Students intending to major in art history and visual culture should work with their adviser to develop individual study plans that reflect their interests and meet the program’s distribution requirements, which give them the chance to encounter a wide range of artistic practices across cultures and time. Students need a total of four art history and visual culture courses to moderate, including either Perspectives in World Art I or II (Art History 101, 102). Moderated students generally take at least one program course per semester thereafter.
100 Level Courses
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Perspectives in World Art I, II Art History 101, 102
Perspectives in World Art I, II Art History 101, 102
Cross-listed: Africana Studies
This two-semester course examines painting, sculpture, architecture, and other cultural artifacts from the Paleolithic period through the present. Works from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas are studied chronologically, in order to provide a more integrated historical record. -
Ancient Arts of China, Art History 109
Ancient Arts of China, Art History 109
Cross-listed: Asian Studies
Late in the 20th century, massive building projects throughout China accidentally revealed thousands of ancient tombs. Studying their contents has reshaped our picture of its ancient world. This course will view the development of Chinese culture, from the earliest material record to the 13th century. The visual material, largely tomb art, includes ritual jades and bronzes, ceramics, decorative art and murals, as well as both the Daoist and Buddhist art of the medieval period. The course ends with consideration of the Song dynasty (960-1127), which was the apex of artistic expression in literature, painting (especially landscapes), and porcelain production. In sum, this course will examine the advances in the various arts, literature, philosophy, and technology of early China through the Song dynasty. Requirements include class discussion, three short papers, and a longer research paper. -
History of Photography Art History 113
History of Photography Art History 113
Cross-listed: Science, Technology & Society
The discovery of photography was announced in 1839, almost simultaneously by several inventors. Born of experiments in art and science, the medium combines vision and technology. It possesses a uniquely intimate relation to the real and for this reason has many applications outside the realm of fine art; nevertheless, from its inception photography has been a vehicle for artistic aspirations. This survey of the history of photography from its earliest manifestations to the 2000s considers the medium's applications - as art, science, historical record, and document. This course is open to all students and is the prerequisite for most other courses in the history of photography. -
History of the Decorative Arts, Art History 114
History of the Decorative Arts, Art History 114
A survey of the decorative arts from the rococco period to postmodernism. Students explore the evolution of historical styles as they appear in furniture, interiors, fashion, ceramics, metalwork, and graphic and industrial design. Objects are evaluated in their historical contexts, and formal, technical, and aesthetic questions are considered. -
Romanesque and Gothic Art and Architecture, Art History 120
Romanesque and Gothic Art and Architecture, Art History 120
Cross-listed: Architecture, French Studies, Medieval Studies
This course covers the art and architecture created in Western Europe from around 1000 CE to 1500 CE. Emphasis is placed on an analysis of architecture (religious and secular), sculpture, painting, stained glass, tapestry, and metalwork within a wider cultural context. Topics addressed include the aftermath of the millennium, the medieval monastery, pilgrimage and the cult of relics, the age of the great cathedrals (Chartres, Amiens, Reims, etc.), and late medieval visual culture up to the Reformation. -
20th-Century Art: What It Means to Be Avant-Garde, Art History 123
20th-Century Art: What It Means to Be Avant-Garde, Art History 123
An overview of the major movements of modern art, beginning with postimpressionism in the late 19th century and moving through fauvism, expressionism, cubism, futurism, constructivism, Dadaism, surrealism, abstract expressionism, pop art, and minimalism. -
Japanese Art of the Edo Period, Art History 124
Japanese Art of the Edo Period, Art History 124
Students examine various painting styles that characterize the period 1615-1868, when Japan and its capital at Edo (now Tokyo) underwent dramatic changes. Contemporary developments in architecture, textiles, ceramics, and literature are also studied in order to understand the art in its cultural and historical context. -
Modern Architecture in the Age of Colonialism, Art History 125
Modern Architecture in the Age of Colonialism, Art History 125
Cross-listed: Architecture
This course approaches the history of modern architecture within the context of colonialism, examining the debates, theories, and practices that informed its many facets from the late 18th century to the early 20th. The industrialization of production, new technologies, materials, and institutions, as well as growing urban cultures and changing social structures, called for architects and designers to partake in the process of modernization. From buildings, drawings, exhibitions, and schools to historical and theoretical writings and manifestos, the class investigates the range of modernist practices, polemics, and institutions. -
Situating Architecture, Art History 126
Situating Architecture, Art History 126
Cross-listed: Architecture
A survey of modern architecture through architectural and urban design practices and theories. The course covers major 20th-century architectural movements, such as brutalism, functionalism, megastructures, corporate architecture, phenomenology, postmodernism, and deconstruction. At the same time, it interrogates the social and political function of the built environment, addressing social housing, third-world development, and urbanism. Figures discussed include Henry Van de Velde, Le Corbusier, Eileen Gray, Louis Kahn, Alison and Peter Smithson, Eero Saarinen, Yona Friedman, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Aldo Rossi, Zaha Hadid, and Peter Eisenman. -
Art of the Ancient Near East, Art History 128
Art of the Ancient Near East, Art History 128
Cross-listed: Classical Studies
This course examines the art and culture of Mesopotamia, a region corresponding to present-day Iraq, Syria, and Iran. From roughly 3500 BCE to 330 BCE, the first urban societies arose, writing was invented, empires were born, and great power and wealth were amassed. The successive peoples of the region—Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Persians—produced a rich visual culture, from carved palace reliefs to ivory, gold, and bronze luxury goods. These works are considered within their social, political, and cultural contexts. -
Monet to Mugshots: Introduction to Visual Material 130
Monet to Mugshots: Introduction to Visual Material 130
An introduction to the discipline of art history and to visual artifacts more broadly defined. Participants learn ways to look at, think about, and describe art through writing assignments based on observation of works at museums and galleries. This course is designed for anyone with an interest, but no formal course work, in art historyl -
Survey of Islamic Art, Art History 140
Survey of Islamic Art, Art History 140
Cross-listed: Africana Studies, Medieval Studies, MES
An introduction to the visual production defined as “Islamic art.” In addition to architecture and architectural ornamentation, the course looks at pottery, metalwork, textile and carpet weaving, glass, jewelry, calligraphy, book illumination, and painting. Beginning with the death of Muhammad in 632 ce and continuing through the present, the course covers works from Iran, Syria, Egypt, North Africa, Turkey, Spain, India, and other areas; and explores how cultural identity can be articulated through visual means. -
Byzantine Art and Architecture, Art History 145
Byzantine Art and Architecture, Art History 145
Cross-listed: Medieval Studies
An introduction to the art and architecture of the Byzantine Empire, beginning with the reign of Constantine the Great in 324 and ending with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453. The class considers architecture, mosaics, textiles, painting, city planning, manuscripts, and a range of other media. -
Survey of Latin American Art, Art History 160
Survey of Latin American Art, Art History 160
Cross-listed: LAIS
Designated: HSI course
A broad overview of art and cultural production in Latin America. A survey of major pre-Columbian monuments is followed by an examination of the contact between Europe and the Americas during the colonial period, 19th century Eurocentrism, and the affirmation of national identity in the modern era. -
Chinese Religious Art, Art History 176
Chinese Religious Art, Art History 176
Cross-listed: Asian Studies, Religion
A study of religious art and architecture in China through its various dynasties. Topics include the mystical arts of ancient Sichuan, the cosmological symbolism of the Ming Tang (Hall of the Englightenment), ancient Buddhist cave temples, the evolution of Confucianism into an institutional religion, and contemporary popular religion, among others. -
Arts of Japan, Art History 193
Arts of Japan, Art History 193
Cross-listed: Asian Studies
The class first studies the Neolithic period and its cord-impressed pottery circa 2000 BCE, when Japanese cultural and aesthetic characteristics are already observable. The great wave of Chinese influence is viewed, including its impact on government, religion (Buddhism), architecture, and art. Subsequent periods of Indigenous art in esoteric Buddhism, popular Buddhism, Shinto, narrative scroll painting, medieval screen painting, Zen art, and ukiyo-e prints are presented in a broad view of the social, artistic, and historical development of Japan. -
Arts of Buddhism, Art History 194
Arts of Buddhism, Art History 194
Cross-listed: Asian Studies, Religion
Buddhism began in India around the sixth century BCE with the meditations of the historic Buddha. Within 500 years the philosophy, responding to external forces, evolved into a religion incorporating new ideologies of eschatology of the Buddha of the Future and of paradisiacal cults. This course analyzes the development of Buddhist art from its earliest depictions as well as its transmission through Southeast and Central Asia to China and Japan.
200 Level Courses
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Making America, Art History 209
Making America, Art History 209
Cross-listed: American Studies, Human Rights
Between 1650 and 1876, a new nation came to dominate the world scene. This course explores the contribution of the visual arts to the conceptualization of an American national identity, from the founding of the colonies through the Federal and Antebellum periods to the Civil War and Reconstruction. We will look at a range of visual and textual materials to examine the development of American culture and the efforts to portray the political experiment of democracy. Topics range from depictions of authority and difference, to the importance ofportraiture and landscape painting to national culture and politics, to the emergence of American art institutions, to issues of aesthetics, to transatlantic connections and traditions. The course serves as an introduction to the painting, sculpture, photography, and material culture of America. -
Sightseeing: Vision and the Image in the Early Modern Period, Art History 211
Sightseeing: Vision and the Image in the Early Modern Period, Art History 211
Cross-listed: STS
This course examines the complex relationship between theories of vision and the production and reception of images in European art and culture of the early modern period (1500-1750). Areas of study include optical devices such as the camera obscura, telescope, and "peep box"; perspective systems and their distortion; visions of the divine; the ways in which vision and imagery were associated with desire; evidentiary theory; and the representation of sight. -
The Handmaiden’s Tale: 19th Century Photography, Art History 212
The Handmaiden’s Tale: 19th Century Photography, Art History 212
Cross-listed: STS, Victorian Studies
The semester begins with the debate over realism in art that forms the backstory for the complicated reception of photography and then works forward to the pictorialist movement at the end of the 19th century. Along the way, students address such topics as "passing" (how to make photographs that look like art); photography and art pedagogy; photography's role in the "liberation" of painting; and the 20th-century repudiation of 19th-century photography's art aspirations. -
20th Century Sculpture, Art History 218
20th Century Sculpture, Art History 218
This class is a history of 20th century art, focused on the medium of sculpture. We will begin with the works of August Rodin, the most famous artist in the world in 1900. We will move on to consider the evolution of modernism, concentrating on major figures like Picasso and Brancusi, as well as the German Expressionists, the Russian Constructivists, and the Italian Futurists. After examining Dadaist and Surrealist sculpture we will look at sculpture after World War II, including the work of David Smith, Minimalism, Pop Art, and subsequent developments. -
Picturing Nature in Early Modern Northern Europe, Art History 223
Picturing Nature in Early Modern Northern Europe, Art History 223
Cross-listed: EUS
Early modern artists, scientists, adventurers, and amateurs created a compelling visual record of the natural world. These artists and observers benefited from new technologies, including the microscope and telescope, and recording methods (printmaking). This course focuses primarily on images and environments from Germany, Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands. -
Art and Environment, Art History 225
Art and Environment, Art History 225
"If we want to understand ourselves, we would do well to take a searching look at our landscapes."This course explores the relationship between the natural world and United States culture, considering specifically the visual expression of that relationship: How have Americans imagined “nature” and represented it? How have concepts of land and landscape shaped perceptions about social order, identity, and sustainability? The course provides both a historical framework for thinking about these questions as well as a contemporary perspective, particularly in the context of a potential new era known as the “Anthropocene.” Scholars in the sciences and the humanities increasingly use this term to describe the current global impact of human-dominated ecosystems. Over the semester we will examine diverse imagery, from mound-building to mapmaking to landscape painting, and explore multiple perspectives, from indigenous practices to visual tools of settler colonialism to environmental art activism. The class will engage both past and present ideas and debates about the natural world through visual and textual analysis, writing exercises, local sites, and individual research.
–D.W. Meinig (paraphrasing Peirce Lewis), The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes -
Visualizing Freedom: Revolution, Emancipations, Rights, Art History 227
Visualizing Freedom: Revolution, Emancipations, Rights, Art History 227
Cross-listed: American Studies; Human Rights
Political and cultural revolutions from the eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries ignited debates about basic human rights and equality. How were these rights defined, promoted, and resisted? This course explores the role of visual material in developing discourses of freedom in the Atlantic World of this period. It also considers the use of visual symbols of enslavement. Topics include: representations of political revolutions in the United States, France, and Haiti; the visual rhetoric of slavery and emancipation in the U.S., the Caribbean, and Brazil; and the visual promotion of female suffrage in England and the United States. The class will address a range of media, including popular prints and cartoons, paintings, photography, and sculpture, as well as reflect critically on connections between historical and present-day struggles for political, gender, and racial equality. -
Of Utopias, Art History 234
Of Utopias, Art History 234
Cross-listed: Architecture; Environmental Studies
Students use the concept of utopia to map out the ways men and women have sought to transform the spatial, psychic, and social landscapes they inhabited. Projects studied range from early industrial colonies, socialist utopias, Christian communities, and anarchist utopias to settlement housing, shopping malls, and factories. In addition to reading and writing assignments, students engage with creative designs, building toward a final exhibition of design projects for future utopias. -
Photography and Empire in the 19th Century, Art History 237
Photography and Empire in the 19th Century, Art History 237
Cross-listed: American and Indigenous Studies; Photography; Victorian Studies
Designated: HSI course
A survey of the work of the peripatetic photographers of the 19th century. Travel and exploratory photographs of landscapes, people, and architecture were made by European and American photographers throughout the world, produced as government surveys, historical records, souvenirs for travelers, scientific documents, and picturesque views. Imperialist expansion of European powers, the Romantic poets’ reverence for nature, and the projection of the photographers’ (and their audiences’) fantasies upon alien realms and peoples are among the forces that helped shape the travel photography of this period. -
Art since 1989, Art History 242
Art since 1989, Art History 242
An examination of art produced since 1989, primarily in Europe and the United States. The year 1989 saw the fall of the Berlin Wall and the beginning of a major shift in the geopolitical landscape. This course charts a variety of artistic practices, including identity politics, institutional critique, and relational aesthetics, which engaged this new terrain by asking questions about history, temporality, and community. Students look at examples of painting, sculpture, performance, and video art. -
Photography since 1950, Art History 247
Photography since 1950, Art History 247
Cross-listed: Human Rights; Photography; Science, Technology & Society
In the decades after World War II, photography’s social and artistic roles changed in many ways. The 1950s saw the dominance of magazine photography in Life and Look and witnessed the birth of a more personal photographic culture, exemplified by Robert Frank’s book The Americans. In the 1960s and 1970s, photographers such as Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, and Lee Friedlander created a new view of contemporary life from moments gathered in the streets and from private lives. Beginning in the late 70s, artists trained outside of traditional photography began to employ the camera for wholly different purposes, using photography to pose ideological questions about images and image-making in a media-saturated culture. Today, the transformation of photography through digital technology has again thrown the meaning(s) of photographically-derived images into question. This lecture/discussion class will cover the historical context of this period and tease out fundamental issues of photography and its ostensible nature and the politics of representation. Student performance will be evaluated in class discussion, exams, and papers. No prerequisites, but preference will be given to moderated photography and moderated art history students. -
The Altarpiece, Art History 249
The Altarpiece, Art History 249
Cross-listed: Medieval Studies; Theology
This course offers a thematic look at the art object called an “altarpiece.” The altarpiece has long been central to the narrative of western art history, and much of the late medieval and Renaissance art now in museums once belonged to this type of object. Developed in the fourteenth century as a painted or carved image program placed on an altar table, the altarpiece became a site for artistic innovation. Focusing on medieval and Renaissance examples from across Western Europe, this course explores the development, function, iconography, and art historical and liturgical significance of important altarpieces. Where possible, it considers altarpieces in their original context. In addition to short writing assignments, students will write two papers and give an oral presentation. -
Photography’s Other History, Art History 251
Photography’s Other History, Art History 251
Like most established fields of study, photography has a canon: a well-worn history and literature that emphasizes a conventional set of figures and master narratives. This course will explore photography's history beyond the canon and beyond the standard Euro-American settings, in search of alternatives to conventional narratives. How, for example, has photography been appropriated and adapted by people who have more often been seen as the objects of the Euro-American gaze than wielders of the camera themselves? How can we read photographs by anonymous makers, or make sense of the inexhaustible reserves of vernacular photography? In addition to studying less familiar names and iterations of photography, we will also consider how canons are formed and why histories are constructed in particular ways. Our topics will touch on events and figures taken from the full 175-year sweep of photography's history. Class will take a lecture/discussion format; there will be substantial weekly reading, two exams and two papers. -
Picasso in the 20th Century, Art History 254
Picasso in the 20th Century, Art History 254
Pablo Picasso (1881-1972) was one of the great artists in the history of European and American art, and a major influence on developments in 20th century art. This class will combine a survey of his career with a survey of the history of art through most of the 20th century in Europe and America. It will meet twice a week; one meeting will examine Picasso’s work and his interactions with his contemporaries, and the second meeting will look at concurrent developments in European and American modernism, moving through Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art and Minimalism. The emphasis will be on painting and sculpture. There will be one or two trips to museums in New York City, and students will write a mid-term and a final paper, and take a mid-term and a final exam. -
Outsider Art, Art History 255
Outsider Art, Art History 255
Designated: DASI and HSI course
“Outsider art” is a problematic umbrella under which are grouped various difficult-to-categorize artistic practices. The course examines the use of terminology such as outsider, naïve, and visionary, as well as groupings such as art brut, folk art, art of the insane, and popular culture. -
Art in the Age of Revolution, Art History 257
Art in the Age of Revolution, Art History 257
Cross-listed: Victorian Studies
A survey of European painting from the pre-revolutionary period (c. 1770) to realism (c. 1850). Topics include changing definitions of neoclassicism and romanticism; the impact of the French revolutions of 1789, 1830, and 1848; the Napoleonic presence abroad; the shift from history painting to scenes of everyday life; landscape painting as an autonomous art form; and attitudes toward race and sexuality. while the emphasis is on French art, time is also devoted to artists in Spain, Great Britain, and Germany. -
European Painting, 1850–1900, Art History 258
European Painting, 1850–1900, Art History 258
Cross-listed: French Studies, GSS
This course considers art of the latter half of the 19th century, a period often described as the incubator of the avant-garde. Students look at the economic, biographical, historical, psychological, and gender-related conditions that surround the art and its makers. Topics addressed: Why have some works been enshrined into the canon, and others left out in the cold? Can viewers today hope to understand these works as they were understood by their original audiences? How do the conditions of our contemporary lives color our reading of these artworks? -
20th Century German Art, Art History 262
20th Century German Art, Art History 262
Cross-listed: German Studies
This course focuses on German and Austrian art of the 20th century. The emphasis is on art in Germany from Jugendstil through expressionism, dadaism, Neue Sachlichkeit, Nazi and concentration camp art, and post-World War II developments. Artists studied include Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Egon Schiele. The course concludes with an investigation of how more recent artists such as Joseph Beuys, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Sigmar Polke, and Gerhard Richter connect to previous German artistic tendencies. -
Photography of the 1960s, Art History 263
Photography of the 1960s, Art History 263
The course pays particular attention to the ’60s as the first markedly heterogeneous period of American art photography. On the East Coast, MoMA curator John Szarkowski promoted a new aesthetic that located the photography of Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, and Lee Friedlander at the intersection of formal complexity, wit, and edgy irony. His exhibitions and publications made art photography suddenly seem viable. On the other hand, many photographers invented their own creative platforms, such as Ed Ruscha’s self-published books, African American photographers in Harlem’s Kamoinge Workshop, and Robert Heinecken’s guerrilla art interventions. -
Dada and Surrealism, Art History 265
Dada and Surrealism, Art History 265
A survey of the two major artistic movements in post-World War I Europe. Lectures on earlier modernist movements in Paris, particularly cubism, are followed by a study of the iconoclastic art of Dadaists such as Marcel Duchamp. -
Abstract Expressionism/Pop Art, Art History 266
Abstract Expressionism/Pop Art, Art History 266
Cross-listed: American and Indigenous Studies
This course examines major developments in American painting and sculpture in the years following World War II. The evolution of the New York School is studied in relation to contemporary European artistic currents, and abstract expressionism is viewed in the context of the various reactions against it following its “triumph.” Artists considered include Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol, as well as African American, Asian American, and women artists. -
Revolution, Social Change, and Art in Latin America, Art History 269
Revolution, Social Change, and Art in Latin America, Art History 269
Cross-listed: Human Rights, LAIS
This course examines the role that Christian iconography played in the conquests of the 16th century and the radical new meanings that the same iconography took as time went on. It also reviews the visual strategies employed in the presentation of the heroes of independence (Simón Bolivar, Miguel Hidalgo) and the ways in which art has contributed to the formation of national identities. -
To Exhibit, To Present, Art History 270
To Exhibit, To Present, Art History 270
An introduction to key ideas and theories informing the field of curatorial studies, and to the history of exhibitions since the 1960s. The course considers the different components of exhibitions, from design to didactics to artworks themselves, as well as the audiences that exhibitions address; the differences between curatorial work, academic work, and criticism; and the role of the curator today. Students collectively research and curate an exhibition at the Center for Curatorial Studies, where classes are held. -
Religious Imagery in Latin America, Art History 273
Religious Imagery in Latin America, Art History 273
Cross-listed: Africana Studies, LAIS
This course explores the varied visual manifestations of religious expression in Latin America after the Spanish Conquest. In addition to churches, statuary, and paintings, the class examines folk art traditions, African diasporic religions, and contemporary art and practices. -
Chinese Religious Art, Art History 276
Chinese Religious Art, Art History 276
Cross-listed: Asian Studies
A study of religious art and architecture in China through its various dynasties. Topics include the mystical arts of ancient Sichuan, the cosmological symbolism of the Ming Tang (Hall of Enlightenment), ancient Buddhist cave temples, the evolution of Confucianism into an institutional religion, as well as the evolution of Daoist practice and contemporary popular religion. -
Modern in America, Art History 278
Modern in America, Art History 278
Cross-listed: American and Indigneous Studies
This course concentrates on early twentieth-century artists and art movements in the United States, from Winslow Homer to Georgia O'Keeffe to Jackson Pollock, from the Ashcan School to the ‘Harlem Renaissance' to Abstract Expressionism. How have artists understood their work as modern? What have artists and critics meant when they talked about realism and abstraction? In a period shaped by two world wars, Jim Crow laws, and women's suffrage, how did artists respond to social injustice and warfare? Covering a range of media and genres, we will explore these and other questions about art making in the context of social and political events. Topics include: ‘modernity' and nationalism; technology and art; exhibitions and cultural propaganda; artistic identity and gender and racial roles; public art, murals, and social activism. -
Governing the World: An Architectural History, Art History 281
Governing the World: An Architectural History, Art History 281
The 1990s found a wider public attentive to the processes of globalization. The term itself acquired a life of its own, making it into journals and newspapers. What appears to be a very recent phenomenon, however, constitutes only a chapter in a longer history of world organization. The course will utilize architecture both as an anchor and lens to study the history of world organization. Slave ships, plantation houses, embassies, assembly halls, banks, detention camps, corporate headquarters, seed bank vaults, as well as atlases, encyclopedias, and communication technologies, will provide us with focal points in an effort to historicize the emergence of a “global space” and decipher its architectural constructions. Readings will include historians and scholars such as Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Woodrow Wilson, Hannah Arendt, Cornelios Castoriadis, Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Homi Bhabha, Ulrich Beck, Saskia Sassen, Mark Mazower; as well as architectural projects and texts by Paul Otlet, Le Corbusier, Etienne-Louis Boullée, Buckminster Fuller, among others. Course requirements include response papers and a longer final research paper. -
History of Art Criticism, Art History 285
History of Art Criticism, Art History 285
This course will explore art criticism as an historical phenomenon. Beginning with the writings of Diderot and Baudelaire, we will examine the emergence of art criticism as a response to the public forum of the Salon and, subsequently, its relationship to other sites of presentation. We will also consider the position of art criticism in relation to film and cultural criticism, as well as models of the poet-critic and the artist-critic. Towards the end of the course we will look at the historical moment in which criticism became increasingly embroiled with theory. As the status of the public has changed in recent years we will ask how the role of criticism has transformed as well. Throughout the course we will ask the question, What can art criticism do? Assignments: Students will be required to submit a weekly response paper. Students will also write two reviews: one of an exhibition at the Center for Curatorial Studies, and one of an exhibition in New York. A final research paper (8-10) pages will be due at the end of the semester. -
El Greco to Goya: Spanish Art and Architecture, Art History 286
El Greco to Goya: Spanish Art and Architecture, Art History 286
Cross-listed: LAIS
A survey of the complex visual culture of early modern Spain, with particular attention given to El Greco, Goya, Murillao, Velázquez, and Zurbarán. The class examines the formation of a distinct Spanish style within the context of European art and considers how Spanish artistic identity was a kind of hybrid, complicated both by Spain's importation of foreign artists (Rubens, Titian) and by its relationship to the art and architecture of the colonies. -
Experiments in Art and Technology, Art History 287
Experiments in Art and Technology, Art History 287
Cross-listed: Experimental Humanities
This course will explore various connections between art and technology from the 1960s up to the present day. Students will examine a wide range of writings, artworks, performances, and videos by figures including Marshall McLuhan, John McHale, Robert Rauschenberg, and Carolee Schneemann. The idea of the course is to show that both artists and theorists are involved in a common project of responding to new technologies. Questions of distribution, audience, and globalization will be of key concern. In the last weeks, we will consider how these ideas have evolved in the age of the Internet. Students will work on various writing assignments and class presentations. -
Rights and the Image, Art History 289
Rights and the Image, Art History 289
Cross-listed: Human Rights
An examination of the relationship between visual culture and human rights, using case studies that range in time from the early modern period (marking the body to register criminally for example) to present day (images from Abu Ghraib). Subjects addressed include evidence, disaster photography, advocacy images, censorship, and visibility and invisibility. -
Arts in China, Art History 290
Arts in China, Art History 290
Cross-listed: Asian Studies
This course begins with Neolithic painted pottery, the earliest expression of the Chinese aesthetic. Next, the early culture of the Bronze Age is reviewed, followed by the unification of China under the first emperor, the owner of 60,000 life-size clay figurines. In the fifth century, Buddhist art achieved expression in colonial sculptures carved from living rock and in paintings of paradise. Confucian and Taoist philosophy, literature, and popular culture are examined through the paintings of the later dynasties. -
Chinese Landscape Painting, Art History 291
Chinese Landscape Painting, Art History 291
Cross-listed: Asian Studies
The Chinese love of landscape can be traced to ancient times, when the mountains were considered the home of the immortals; such deep spiritual connotation maintained their vitality during the evolution of the most highly regarded of the pictorial arts. Through an analysis of the evolution of the Chinese landscape, the society's rich poetic tradition, historical events, and cultural contexts are viewed. -
East Meets West, Art History 293
East Meets West, Art History 293
Cross-listed: Asian Studies
A consideration, through art, of the impacts Eastern and Western cultures have had on one another. Broad topics for discussion include the art of Buddhism and the Silk Road; medieval European borrowings from the East; travelers East and West; Arabs as transmitters of Asian technologies; concepts of heaven and hell; Western missionaries and the introduction of Western culture in India, China, and Japan; chinoiserie in European architecture, gardening and decor; and Japonisme—the influence of the Asian aesthetic on modern art movements. -
The History of the Museum, Art History 298
The History of the Museum, Art History 298
This course traces the transformation of early collecting and display practices into the first modern "survey" museum and considers the emergence of alternatives to this model. Topics include problems in contemporary museum practice (such as contested provenance); the museum as memory and memorial; collections as sites for producing knowledge; artists' intervention in the museum; the virtual collection; and the logic and politics of display. -
19th-Century British Art, Art History 299
19th-Century British Art, Art History 299
The course begins with a brief survey of 17th- and 18th-century art in England, including the satires of William Hogarth, and then focuses on major figures such as visionary poet and artist William Blake, landscape painters John Constable and William Turner, the radical Pre-Raphaelites, and the decadent Aubrey Beardsley. Victorian genre painting, 19th-century British sculpture, and the decorative arts are also considered.
300 Level Courses
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Text and Image: Writing About Art, Art History 305
Text and Image: Writing About Art, Art History 305
This seminar is intended for Upper College students who wish to develop interpretive skills and hone the craft of writing about visual art. The course begins with an overview of theories of interpretation and then considers popular forms of art writing, such as exhibition reviews, and academic writing based on research. -
Contested Spaces, Art History 307
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Material Worlds and Social Identities, Art History 315
Material Worlds and Social Identities, Art History 315
Cross-listed: American and Indigenous studies, Experimental Humanities
How does the world of interior spaces, their fur- nishings and decorative objects, tell us stories, assert values, and project identities? With visits to three National Park sites—the Vanderbilt mansion, the home of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Eleanor Roosevelt’s home at Val-Kill—this seminar explores both the relationship between objects and identities and issues of consumption and appearance. The course combines the scholarly study of aesthetic ideals and social practices with hands-on examination of specific objects in the Vanderbilt and Roosevelt collections. -
Multimedia Gothic, Art History 316
Multimedia Gothic, Art History 316
Cross-listed: Experimental Humanities, Medieval Studies
Although scholarship on medieval art has often been separated by medium, Gothic church pro- grams were actually multimedia spaces with meaning transcending the individual work of art. The class explores various forms of media, such as stained glass, painting, sculpture, textiles, and metalwork, as they contributed to the dynamic space of the Gothic church. Also addressed: paral- lels between the explosion of images in the Gothic era and the role of media today. -
Representing the Human-Animal Boundary in Early Modern Europe, Art History 319
Representing the Human-Animal Boundary in Early Modern Europe, Art History 319
Cross-listed: Human Rights, STS
This course examines how animals and their representations shaped ideas about what it mean to be human in early modern Europe. While some philosophers and theologians during this time postulated the superiority of human to animals, other thinkers expressed uncertainty about the status of humans—an uncertainty that is articulated in paintings, prints, sculpture, textiles, and decorative and food arts. -
Visual Culture of Medieval Death, Art History 328
Visual Culture of Medieval Death, Art History 328
Cross-listed: Medieval Studies
In many ways, commemoration of the dead was central to medieval culture. Cemeteries were situated in the centers of town, tomb effigies and plaques filled churches, and the bodies of saints provided a link between the earthy and heavenly realms. This seminar looks at visual materials related to the theme of death, including among others architecture, tomb sculpture, manuscript illumination, and reliquaries. It concentrates on art and architecture produced in Western Europe between 100 and 1500. -
The Awful Beauty: Romantic Art in Britain and France, Art History 335
The Awful Beauty: Romantic Art in Britain and France, Art History 335
Cross-listed: French Studies
The intellectual movement called Romanticism was both a manifestation of Enlightenment philosophy and a counter-Enlightenment response to the ascendant values of reason and empirical thought. Like their literary counterparts, British painters in the 1790s were pioneering a new set of subjects and techniques that offered doubt, mystery, and high emotion as alternatives to the smug certainties of modern empiricism. Across the channel, conditions were very different for French painters, who were in the grip of an intellectual and political allegiance to neoclassicism, which in many ways could be described as the antithesis of the new Romantic movement. Although the apocalyptic landscapes, stormy seascapes, moody portraits, outright fantasies of British Romantics are strikingly different from the austere homogeneity of early French neoclassicism, the second generation of neoclassicists presented their neoclassical subjects through the impassioned, sometimes irrational lens of the new Romanticism. Our bookends in time will be the British visionary William Blake and the French academic Eugène Delacroix. Topics will include Burke's theory of the sublime, the cult of Ossian, medievalism, nationalism and war, the self in nature, themes of horror and fantasy, slavery, and the rise of "originality." Seminar-level reading, writing, and discussion, culminating in a research paper and class presentation. Pre-requisite: at least one course in 19th century European Art or Literature. -
Pop Art, Art History 337
Pop Art, Art History 337
This course considers pop art as a series of exchanges between fine arts and mass culture— and as a way of responding to the increasing dominance of global capital in the postwar period. The course progresses through a number of case studies, from the emergence of pop art in England in the late 1950s to pop movements in the United States, Germany, and South America in the 1960s. Artists covered include Evelyne Axell, Cildo Meireles, Gerhard Richter, and Andy Warhol. -
Seminar in Contemporary Art, Art History 340
Seminar in Contemporary Art, Art History 340
A consideration of the history of recent art, beginning with a survey of the minimalism of the 1960s and then focusing on artistic developments in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. The class meets in New York City every fourth week to view current exhibitions. -
Geographies of Sound, Art History 343
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Encounters: Indigenous Arts, Peoples, and Identities, Art History 347
Encounters: Indigenous Arts, Peoples, and Identities, Art History 347
Cross-listed: American Studies
Conquests of the New World set the stage for centuries-long cultural encounters between Europeans and native peoples. Focusing on North America, South America, and Australia, this course explores indigenous arts in the context of those encounters. The class examines cross-cultural notions of creativity and aesthetic value; networks of art production; collecting; institutional representations of indigenous art; and art repatriation. -
Asian American Artists Seminar, Art History 348
Asian American Artists Seminar, Art History 348
Cross-listed: Asian Studies
In recent years there has been increasing interest in the artists of Asian ancestry who have worked in the United States. The relationship between the artistic traditions of their native lands and their subsequent immersion in American culture provides material for fascinating inquiries concerning biography, style, subject matter, and politics. Artists studied include Isamu Noguchi, Yayoi Kusama, and Mariko Mori, among others. -
Women Artists of the Surrealist Movement, Art History 349
Women Artists of the Surrealist Movement, Art History 349
The Surrealist Movement, launched in the 1920s by the poet André Breton in Paris, ascribed to woman a pivotal and revolutionary role in the life and work of man. The movement offered women unique roles as both muse and creator and attracted a large number of active female participants. Until recent feminist scholarship, the lives and work of these women were overshadowed by those of the male Surrealists. This course will first examine the use of, indeed the centrality of, female sexuality in Surrealist imagery, and then juxtapose it to the writings and art work of such female Surrealists as Dorothea Tanning, Remedios Varo, Lee Miller, Meret Openheim, Leonor Fini, Nusch Eluard, Dora Maar, Jacqueline Lamba, Valentine Hugo, Mimi Parent, Unica Zürn, Ithel Colquhoun, Eileen Agar, Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, Kay Sage, Toyen, Claude Cahun, and others. Issues explored will be female subjectivity, cultural identity, occultism, mythology, dream imagery, artistic collaboration, the role of poetry, and the various methodologies employed to interpret Surrealism in general. -
Fin de Siecle: Seminar in Symbolism, Art Nouveau, and Arts and Crafts, Art History 360
Fin de Siecle: Seminar in Symbolism, Art Nouveau, and Arts and Crafts, Art History 360
This seminar studies developments in the fine and decorative arts at the end of the 19th and the early 20th centuries in Europe and the United States. Topics explored include the anti-realist reaction of artists such as van Gogh, Gauguin, and Beardsley; the development of the Arts and Crafts movement; photography at the turn of the century; and the relationship between the Arts and Crafts movement, Vienna Werksätte, and Art Nouveau. -
Seminar: American Art 1900-1940, Art History 363
Seminar: American Art 1900-1940, Art History 363
This seminar will survey the development of American art from the turn of the 20th century through World War II. Topics include Albert Pinkham Ryder and American Symbolist art; American sculpture in the early 20th century; Georgia O’Keeffe and women photographers in the Stieglitz circle; New York City as a subject for modernist art; artists of the Harlem Renaissance; Asian American artists; American art and the World Wars. Students will research specific topics and present them to the class. We will take several trips to museums and collections with strong holdings in American art. -
Women Artists, Art History 367
Women Artists, Art History 367
Cross-listed: GSS
This seminar traces the history of women artists in the United States, beginning with the neoclassical sculptors of the 18th century and continuing with Mary Cassatt, women artists of the Arts and Crafts suffrage movements, and Georgia O'Keefe and her modernist contemporaries. The course concludes with a look at the legacy of these artists as reflected and transformed by the artists of the 1970s feminist movement. -
Mexican Muralism, Art History 375
Mexican Muralism, Art History 375
Cross-listed: LAIS
An examination of the muralism movement's philosophical origins in the decades following the Mexican Revolution; the murals of Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros, the Tres Grandes ("The Three Great Ones"); and the work of lesser known Mexican muralists. Also considered is the muralism movement's wide-ranging impact on murals executed under the WPA in the United States throughout the 1930s, in Nicaragua during the 1970s, and in urban Chicano communities. Prerequisite: Art History 101, 102, or 160 or permission of the instructor. -
Theories and Methods of Art History, Art History 385
Theories and Methods of Art History, Art History 385
This seminar, designed primarily for art history majors, helps students develop the ability to think critically about a range of different approaches to the field of art history. Students read and discuss a variety of texts in order to become familiar with the discipline's development. Methodologies such as connoisseurship, cultural history, Marxism, feminism, and post-modernism are discussed. -
The "Abominable Woman" in 19th Century Art, Art History 392
The "Abominable Woman" in 19th Century Art, Art History 392
Cross-listed: French Studies, Victorian Studies, GSS
"A woman is natural: that is to say, abominable." This is Baudelaire writing in 1864, reflecting the fact that "woman" had achieved a dubious status as a "special problem" to a host of 19th-century thinkers, doctors, politicians, educators, and writers. France and Great Britain both experienced an explosion of cultural producers attempting to define her, diagnose her, liberate her, control her, correct her, celebrate her, and solve her. Visual artists followed suit in multiple ways. The female nude, which had formerly been a minor genre, came to dominate the French salon in the 1850s. This reign of these pleasure goddesses led to an increasing number of artists who stripped away the fantasy underpinnings of the nude and began to depict her real-world counterparts: the prostitute and the courtesan. The domestic lives of both bourgeois and working class women became the subject of choice among both Victorian narrative painters and the French Impressionists, and even in practice, women were grudgingly allowed unprecedented access to artistic education and careers as artists. As we consider this sudden attention (negative, positive, and everything in between), we will look at such topics as: changing spatial features of the urban setting; depopulation of rural country and consequent urbanization; new public entertainments; new technology; political changes; the epidemic of syphilis; and attitudes toward motherhood, among other things. Although our focus is on "woman," the construction and maintenance of gender and sexual difference writ large will underlie our work. Seminar-level reading, writing and discussion, culminating in a research paper developed out of primary and secondary sources. Pre-requisite: at least one course in 19th century European art or Literature. -
Medieval Modern Art, Art History 393
Medieval Modern Art, Art History 393
Cross-listed: Architecture, Medieval studies
Designated: Calderwood Seminar
Castles, pointed arches, and images of a white European Jesus all belong to our inheritance from the period known as the Middle Ages. Ideas of the “medieval” permeate our modern culture, be it in fantasy novels, adventure films, church architec- ture, honor codes, nursery rhymes, or the emblems adopted by white supremacists. This course explores modern notions and uses of medi- eval material culture through forms of public writ- ing, including travel blog, film review, site analysis, and museum wall label.
Cross-Listed Courses
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Film Among the Arts, Art History 230, Film 230An intensive exploration of the ways in which cinema has been informed and enriched by developments in other arts. Attention is paid not only to the presence of other arts within the films, but also to new ways of looking at and thinking about cinema through its relationships to other media. Directors studied include Antonioni, Bergman, Duras, Eisenstein, Godard, Hitchcock, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Kubrick, Marker, Pasolini, Resnais, Syberberg, and Watkins, among others.
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International Film Noir, Art History 249, Film 249Students look intensively at a number of key noir films, with a focus on visual style and the way in which these atmospheric, morally ambiguous crime dramas are related to, and comment upon, developments in the larger culture. Attention is paid to the roots of film noir in the visual arts (especially photography) and hard-boiled fiction, its changes over the course of the 1940s and 1950s, and its influence on subsequent filmmaking.
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Popular Arts in Modern India, Art History 343, Religion 343Cross-listed: Asian Studies
Bright, wide-eyed Hindu deities, in poster form, are ubiquitous in India. These mass-produced chromolithographs, or "god-posters," occupy a central place in the country's visual landscape but until recently have not received scholarly attention. This seminar explores the world of Indian god posters, considering iconographic features, stylistic developments, political and religious significations, and devotional responses to these commercial prints. The genre is also studied in relation to other modern forms of South Asian visual arts, such as pilgrimage paintings and Bollywood cinema. -
Urban Curating: Modes of Acupuncture, Human Rights 300 levelIn a time of accelerated globalization, over-regulation, and rapid changes in our daily environments, populist images prevail and people can feel increasingly de-invested and excluded. How might people transform their own 'territory' to an environment where they can create, produce, disseminate, distribute and have access to their own cultural expressions? This course will look at how artistic and curatorial practices can re-engage and bear witness to the veiled vectors of power that shape civic space, reorganize systems of interaction, and challenge existing political, social and economic frameworks, addressing how areas of tension in contemporary society are made visible through these interventions. Through reading, workshops, and discussion, students will explore how alliances between politics and art can be imagined and tested. (Jeanne van Heeswijk is the Keith Haring Fellow in Art and Activism for 2014-15
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The New York School: Poetry, Art Collaboration and Criticism, LIT 3041Following the Second World War, there was a great upsurge of cultural activity in and around New York City, as America began to assert its power on the world stage. Drawn from diverse strands of Modernism, poets and visual artists joined with critics and arts institutions to form what came to be called the New York School, creating a new aesthetic vocabulary. Poets include Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, James Schuyler, and Barbara Guest; artists include Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Philip Guston, Joan Mitchell, Larry Rivers, sculptor David Smith and photographer/filmmaker Rudy Burkhadt. Readings with include contemporaneous responses by such influential figures as Clement Greenberg, Dore Ashton and Edwin Denby.
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Going Viral: Performance Media, Memes, THTR 360Going viral has, in the digital age, become an increasingly central strategy for creating culture: it is how pop stars are anointed, produces are advertised, and sometimes even how powerful regimes are toppled.But the notion that images and ideas can be contagious is much older than it seems, and has since at least the early twentieth century, been deeply intertwined with experiments in performance, media, and spectatorship. This seminar will examine many incarnations of viral and contagious culture in successive ages of new media, from the Futurists' radical use of the radio to contemporary digital art. We will mine pop culture for genealogies of the viral, examine viral media's relationship to capitalism and political action, and ask how viral themes, epidemic, fears of biological warfare - have intersected with viral modes of art making. Projects will include a research paper, a presentation, and collaborative forays into viral art.
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Performing Queer, THTR 353Theater and performance artists who are interested in upending hetero-normative constructions of gender have long used a powerful array of performance strategies such as camp, cross dressing, cabaret, utopic longing, disidentification and radical re-imaginings of both private and public sex acts. This seminar will conduct close readings of critical readings grounded in feminism, post-colonialism, and queer studies, and then explore how those texts illuminate and complicate the work of artists such as Justin Bond, Split Britches, Taylor Mac, Nao Bustamante and Charles Ludlam. In addition to written and oral assignments throughout the semester, students will complete a final project that unpacks and demonstrates familiarity with these queer performance strategies. The final project may be an academic paper or a creative project. The focus and form of the final project must be approved by the instructor.
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Art & Politics: Art, Philosophy, and Democratic Culture, PHIL 290Plato banished poetry and the arts from his good city, at least until they could answer arguments that they corrupted its citizens, even its philosopher-rulers. How do we, citizens of a democratic republic in its third century, conceive the value and role of the arts in our democracy? What contribution do we think the arts make to our political culture, to our conception of ourselves as citizens? What images do they offer of the individual and his or her society in our democratic culture? In debates about public arts funding in this country, art has been defended as illustrative of democratic freedoms, particularly, freedom of expression. Is art in other ways fundamental to our democratic culture, even essential to its continuation? The last question defines a philosophical task, a reconsideration of founding conceptions of democracy in this country. It also defines a task of critical writing in and about art and culture. The course will take up topics from Ralph Waldo Emerson's hopes for American culture, to Hollywood films of the 1930s and 1940s, to the debates over public funding of artists during the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s, to works by Bruce Nauman, Glenn Ligon, and other contemporary artists who confront us with our moral and spiritual culture, to critical writing on the arts, popular culture, and related matters by Robert Warshow, Stanley Cavell, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Michael Brenson, and Mari Carmen Ramrez, among others. Prerequisites: One course in philosophy and permission of the instructor.
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In the Archive, FILM 331Starting with readings from Derrida, Benjamin, Enwezor and Sekula among others on the archive, we will discuss the impulse to preserve, guardianship, access, the politics of collections and collective memory. Various preservation models will be examined through visits to film archives, discussions with film preservationists and screenings. A variety of work by contemporary artists who engage with the history and logic of the archive will be studied, such as Marcel Broodthaers, Joseph Cornell, Renee Green and Walid Raad. As a group, we will establish dossiers (including: an interview, filmography, bibliography, catalogue of works) on a number of contemporary film/video makers, and begin to form an archive of significant experimental works and related materials at Bard for study, education and exhibition.
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Latino Theater and Performance, THTR 343BThe United States is a multilingual, globalized country that creative citizens will need to be prepared to both address and describe. One way to prepare for this challenge is to familiarize ourselves with the specific aesthetic strategies Latino theater and performance artists have find most useful when wrestling with issues such as immigration, territoriality, exile, human rights and hybridity. Some of the most effective aesthetic strategies include mestizaje, transculturation, choteo, stereotype, satire and disidentification. Some of the artists the course will review include Ana Mendietta, Jos Rivera, Nao Bustamante, Cherre Moraga, Guillermo Gomez Pea, and Mara Irene Forns. Class will culminate with a student driven, creative project that seeks a productive relationship between form and content.
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History of East Village Performance, THTR 229This course examines the work of performance artists who emerged from New York’s East Village in the 1980’s and early 1990’s, straddling the spheres of theater, performance, visual art, dance, and experimental film and video, including Karen Finley, Jack Smith, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Charles Atlas, Ethyl Eichelberger, Klaus Nomi, and Carmelita Tropicana. Through a combination of viewing of visual and audio documentation, seminar discussions, research and writing, and interaction with visiting artists, we will attempt to delineate the political, economic, and cultural conditions that predicated this wide-ranging artistic movement, how specific variables informed the stylistic range, and how the legacy of this work fits into the larger context of the history of iconoclastic performance. Some of the issues or themes that we will explore include: outsider culture, real estate, and the end of physical Bohemia; ‘Drag’ performance and the blurring of gender codes; the AIDS pandemic, activism, and the consequences of a lost generation; gentrification and the selling of the Lower East Side; the shift from analog to digital technology; the hucksterization of ‘hip.’ Students will be required to keep a weekly handwritten journal (consisting of words and/or drawings); write 2 papers; give a presentation on an artist’s work; and attend a series of field trips and visiting artist presentations.
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Portrait and Its Guises, PHOT 314Perhaps more than any other subject genre in art, portraiture is remarkable for the complexity that lies beneath its deceptively simple appearance. What is the object of a portrait? What constitutes the nature of 'likeness' or resemblance--is it a matter of recording the physical characteristics of a person, or rendering the "inner person" in pictorial form? In addition to considering the ontology of the portrait, this lecture course will trace historical developments in portraiture in the 19th and 20th centuries. This period is a crucial one in the history of portraiture, as it encompasses the advent of photography, which ultimately challenged (and changed) the terms of portraiture for all media. The interplay between photography and painting forms the core of the material. Artists to be considered include Ingres, Nadar, Hill and Adamson, van Gogh, Picasso, Cameron Man Ray, and Warhol. Prerequisite: Photography 110.
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The Employment of Photography, PHOT 321This course will address the many purposes to which photography is and has been put, outside the realm of art. We will consider the studio portrait, the postmortem portrait, journalistic photography, scientific photography, forensic photography, “spirit” and kirlean photography, erotic photography, advertising photography, fumetti, and the many manifestations of the snapshot. We will study methods of production and reproduction – the carte de visite, the postcard, the photomat, the Polaroid – in their social and historical context. And we will discuss, among other things, how photographs change their meaning over time, how the human desire for narrative, and how they insinuate themselves into the unconscious. This course might appeal not just to photography majors, but also to students of history and of popular culture.