of the methods of the art historian and improvement of writing skills and strategies. Through critical reading and discussion of a selection of art historical essays, students will develop an understanding of the major methodologies employed by art historians and their implications for how we understand works of art. Along with these close readings, students will practice their own analytical and writing skills through a series of paper assignments concerning art historical formats, including a final research paper. |