ARTH - Art--History
Courses
ARTH 110 Introduction to the History of Art and Visual Culture credit: 3 Hours.
This course introduces participants to foundational questions that shape the disciplines of art history and visual studies. It is not a comprehensive survey. Rather, it provides students critical frames for examining the visual world from various temporal, geographic, and methodological perspectives. Students will investigate the history, interpretation, and criticism of selected cultural objects, images, places, and spaces across time and around the globe.
This course satisfies the General Education Criteria for:
Humanities - Lit & Arts
Cultural Studies - Western
ARTH 111 Ancient to Medieval Art credit: 4 Hours.
Development of the visual arts in Western Europe and the Near East in their cultural contexts from prehistoric times until the early fifteenth century; includes Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and medieval art and architecture. Same as MDVL 111.
ARTH 112 Renaissance to Modern Art credit: 4 Hours.
Development of the visual arts in Western Europe and the United States in their cultural contexts from the early fifteenth century to the present.
This course satisfies the General Education Criteria for:
Humanities - Lit & Arts
ARTH 211 Design History Survey credit: 3 Hours.
The historical, social and cultural context of design concentrating on manufactured products, communication, media and design from the Industrial Revolution to the present. Lectures, seminars and individual research projects.
This course satisfies the General Education Criteria for:
Humanities - Lit & Arts
ARTH 212 East Asian Art History credit: 3 Hours.
Same as EALC 212. See EALC 212.
This course satisfies the General Education Criteria for:
Humanities - Lit & Arts
Cultural Studies - Non-West
ARTH 214 Art in China credit: 3 Hours.
Introduction to the visual arts in China and the practices of their exhibition in public museums. The structure of the course, which follows that of our textbook, is both thematic and chronological. The themes encompass objects made for tombs; objects made at the imperial court; objects made for worship; objects exchanged among members of the elite; and objects bartered in a market place. Final projects involve designing an exhibition. Same as EALC 214. Credit is not given for ARTH 214 if credit for ARTH 114 has been given.
This course satisfies the General Education Criteria for:
Cultural Studies - Non-West
ARTH 215 Greek Art credit: 3 Hours.
Survey of architecture, sculpture, and painting of the Greek world from the geometric period to the beginning of the Christian era. Same as CLCV 217.
ARTH 219 Islamic Gardens & Architecture credit: 3 Hours.
Same as ARCH 222 and LA 222. See LA 222.
This course satisfies the General Education Criteria for:
Humanities - Hist & Phil
Cultural Studies - Non-West
ARTH 220 African Arts and Architecture credit: 3 Hours.
Africa’s arts and architectural forms are as diverse and dynamic as its peoples. In chronological and thematic order, this course examines the emergence of some of Africa’s earliest rock arts, architectural forms, textiles/cloths, and more recent artistic expressions. We focus on internal and external influences such as long-distance trade, ancient Christianity, Islam, and European colonialism shaped local aesthetic innovations and the built environment. We also highlight Africa’s influences on global modernist artistic and cultural expressions.
This course satisfies the General Education Criteria for:
Humanities - Lit & Arts
Cultural Studies - Non-West
ARTH 222 Medieval Art credit: 3 Hours.
The arts of Byzantium and Western Europe from the early Christian era to the Renaissance. Same as MDVL 222.
ARTH 230 Italian Renaissance Art credit: 3 Hours.
Architecture, painting, and sculpture of Italy during the Renaissance.
ARTH 231 Northern Renaissance Art credit: 3 Hours.
Architecture, painting, sculpture, and minor arts of Europe outside Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Same as MDVL 231.
ARTH 235 Art, Power and Culture in 17th-Century Europe credit: 3 Hours.
Explores the diverse functions of the visual arts in Europe in a period of religious strife; expanding global trade; the rise of early capitalism, and the consolidation of absolutist regimes.
ARTH 240 Art of the Nineteenth Century credit: 3 Hours.
Architecture, painting, sculpture, and minor arts of France, Germany, Spain, and England in the nineteenth century.
ARTH 241 Modern Art, 1880-1940 credit: 3 Hours.
This course examines the ways in which artists reconceived how art should look and function in response to the many changes -- social, political, and technological -- that accompanied the modernization of Europe from 1880 to 1940. Topics to be covered include the avant-garde, modernism's relationship to "primitivism," pure abstraction, art's responses to the political upheavals of World War I and the Russian Revolution, the advent of design, and the politics of realism and representation. Although primarily focused in Europe, the course also touches on related modern movements globally.
This course satisfies the General Education Criteria for:
Humanities - Lit & Arts
ARTH 242 Art Since 1940 credit: 3 Hours.
The scope of this course begins amidst the devastation and geopolitical shifts that followed World War II and ends with the effects of globalization in the 1990s and 2000s. We will ask the same questions that faced artists and critics in between: Should art focus on its own material processes or open its borders to historical flux? Is it art's job to create the cultural myths that bind society together, or to deconstruct them? Who participates in modern and contemporary art, and who doesn't? What kinds of production should be considered art? How are specific formal strategies informed by the perspectives of different subject positions? What politics underwrite them? We will consider, and reconsider, the existing narratives about art during this period with a dual aim: first, to better understand the historical positions of the artists in question, and, second, to piece together a prehistory of the moment in which we currently find ourselves.
This course satisfies the General Education Criteria for:
Humanities - Lit & Arts
ARTH 250 American Art credit: 3 Hours.
Surveys American art and architecture from the colonial period to the present.
ARTH 257 History of Photography credit: 3 Hours.
Examines a history of photography from its origin to the present, including both documentary and artistic approaches; considers relationships with other arts.
ARTH 260 Graffiti and Murals credit: 3 Hours.
From Bronx walls to the Berlin Wall, from ancient palatial decorations to spray-can art, murals and graffiti have been revolutionary political tools, objects of aesthetic contemplation, and vehicles for identity formation. Primarily a lecture course that examines ancient and early modern cases from different cultures, as well as focusing on modern examples from Latin America and the USA. Same as LLS 260.
This course satisfies the General Education Criteria for:
Humanities - Lit & Arts
Cultural Studies - Western
ARTH 299 Spec Topics in Art History credit: 3 Hours.
Special topics in Art History Courses. Topics and subject matter to be published in course listings. May be repeated to a maximum of 12 hours but no more than 6 hours in any one term. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing in Art and Design.
ARTH 300 Art Criticism and Writing credit: 3 Hours.
This course introduces students to the history and practice of art criticism and provides them with relevant tools and experiences to craft their own body of art criticism. During the course of the semester, students will analyze and interpret texts of art criticism; analyze formal qualities of works of art and visual culture, and evaluate their meaning and historical significance; write about modern and contemporary art; and assemble an interview with a working artist.
ARTH 310 African Art and Society I credit: 3 Hours.
Introduces the arts of Black Africa, i.e., dance, drama, songs, and poetry, as expressed in a multi-media framework and a social-religious context; surveys the art styles of the Dogon, Senufo, Mende, and Ashanti peoples.
ARTH 312 Central African Art credit: 3 Hours.
A one-semester introduction to the arts of central Africa. Sculpture, pottery, architecture, body adornment, contemporary art, and performance will be examined and discussed on the basis of aesthetic, religious, political, and social contexts. Discusses many changes and continuities within African artistic traditions as evidenced in late twentieth-century urban, popular, and political arts of central Africa. We shall also investigate some central African artistic influences found in African American arts. Same as AFST 312.
ARTH 313 Modern and Contemp African Art credit: 3 Hours.
Examines how multiple "modernisms" emerged from African independence movements, and thereby influenced the development of African and African-American art from the 1960s to the present. Same as AFST 313.
ARTH 342 Arts of Colonial Latin America credit: 3 Hours.
Introduction to the major art historical, stylistic and iconographic developments of several Latin American countries of the late sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. Themes to be investigate include: the pictorial representation of race; indigenous workshops, traditions, and the birth of European art academies; the constructions of gender; as well as the translation of styles. The course includes field trips to local museums and libraries. Previous introductory level art history or Latin American history course recommended. Same as LAST 342.
ARTH 343 Arts of Modern Latin America credit: 3 Hours.
This course is an introduction to the major visual materials, monuments, and critical debates of the arts of Latin America, from the 19th to the early 20th century. It studies a wide range of artistic media, including drawings, paintings, popular prints, performance, photography, film, murals, architecture, and urban planning, especially as they pertain to definitions of "Latin America". The course pays particular attention to constructions of race and gender in representing the modern nation. Same as LAST 343.
ARTH 344 Spanish Modern Art credit: 3 Hours.
Introduction to the rich visual cultures of Spain beginning with the Bourbon dynasty in the eighteenth century through the early decades of the twentieth century. The course examines a variety of themes: from the mythologized loves of Goya, to the grandeur of canvases recreating Spain's history; from Spanish Romanticism to the rise of vanguard movements and the advent of Pablo Picasso. 3 undergraduate hours. Prerequisite: Previous introductory level art history course recommended, but not required.
ARTH 345 Realism to Postimpressionism credit: 3 Hours.
Studies European art from 1850 to 1900, with emphasis on French painting.
ARTH 350 American Art 1750-1900 credit: 3 Hours.
Studies the two major directions of art in the United States from independence to the centennial, with focus on major figures and the scientific and philosophical movements which influenced them. Prerequisite: One year of art history or consent of instructor.
ARTH 351 Early American Modernism credit: 3 Hours.
Examines American art, particularly painting and sculpture, 1876-1940, against its cultural background and the relation of the American artist to Europe in an attempt to isolate the roots of Modernism in the United States. Prerequisite: One year of art history or consent of instructor.
ARTH 360 Women and the Visual Arts credit: 3 Hours.
Explores the complex interconnections of women with the visual arts in Europe and North America from the classical era to the present, including the modes of artistic production and the representation of women in western society. Same as GWS 360.
ARTH 361 Contemporary Art credit: 3 Hours.
This class investigates the history of contemporary art, examining the key issues, institutions, and events that have shaped how and where contemporary art is made, displayed, encountered, and critiqued. Attention will center on the artistic and political engagements that inform contemporary practices, from the legacies of twentieth century artmaking to the fluctuations of global financial markets to artist responses to topics such as human rights crises and ecological disasters. Readings and discussions will also explore influential cultural centers in today’s global art world, including Beirut, Lagos, New York, and Shanghai. Prerequisite: No prerequisites, but students are encouraged to take ARTH 242 - Modern Art prior to ARTH 361 - Contemporary Art.
ARTH 391 Individual Art History Topics credit: 1 to 4 Hours.
Directed independent research. May be repeated to a maximum of 6 hours. Prerequisite: Junior standing in art and design; and consent of instructor, advisor, and associate director of the School.
ARTH 402 Ways of Seeing in Edo Japan credit: 3 or 4 Hours.
Focuses on modes of seeing and technologies of vision manifest in the visual arts of Edo Japan, 1615-1868. At the time, imported European instruments of seeing, such as the microscope, made possible unusual visual experiences; revivals of classical Japanese painting manipulated different ways of recreating and visualizing the past. A variety of themes, organized chronologically, will demonstrate the importance of seeing in painting and calligraphy, ceramics, woodblock prints, and architecture. Same as EALC 402. 3 undergraduate hours. 3 or 4 graduate hours. Prerequisite: Junior standing required.
ARTH 403 Word and Image in Chinese Art credit: 3 or 4 Hours.
Study of the diverse correlations between verbal texts and visual images in Chinese art and art theory from the twelfth through seventeenth centuries. Same as EALC 403. 3 undergraduate hours. 3 or 4 graduate hours.
ARTH 404 China through Film credit: 3 Hours.
Examines a group of feature films from the 1980s through 2010s that were commercially produced in the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the U.S.A. Our goal is to analyze how these films construct an image of China. Understanding the cultural and historical circumstances under which these films were produced is crucial to accomplishing this goal. But equally important is learning how to watch films and how to write about them. Same as EALC 404. 3 undergraduate hours. No graduate credit. Prerequisite: Restricted to undergraduate students only; junior standing required.
ARTH 410 West African Art and Ideas credit: 3 or 4 Hours.
Study of West African art styles in chronological and cultural perspectives with a special interest in the use of interdisciplinary source materials. 3 undergraduate hours. 3 or 4 graduate hours. Prerequisite: Junior standing or consent of instructor.
ARTH 413 Sacred African Diaspora Arts credit: 3 or 4 Hours.
Explores African diaspora arts grounded in the diverse aesthetic, philosophical, historical, political, and religious consciousnesses of peoples of African descent living in the Caribbean and the Americas. Focuses on the preservation and ongoing transformations of African visual and religious cultures surviving in African diaspora communities from the period of the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the present. Same as AFST 421. 3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours.
ARTH 423 Romanesque Art credit: 3 or 4 Hours.
Art and architecture of the Romanesque period. Same as MDVL 423. 3 undergraduate hours. 3 or 4 graduate hours. Prerequisite: Junior standing or consent of instructor.
ARTH 424 Gothic Art credit: 3 or 4 Hours.
Arts of western Europe from the end of the Romanesque period until the Renaissance. Same as MDVL 424. 3 undergraduate hours. 3 or 4 graduate hours. Prerequisite: Junior standing or consent of instructor.
ARTH 430 Topics: Italian Art 1300-1500 credit: 3 or 4 Hours.
Special topics in the history of painting, sculpture, and architecture of Italy during the Renaissance selected for intensive study. 3 undergraduate hours. 3 or 4 graduate hours. May be repeated in separate terms to a maximum of 6 undergraduate hours or 8 graduate hours. Prerequisite: Junior standing or consent of instructor.
ARTH 431 Topics: Northern Art 1300-1500 credit: 3 or 4 Hours.
Special topics in the history of painting, sculpture, and minor arts of France, Germany, Spain, and England during the Renaissance selected for intensive study. Same as MDVL 431. 3 undergraduate hours. 3 or 4 graduate hours. May be repeated to a maximum of 6 undergraduate hours or 8 graduate hours. Prerequisite: Junior standing or consent of instructor.
ARTH 432 Sixteenth-Century Italian Art credit: 3 or 4 Hours.
Painting, sculpture, and architecture in Italy from 1500 to 1580. 3 undergraduate hours. 3 or 4 graduate hours. Prerequisite: Junior standing or consent of instructor.
ARTH 433 Fifteenth-Century Italian Art credit: 3 or 4 Hours.
Study of Italian painting, sculpture and architecture from circa 1300 to 1500. Same as MDVL 433. 3 undergraduate hours. 3 or 4 graduate hours. Prerequisite: Junior standing or consent of instructor.
ARTH 435 Italian Baroque Art credit: 3 or 4 Hours.
Italian painting and sculpture during the period 1580-1700, with particular emphasis on art in Rome. 3 undergraduate hours. 3 or 4 graduate hours. Prerequisite: Junior standing or consent of instructor.
ARTH 436 17th-Century Dutch & Flemish Art credit: 3 or 4 Hours.
Explores the functions of visual arts in the Netherlands in relation to shifting political and religious contexts; evolving notions of privacy, domesticity and subjectivity; the study of nature; and the expanding capital-based wealth of Northern Europe founded upon global trade. 3 undergraduate hours. 3 or 4 graduate hours. Prerequisite: Junior standing or consent of instructor.
ARTH 440 Romantic Art credit: 3 or 4 Hours.
Studies English, French, and German art from the end of the eighteenth century through 1840; focuses on revivalist movements, historicism, landscape art, and changing conceptions of art and artist during the period. 3 undergraduate hours. 3 or 4 graduate hours.
ARTH 443 The Russian Avant-Garde: Revolutionary Forms and Socialist Norms credit: 3 or 4 Hours.
What happens to art's forms and institutions in a socialist society? What kind of patron is the working class, the public, or the state? Can art be revolutionary? If so, how so? What does it look like? In this course, we will look at the ways that artists strove to answer these questions in the decades surrounding the Russian Revolution of 1917. Examining formations across a broad range of media—including painting and sculpture, mass festivals and monuments, theater, design, architecture, photography, and cinema—we will attempt to understand how art was redefined in terms of collective forms of authorship, common spaces, and shared things. 3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours.
ARTH 445 European Art Between the Wars credit: 3 or 4 Hours.
Study of the leading personalities and movements in European painting, sculpture, and architecture, with emphasis on painting. 3 undergraduate hours. 3 or 4 graduate hours. Prerequisite: Junior standing or consent of instructor.
ARTH 447 France and Its Others credit: 3 or 4 Hours.
Examines the relationship between art and colonialism in nineteenth-century France. Topics include orientalism, primitivism, and exoticism; the central figures include Delacroix, Flaubert, Gerome, and Gauguin. 3 undergraduate hours. 3 or 4 graduate hours.
ARTH 450 Institutional Critique credit: 3 Hours.
Institutions—from the museum to the university—overwhelmingly frame the terms and conditions by which we encounter art and come to know what matters most in the so-called art world. This seminar focuses on artistic and activist efforts devised to bring these institutional frameworks into greater public view. Our primary concern will be to examine theories and practices of institutional critique, a genre of artmaking and mode of analysis that is often periodized as emerging in the 1970s and that was extensively conceptualized in the 1990s. We will also study its earlier twentieth century precedents and continued reverberations today. 3 undergraduate hours. No graduate credit. Prerequisite: Restricted to students with junior standing or consent of the instructor.
ARTH 460 Museum Management credit: 3 or 4 Hours.
This course is concerned with advanced theoretical issues of art museum work, taught by the professional staff of a museum. Topics covered include collections, curatorial issues, educational program planning, trustee relations, public outreach, fundraising, budgeting, and staff organization. 3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours. Prerequisite: Junior standing or consent of instructor.
ARTH 489 Senior Art-History Honors-BA credit: 2 to 5 Hours.
Independent guided research and study in a selected area of art history for candidates for the Bachelor of Arts in Art History with departmental distinction. 2 to 5 undergraduate hours. No graduate credit. May be repeated to a maximum of 5 hours. (Counts for advanced hours in LAS). Prerequisite: Senior standing in the art history curriculum; a cumulative grade point average of 3.25; an art history grade point average of 3.5; and consent of instructor, department advisor, and associate director of the School.
ARTH 490 Senior Art-History Honors-BFA credit: 2 to 5 Hours.
Directed independent research and study for honors. 2 to 5 undergraduate hours. No graduate credit. May be repeated to a maximum of 5 hours. Prerequisite: Senior standing in Fine and Applied Arts art history, a cumulative grade point average of 3.0, and consent of instructor, advisor, and associate director of the School.
ARTH 491 Topics in Art History credit: 1 to 4 Hours.
Variable content; consult the Class Schedule for current topics. 1 to 4 undergraduate hours. 1 to 4 graduate hours. May be repeated if topics vary. Prerequisite: Junior standing or consent of instructor.
ARTH 495 Undergraduate Seminar in Art History credit: 3 Hours.
Seminar offering students practical experience in research methods in Art History. Focuses on a specialized theme of the professor's choice, and incorporates extensive reading in a specific field of Art History and the completion of a substantial research paper. 3 undergraduate hours. No graduate credit. May be repeated if topics vary.
ARTH 500 Graduate Writing Workshop credit: 1 to 2 Hours.
A weekly writing workshop for doctoral Art History students who have completed their required coursework and are working on dissertation proposals or on their dissertations. The weekly sessions will provide structured time devoted to meeting specific writing goals; discussion of the writing process; peer review and instructor's individual feedback on students' writing, and guidance on how to make progress on their work. 1 to 2 graduate hours. No professional credit. Approved for S/U grading only. May be repeated to a maximum of 6 hours in separate semesters. Prerequisite: Completion of all other required coursework. For doctoral students only.
ARTH 501 Seminar in Chinese Art credit: 4 Hours.
Investigation of selected phases, concepts, and problems of the art of China; intensive reading and reports. Same as EALC 501. May be repeated to a maximum of 12 hours. Prerequisite: ARTH 401 or consent of instructor.
ARTH 510 Seminar in African Art credit: 4 Hours.
This seminar includes a variety of topics, such as African Diaspora Theory, Contemporary African Art, Performance Art in Africa, Tourist art in Africa. Each graduate seminar will have a significant reading list with weekly responses, as well as a research paper and presentation. Same as AFST 509. May be repeated to a maximum of 20 hours. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.
ARTH 515 Seminar in Ancient Art credit: 4 Hours.
Research seminar in subject selected from the art and architecture of the ancient period. Same as CLCV 515. May be repeated to a maximum of 12 hours. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.
ARTH 522 Seminar in Medieval Art credit: 4 Hours.
Research seminar in subjects selected from the art and architecture of the medieval period. Same as MDVL 522. May be repeated to a maximum of 12 hours. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.
ARTH 530 Seminar Italian Art credit: 4 Hours.
Special problems in the history of Italian Renaissance art. May be repeated to a maximum of 12 hours. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.
ARTH 531 Seminar in N. Renaissance Art credit: 4 Hours.
Research seminar in subjects selected from the art of the Northern Renaissance. Same as MDVL 540. May be repeated to a maximum of 12 hours. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.
ARTH 535 Seminar in Baroque Art credit: 4 Hours.
Research seminar in problems selected from the art of seventeenth-century Europe. May be repeated to a maximum of 12 hours. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.
ARTH 539 Academies of Art credit: 4 Hours.
Academies, schools of art, and training workshops, have been educational, administrative, political and economic centers for the debate, control, dissemination, and legitimization of the theories, teaching and practice of the "Fine Arts." This seminar analyzes the aims, parameters and meanings ascribed to these heavily invested and historically empowered sites through an examination of historiography, as well as models traditionally used in their defense or denigration.
ARTH 540 Seminar in Art 1750 to 1900 credit: 4 Hours.
Intensive study of selected problems in European art. 4 graduate hours. No professional credit.
ARTH 541 Seminar in Modern Art credit: 4 Hours.
Investigation of special problems in the history of twentieth-century art. Students present reports of their research. 4 graduate hours. No professional credit. May be repeated to a maximum of 12 hours. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.
ARTH 545 Realism to Postimpressionism credit: 4 Hours.
Studies European art from 1850 to 1900, with emphasis on French painting. 4 graduate hours. No professional credit.
ARTH 546 Seminar in Contemporary Art credit: 4 Hours.
Intensive study of selected problems or artists. May be repeated to a maximum of 12 hours. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.
ARTH 550 Seminar in American Art credit: 4 Hours.
Investigation of selected problems in the history of American art. May be repeated to a maximum of 12 hours. Prerequisite: ARTH 350 and ARTH 351, or consent of instructor.
ARTH 560 Collections, Museums & Patrons credit: 4 Hours.
Deals with specific aspects of art collecting practices, patronage, and/or museology. Introduces students to the major debates and history of private and public art collections, origins of museums and patronage, the new museology. Taught in alternate years by art history faculty with different specializations. May be repeated in separate terms to a maximum of 8 hours. Prerequisite: Graduate standing or consent of instructor.
ARTH 591 Individual Readings credit: 2 to 4 Hours.
Directed readings in special fields or aspects of history of art not provided in depth by the current course offerings. Registration allowed for each section is 2 to 4 hours. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.
ARTH 593 Theory and Methodology credit: 4 Hours.
Investigation of the theory and practice of art history as a discipline. Discussions address historiographical and methodological issues and include both traditional and recent approaches to the discipline. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.
ARTH 599 Thesis Research credit: 0 to 16 Hours.
Guidance in research and writing theses for advanced degrees. Approved for S/U grading only. May be repeated. Prerequisite: Graduate standing in art history.