Course:

ARTH 101  Perspectives in World Art

Professor:

Katherine Boivin  

CRN:

90235

Schedule:

Mon  Wed     10:20 AM - 11:40 AM Olin 102

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art

Class cap:

20

Credits:

4

Cross-listed:  Africana Studies

Perspectives in World Art introduces the diversity of the visual arts worldwide over the course of two semesters.  Students may take either semester or both. The first semester examines painting, sculpture, architecture, and other artifacts from the Paleolithic period through the 14th century.  Works from Europe, Asia, and Africa are studied chronologically to create an integrated historical context. Readings from various critical perspectives present different methodological approaches.  Requirements include a semester-long term paper (turned at three intervals), a mid-term, a final, and quizzes.  This course fulfills one requirement for moderating into Art History; potential majors are urged to take Perspectives prior to other Art History classes.  Open to all students.

 

Course:

ARTH 123  20th Century Art: What it means to be Avant-Garde

Professor:

Alex Kitnick  

CRN:

90240

Schedule:

 Tue  Thurs    2:00 PM - 3:20 PM Olin 102

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art

Class cap:

20

Credits:

4

A survey 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. Painting and sculpture are emphasized. (1800-present)

 

Course:

ARTH 125  Modern Architecture in the Age of Colonialism

Professor:

Olga Touloumi  

CRN:

90244

Schedule:

 Tue  Thurs    3:50 PM - 5:10 PM Olin 102

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art

Class cap:

20

Credits:

4

Cross-listed:  Architecture; Environmental & Urban Studies

This course examines the history of modern architecture, examining the debates, theories, and practices that informed its many facets from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century. We will be discussing the production of the built environment within the context of colonialism, focusing on the infrastructures, institutions, and building types that emerged in response to industrialization, social revolutions, and epistemic shifts. The industrialization of production, new technologies, material, and institutions, as well as growing urban cultures and changing social structures called for architects and designers to partake in the process of modernization. The course will pay particular attention to the ways in which architects responded to and participated in formal and aesthetic developments, as well as epistemic and cultural shifts that marked modernity, such as the enlightenment, Darwinism, positivism, and the rise of psychology. Covering many aspects of architecture, from buildings, drawings, exhibitions, and schools, to historical and theoretical writings and manifestos, we will investigate the wide range of modernist practices, polemics and institutions. The aim of the course is to provide a solid historical framework of the debates and practices that made architecture modern, while engaging the students in a critical discussion of the role of architecture in the production of the built environment and the forces that shape it. The course includes field trips, readings, and short assignments. (1800-present)

 

Course:

ARTH 193  Art of Japan

Professor:

Patricia Karetzky  

CRN:

90238

Schedule:

  Wed     2:00 PM - 4:20 PM Fisher Studio Arts ANNEX

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

This course beings with a study of the Neolithic period and its cord-impressed pottery circa 2000 B.C.E., when Japanese cultural and aesthetic characteristics were already observable.  Next, the great wave of Chinese influence is considered, including its impact on government, religion (Buddhism), architecture and art.  Subsequent periods of indigenous art in esoteric and popular Buddhism, Shinto, narrative scroll painting, medieval screen panting, Zen art, and ukoy-e prints are presented in a broad view of the social, artistic, and historical development of Japan.   Art History distribution: Asia

 

Course:

ARTH 203  Contemporary Art

Professor:

Tom Wolf  

CRN:

90855

Schedule:

  Wed     10:20 AM - 11:40 AM Olin 301

Thurs     10:20 AM - 11:40 AM Olin 307

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

The heart of this class is three or four trips to New York City to visit art galleries and museums that are showing compelling exhibitions of contemporary art.  Our meetings on campus will provide background about these shows, and will contextualize them by surveying important movements in recent art, starting with Minimalism in the 1960s.  The dynamic exhibition of Pattern and Decoration art currently at Bard’s Center for Curatorial Studies will provide another focus for the class.  The structures of the art gallery system and art market will also be considered.  Students will give presentations to the class about selected contemporary artists and write papers about their works, and about the exhibitions we see.

 

Course:

ARTH 227  Visualizing Freedom; Revolution, Emancipation, Rights

Professor:

Julia Rosenbaum  

CRN:

90243

Schedule:

 Tue  Thurs    12:10 PM - 1:30 PM Bard Chapel

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

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.

 

Course:

ARTH 249  The Altarpiece

Professor:

Katherine Boivin  

CRN:

90563

Schedule:

 Tue  Thurs    10:20 AM - 11:40 AM Fisher Studio Arts ANNEX

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art

Class cap:

20

Credits:

4

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. (Art History distribution pre 1500, European)

 

Course:

ARTH 255  Outsider Art

Professor:

Susan Aberth  

CRN:

90094

Schedule:

 Tue  Thurs    5:40 PM - 7:00 PM Reem Kayden Center 103

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

The term "Outsider Art" is a problematic umbrella under which are grouped a variety of difficult to categorize artistic practices. This class will first examine the use of terminology such as outsider, naà¯ve, and visionary, as well as groupings such as art brut, folk art, art of the insane, and even popular culture. We will pursue relevant questions such as: what exactly are the criteria for inclusion in such categories, do art markets drive this labeling, how does this work function within the art world, are categorical borders crossed in order to fit the needs of exhibiting institutions, and finally how has Outsider Art impacted mainstream modern and contemporary art and are the dividing lines between the two still relevant? We will look at artwork produced within certain institutional settings such as mental asylums and prisons, as well as that produced by mediums, spiritualists and other "visionaries" working within what can be best described as a "folk art" category.   Art History distribution: Modern

 

Course:

ARTH 257 Art in the Age of Revolution: European Painting 1750-1850

Professor:

Laurie Dahlberg  

CRN:

90474

Schedule:

 Tue  Thurs    10:20 AM - 11:40 AM Campus Center WEIS

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art

Class cap:

20

Credits:

4

Cross-listed:  French Studies

The mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, a period brimming over with revolution and political upheaval in Europe, witnessed profound changes in the way art was produced, understood, criticized, marketed, distributed and exhibited.  This course seeks to introduce major themes, objects, persons, and social currents of European Art from the 1770s to the 1850s.  We will follow currents in Spain, Germany, Great Britain, and France.  Major topics include changing definitions of neoclassicism and romanticism; the impact of the 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, gender and sexuality. We will try to understand artworks from three distinct perspectives: the social, the aesthetic, and the political, and investigate how these forces intersected to both create and reflect “the modern” as it is understood today.  However, revivalism, tradition, and conservative reaction were equally powerful factors in shaping the art of the period, and we will be particularly interested in the push and pull of old, new, and in-between.  We do not cover architecture and sculpture in this course. There will be two research papers, two exams, and a class presentation.  Written abstracts of key readings on notecards will also be collected weekly.

 

Course:

ARTH 286  Spanish Visual Culture1550-1850

Professor:

Susan Merriam  

CRN:

90242

Schedule:

  Wed  Fri   10:20 AM - 11:40 AM Fisher Studio Arts ANNEX

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

Cross-listed:  Latin American/Iberian Studies

This course surveys the complex visual culture of early modern Spain. Spain exercised enormous political and military influence during this period, and undertook a number of colonial enterprises. At the same time, the nation witnessed the efflorescence of visual art and literature. We will examine the formation of a distinct Spanish style within the context of European art, and consider how Spanish artistic identity was a kind of hybrid, complicated both by Spain’s importation of foreign artists (Titian, Rubens), and by its relationship to the art and architecture of its colonies. Palace art, architecture, and interior decoration will be one important focus. We will also look at some of the most intense devotional art ever produced, including elaborate church furnishings, altarpieces, reliquaries, and hyperreal sculpture. Particular attention will be paid to the art of Spanish visionary experience. Other topics to be addressed include: Spanish art theory and the training of artists, the art market and collecting, and artistic critiques of royal power.

 

Course:

ARTH 297  Visual Cultures of Colonial South Asia

Professor:

Heeryoon Shin 

CRN:

90575

Schedule:

  Tue Thurs   12:10 PM - 1:30 AM Olin 102

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

Cross-listed:  Asian Studies

What happens to the production and reception of visual forms when cultural exchanges take place in the context of unequal power relations? This course explores the visual and material cultures – painting, architecture, sculpture, photography, craft, print culture, and film – and institutions of art that rose from the impact of British colonial activity in South Asia since c. 1650. As we encounter these hybrid cultural forms, from painted portraits of East India Company officers in Mughal robes to Neoclassical pediments on Hindu temple walls, we will examine the multidirectional process of negotiating and adapting different ways of making and seeing art, and ask how such interactions create spaces of dominance and resistance.

 

Course:

ARTH 352  Cities and Photography

Professor:

Lucy Sante 

CRN:

90712

Schedule:

  Tue     2:00 PM – 4:20 PM Fisher Studio Arts ANNEX

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

Cross-listed: Environmental & Urban Studies   

Although it took a few decades for the speed of photography to catch up to the speed of the city, the two have been inseparable since at least 1900. The pairing virtually defined photography in the twentieth century. Now that we are in the twenty-first, however, their union is once again in question, for reasons that range from ethical and political considerations to formal exhaustion. We will examine the record and ponder the conundrums. Major photographers include Annan, Marville, Riis, Atget, Brassa, Abbott, Alvarez Bravo, Weegee, Levitt, Klein, Arbus, Winogrand, Moriyama, Shore, diCorcia. Art History Distribution: Modern.

 

Course:

ARTH 385  Theories and Methods of Art History

Professor:

Olga Touloumi  

CRN:

90245

Schedule:

  Wed     3:50 PM - 6:10 PM Olin 205

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

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 analyzed.

 

Course:

ARTH 397  Art School

Professor:

Alex Kitnick  

CRN:

90239

Schedule:

Mon       2:00 PM - 4:20 PM Fisher Studio Arts ANNEX

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

Cross-listed:  Studio Art

Can art be taught? And if so, what exactly does one teach? Drawing? Painting? Political Theory? A crash course in the market? So many of art's fundamental questions revolve around the question of education, and so the space of the art school, and art education more broadly, is of crucial importance. In this class we will examine some of the most important centers for art education across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College, in addition to less well-known institutions, such as The Mountain School and Dark Study. (Our case studies come from Russia and the United States, as well as Western Europe, Africa, Mexico, and China.) As we undertake this project we will examine the changing nature of artistic skills and speculate about what kinds of art education we'd like to see in the future. Art history majors and studio arts majors, as well as those with an interest in education, are all encouraged to enroll. In the last few sessions we'll test our ideas by establishing a temporary art school in our class--a school within a school.

 

Course:

ARTH 399  The Politics of Modern Craft

Professor:

Heeryoon Shin 

CRN:

90574

Schedule:

 Mon   10:20 AM - 12:40 PM Fisher Annex

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

Cross-listed:  Asian Studies

This course examines the ways in which craft practices and objects became intertwined with issues of national identity, class, gender, and political resistance throughout the twentieth century. While the focus of the course will be on the history of craft and its contradictions in South Asia, case studies from the Japanese Empire and its colonies in East Asia will provide a comparative perspective beyond the boundaries of a single empire or nation-state. Beginning with the rise of the Arts and Crafts movement in late nineteenth-century Britain in response to the growth of industrial production and consumer culture, we will trace the spread of craft ideology and practice across the British Empire and beyond. In some cases, political leaders drew on issues of craft to drive national policy and define national identity, while in other cases, resistance movements transformed the nostalgia and exoticism underlying the idea of craft into a critique against imperial authority. A special emphasis will be placed on the materials and techniques of production and the actual craft objects, including textiles, ceramics, silver and base metal, and wood. Topics include representations of the craftsman, colonial exhibitions and art education, craft as protest in Gandhi’s homespun movement, the Japanese folk arts (mingei) movement and Orientalism, embroidery and weaving as gendered craft, and craft and tourism.

 

 

Cross-listed courses:

 

Course:

CLAS 238  Houses of the Gods: Ancient Greek Sacred Space

Professor:

Ranjani Atur  

CRN:

90477

Schedule:

Tue  Thurs    12:10 PM - 1:30 PM Hegeman 204

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

Cross-listed:  Architecture, Art History and Visual Culture, Religion

 

Course:

PHIL 234  Philosophy, Art, and the Culture of Democracy

Professor:

Norton Batkin  

CRN:

90035

Schedule:

 Tue  Thurs    2:00 PM - 3:20 PM Olin 303

Distributional Area:

MBV Meaning, Being, Value

Class cap

12

Credits:

4

Cross-listed:  Art History; Human Rights

 

Course:

REL 316  Visual Religion: Vision, Icon, and Temple

Professor:

Richard Davis  

CRN:

90050

Schedule:

  Wed     2:00 PM - 4:20 PM Olin 307

Distributional Area:

MBV Meaning, Being, Value

Class cap

15

Credits:

4

Cross-listed:  Art History

 

Course:

RUS 225  Russian Art of the Avant-Garde

Professor:

Oleg Minin  

CRN:

90227

Schedule:

 Mon Wed    3:50 PM - 5:10 PM Olin 102

Distributional Area:

FL Foreign Languages and Lit

Class cap:

20

Credits:

4

Cross-listed:  Art History