Art History

ARTH225

Art in Europe to the Sixteenth Century

This course is a selective survey of painting, sculpture, and architecture in the West to the sixteenth century.

ARTH253

Asian Architecture: Sacred and Urban Spaces
Select built forms in Asia, such as temples, tombs, palaces, cities and gardens, and their relations to cultural, social and political systems.

ARTH310

Art and the Christian Transformation of the Roman Empire

This course considers the diverse roles of visual culture and changing modes of viewing art in areas that comprised the Roman Empire from the first to the sixth century, including the cultural transformations that came about with the move from a pagan to a Christian world in the wake of the conversion of the emperor, Constantine, in the early fourth century and on a major stylistic change in art from the Classical naturalism of the earlier centuries to the more hieratic forms of the Late Antique style. The course throughout will attend to what is particular about the visual, about the nature of images in a diverse range of contexts: Public ceremonies; Roman imperial triumphant art and architecture; the art of private dwellings in first-century Italy; art and care for the dead in both pagan and Christian contexts; the development and decoration of Early Christian Churches; pilgrimage to Jerusalem and other holy sites; early Christian book painting, Icons and icon veneration.

ARTH311

Art in the Early Medieval West

This term will deal with multiple forms and roles of art produced in Western Europe from about the end of the fifth century to about 1030. The impact of Germanic migrations and the dissolution of Roman Imperial civilization in Western Europe at the end of the fifth century produced major transformations in the culture of Europe. Different religious beliefs and social structure inspired new forms and especially a very different style of art. Reflecting on all this, students examine the multiple ways that images functioned and how art was used to serve both devotion and personal status in the midst of the construction of Christian kingdoms and empires, often in threat of disarray and under attack by still pagan Vikings from the North and a vibrant Islamic culture in the south of Spain.

ARTH312

Medieval Art in the Age of Monasticism

This course will address the visual arts of Medieval Western Europe between 1000 and 1200, and the role of monasteries as leading institutions and patrons of art and large scale architecture. The material will be approached in a variety of ways: considering art historical method and categories of interpretation; Medieval debates about the value and purposes of art; characteristics of particular genres of work and selected themes in a variety of media.

ARTH313

Art, Church, Society and their Margins in the Later Middle Ages
Students examine the diversification of the arts and architecture and the expansion of patronage in late medieval society in Medieval art in the later Middle Ages (c. 1150-1500). This era is characterized by a tremendous growth in the production of visual images and art of all kinds due to the greater range of people commissioning art for a wider range of purposes, especially as urban wealth increases. The course examines the impact on art and its meaning as new groups of laity–rich aristocrats, rulers, and the growing numbers of bourgeois–as well as a whole range of new religious orders and university teachers were involved in both viewing and commissioning works.

ARTH321

Early Modern Italian Art and Culture (ca. 1350-1550)

Visual art and culture within the social, political, and religious contexts of the Papacy and the city-states.

ARTH323

Northern European Art and Culture I (1400-1600)

Early Modern painting, sculpture, and the graphic arts from the great devotional triptychs, through the Reformation, to the emergence of a secular art.

ARTH351

Art and Architecture in the Islamic World

See Religious Studies 341.

ARTH352

Historic India: Images, Temples and the Construction of Indian Art History

North and South Indian art and architecture with an emphasis on Buddhism and Hinduism.

ARTH353

Nepal and Tibet: Art, Ritual and Performance

Art of the Himalayan region situated within social and religious practices, festivals, and performances.

ARTH359

The Pursuit of Realism: Figurative Painting Before 1400 in China

Examines the making of realistic representations that describe society, cultural practise and family relationships in China between 3000 BC and AD 1400.

ARTH360

The Rise of Literati Painting in China: 1100 – 1700

Chinese literati art and theory will be analyzed through careful study of relationships between visual and textual productions.

ARTH362

Art in Japan: Objects and Spaces

Changing relationship between art objects and the built environment in the Japanese archipelago, in its social and historical context.

ARTH363

Art in Japan: The Problem with Painting

Key debates in the history of painting and its institutionalization.

ARTH432

Seminar in the Art of the Middle Ages

Topics to be announced each year when offered.