| Course | Title | Instructor | Description |
|---|
| ART HIS 40B | EUROPE:MEDIEVL &REN | MASSEY, L. | Explore the long period that extends from the end of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century through the sixteenth century. There are no prerequisites for the course and no expectations that students will necessarily have taken Art History 40A. Less a survey than a series of case studies, this course looks at colossal statues of emperors, miracle working icons, gem encrusted reliquaries, Gothic cathedrals, the eye-tricking illusions of Renaissance painters, the first nude statues in the West since antiquity, Michelangelo’s paintings in the Sistine Chapel, and Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. In looking at these things, we will trace the emergence of Christian visual culture, its dialogue with other cultures, the questioning of the nature and validity of representation within that culture — especially the representation of the human body — and the gradual eclipse of the sacred icon by the secular, modern work of art during the Renaissance. |
| ART HIS 42B | ARTS OF CHINA | WUE, R. | This course offers an introduction to art history through the art and visual culture of China from prehistoric times to the 20th century. We will examine how the religious, political, philosophical and cultural traditions of China are expressed, created and communicated by visual images and objects, proceeding chronologically and thematically. The objectives of this class are not only to gain knowledge and understanding of these art works in a cultural and historical context, but also to develop visual and analytical skills in looking at and interpreting Chinese art. |
| ART HIS 114 | ROMANESQUE & GOTHIC | STAFF | This course focuses on art and architecture in western Europe from the emergence of the Romanesque around the year 1000, to the early 14th century when the artists of Florence and Siena revolutionized painting and laid the groundwork for the Italian Renaissance. Students will learn about the social phenomena that defined the central Middle Ages, such as the formation of kingdoms, pilgrimage, monasticism, and mysticism. We will investigate how monumental imagery and personal objects articulated the ambitions and anxieties of medieval people concerning political power, identity, sex, sin, death, and punishment. Emphasis will be placed on artistic exchange between cultural and religious groups through pilgrimage, trade, Crusade, and coexistence. Although this class highlights the dominant role of the Catholic Church throughout the period, we will resist the simplistic notion of the Middle Ages as the “Age of Faith” by exploring the flourishing of secular arts and courtly culture, and the continuous interplay of sacred and secular forces in medieval life. |
| ART HIS 121 | GENDER &RENAISSANCE | MASSEY, L. | Artistic practice in the Italian Renaissance was inextricably tied to issues of sexuality and gender. The very act of making or viewing an image was understood as the very essence of desire (think of the myth of Narcissus who fell hopelessly in love with his own reflected image). Artists in the Renaissance explored tropes of both heterosexual and queer desire, they exploited the strangeness of art to unsettle predictable sexual and gendered roles, and often created new categories of gendered self-identification. At the same time the very act of artistic creation was highly gender-stratified and defined as an entirely masculine enterprise. The few women artists who managed to forge careers often struggled to make themselves legible within strictly masculine categories of inspiration, creativity and genius. Issues of gender and sexuality were also never merely the province of secular art, but also highly embedded in religious works. For instance, theological debates regarding Christ's humanity involved speculations about his sexuality, and altarpieces and other artworks lavished attention on his body and genitals to make sense of his human nature. In this course we will explore these and many other ways that gender and sex informed the production and consumption of art in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. |
| ART HIS 134C | IMPRSSNSM TO FAUVES | HERBERT, J. | Paris, it is has been said, was the capital of the nineteenth century. Surely that claim stands true when it comes to painting. Over a handful of decades French painters produced some of the most stunning, complex, and beloved works in the history of art. We will attempt to grapple with the great richness of art in this period art by, paradoxically, focusing down on a mere dozen and a half canvases, paintings by the likes of Delacroix, Courbet, Manet, Monet, Seurat, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and early Matisse. In most cases, we will devote the full lecture period to a single work of art. This approach will allow us to view individual canvases from a wide variety of perspectives, placing paintings within their historical context, comparing them to other works, studying their formal properties, honing in on details with near-microscopic precision. In similar spirit, for your assignments you will select a single painting from the Norton Simon or the Getty, conduct a deep and varied analysis of your own, and then report on your findings in an oral presentation, a written essay, and an exhibition design or website. |
| ART HIS 145A | MODERN ARCHITECTURE | DIMENDBERG, E. | The emergence of the industrial revolution and large cities permanently changed the relation of human beings to nature and created the modern built environment. This course will introduce the principal developments in architecture, urbanism, and design from the French Revolution to 1945. It will treat advances in engineering, rapid scientific progress, the emergence of the railroad, and later, the automobile, as preconditions for the development of the metropolis, the skyscraper, the factory, public housing, and the suburb. We will consider canonical designs by international architects such as Ledoux, Boullée, Berlage, Schinkel, Sullivan, Behrens, Gilbert, Wright, Gaudi, Sant’Elia, Rietveld, Le Corbusier, Melnikov, Ginzburg, Mies, Gropius, Mendelsohn, Speer, and Aalto. The aesthetic projects of William Morris, art deco, futurism, the German Werkbund, De Stijl, the Bauhaus, streamlining, and Russian constructivism will be approached as varied responses to the perceived need for an appropriate style in the machine age. Finally, we will track the shifting agency of the architect, a figure often associated with change and social improvement, in a period marked by war, colonialism, revolution, totalitarian society, the onset of consumerism, and large-scale patronage by government and institutional clients. Course requirements: Take-home midterm and final research paper. The course will include several field trips. Instructor: Edward Dimendberg |
| ART HIS 155A | ANCIENT INDIA | PATEL, A. | This course will examine the visual history of the region defined as ‘India’ today, but necessarily encompassing parts of modern Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and eastern Afghanistan. After an introduction to the Indus Valley Civilization (2700-1500 BCE), we will explore the legacies of Alexander the Great's campaigns to the edges of India and their impact on the Buddhist art and architecture of the Indian subcontinent. We will also examine the inverse dispersal of Buddhist and Hindu iconographies both eastward and westward in Asia. The course will culminate with the supposed Golden Age of the Gupta empire and its far-reaching legacies from Iran to China. No prerequisite. |
| ART HIS 183C | PHOTO & CONTROVERSY | GLEBOVA, A. | Controversy has accompanied and, arguably, defined photography since the medium's very inception. Moving chronologically, we will examine a series of case studies that reveal important dimensions of photography and artistic, political, and technological developments that paralleled its development. A particular emphasis will be the question of photography's ethics. A preliminary list of case studies includes the controversy over the status of photography's inventor; the 19th century trials of ghost photographers; the ethics of manipulating photography, as in the legendary war photographs of Matthew Brady and Robert Capa; the work of Diane Arbus; Robert Mapplethorpe's obscenity trial; Richard Prince's appropriation of Instagram photographs for gallery exhibitions; and the Abu Ghraib photographs. |
| ART HIS 190W | ART HISTORY METHODS | COOKS CUMBO, B. | ThisThis seminar offers an overview of the major approaches and methodologies in art history; it is also a writing-intensive course that seeks to improve students’ writing skills as they relate to looking at, analyzing and researching visual works of art. We will examine various approaches in art history; by reading, discussing and writing about a selection of art historical essays, students will come to a fuller understanding of the tools used by art historians to investigate the art work. Students are expected to make use of these tools in their own writings on art, and through the process of writing, editing and revising, reflect on their own approaches to the art work. This course is a requirement for art history majors. seminar offers an overview of the major approaches and methodologies in art history; it is also a writing-intensive course that seeks to improve students’ writing skills as they relate to looking at, analyzing and researching visual works of art. We will examine various approaches in art history; by reading, discussing and writing about a selection of art historical essays, students will come to a fuller understanding of the tools used by art historians to investigate the art work. Students are expected to make use of these tools in their own writings on art, and through the process of writing, editing and revising, reflect on their own approaches to the art work. This course is a requirement for art history majors. |