This survey will examine the relationship between art and culture from the aftermath of the Civil War to the demise of the CIA's "Congress for Cultural Freedom" (1950-1967). We will explore the individual careers of painters, sculptors, and photographers within the context of competing "isms" or ideologies. In our investigation of art as a cultural production/performance, we will pursue the question of "modernity" and nationalism; documentary versus aesthetic photography; the incorporation of America and of art through artist societies, the professionalization of critics, and the rise of galleries and museums; the opening and the closing of the West; World Fairs; the aesthetic movement; expatriation-from the U.S. to Europe and from Europe to the U.S.; the Harlem Renaissance; the Ashcan School; Regionalism, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop. For their final papers, students are encouraged to pursue their interests, such as music, dance, or film, as long as they fall within the parameters of the course. This course is open to all students.

This one-semester survey will trace Western architecture from the Egyptians to the present by focusing on particular monuments, both public and private. Architectural types, stylistic influences, urban design, and cross-cultural currents will be studied in order to provide students with a vocabulary of terms for discussing and analyzing how architecture both shapes the environment and communicates meaning. This course is open to all students.

A social history of French painting from 1860 to 1900 beginning with the origins of modernism in the work of Manet. Among the topics to be discussed are the rebuilding of Paris under Napoleon III; changing attitudes toward city and country in Impressionist and Symbolist art; the gendering of public spaces, and the prominent place of women in representations of modern life. The course addresses vanguard movements such as Impressionism and Post-Impressionism and the styles of individual artists associated with them, as well as the work of academic painters. A field trip to the Metropolitan Museum and the Museum of Modern Art is required. This course is open to all students.

This course will survey the arts produced in Western Europe during the seventeenth century from a thematic approach. We will study a wide range of major works of art created by such painters and printmakers as Poussin, Callot, Lebrun, Caravaggio, the Carracci, Velazquez, Zurbaren, Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer. We will examine themes such as the representations of everyday life (including paupers, prostitutes and merchants), portraiture and landscape painting, the decorations of princely houses, the representation of religious figures (ranging from ecstasy to martyrdom). We will also investigate the relationship between patronage and the arts, the creation of Academies and the influence that the rising mercantile class had on the arts. The format of the class will be half class discussions and half lectures.

Monuments of Asian Art is an introductory course that presents the art and thought of the major cultures of Asia--India, China and Japan. Five lectures are based on the important ideologies and artistic monuments of each area. The survey begins with the earliest ceramic art of the Neolithic civilizations and traces subsequent aesthetic developments. Emphasis in India will be on Buddhist stupas, Hindu cave-temples, and Islamic painting and architecture. In China the focus is on the religious artistic traditions (Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism) and landscape painting. Lastly, in Japan, secular court art, the medieval samurai culture and the urban arts of the Edo Period will be considered. This course is open to all students.

The villa or country house, as opposed to a working farm, embodies a city dweller's idyllic interpretation of country life. Built more to embody an idea than fulfill a function, the villa encourages innovation in expressing the patron's or architect's views on the relationship between man and nature. The architecture of the Hudson Valley played a critical role in the development of the country house and landscape garden in America. This seminar, through site visits and primary source research, will study local developments within the larger context of the history of villa architecture.

This course will present a comprehensive overview of the artistic Practices and intellectual discourses relevant to 20th century art production in Latin America. In addition to painting and sculpture, photography, video, performance and installation art will be examined, along with the theoretical issues that inform them. Some of the many topics to be discussed include independence and the formation of national identity, Primitivism, Indigenism, muralism, religious syncretism, the African Diaspora, and Post-Colonial theory. In addition to slide presentations, the course will be structured around screenings, discussion of readings, and museum and gallery visits. This course is open to all students.

There is a crucial and critical difference between "African American art" and "African American artist." We will begin this seminar by considering the problem of grouping artists of diverse economic and social backgrounds and from Different eras by race. While such groupings celebrate achievement, they also serve to fix and define "race" as it relates to human creativity. Equipped with our findings, we will then examine how African American artists are written into the various art histories: general surveys of the art of the U.S.; surveys and exhibition catalogues of African American art; and histories of women artists. In the weeks that follow, we will focus on individual moments and/or artists: the art produced by enslaved African/Americans; the socio-cultural context for the divergent careers of 19th century artists such as Edmonia Lewis and Henry O. Tanner; the Harlem Renaissance in New York; Chicago and Archibald J. Motley, Jr., Charles White, and the South Side Community Art Center; WPAFAP; Elizabeth Catlett; Augusta Savage; Norman Lewis; Romare Bearden and Spiral; and AfriCobra. The course is open to all students including first-years and sophomores.

The purpose of this seminar is to develop an ability to think critically about a range of different approaches to the field of art history. We will read and discuss a variety of texts (ranging from Vasari to Susan Sontag) to familiarize ourselves with the development of art history. We will analyze the major methodologies - such as connoisseurship, cultural history, marxism, feminism and post-modernism - used by art historians today. Each class meeting will be devoted to one or two specific methodologies, which we will apply in class to selected works of art. This seminar is designed primarily for art history majors.

Pable Picasso was one of the greatest and most productive artists of our time. He played a vital and often definitive role in major art movements spanning our century from Symbolism through Cubism and Surrealism. This course will study his artistic evolution in detail, from the precocious works of his childhood through the personal images of his old age. Students will present oral reports and written papers about Picasso's major works and stylistic periods, and about his artistic context: his relationship with his contemporaries in Spain and Paris.