ARTH 10100. Introduction to Art. 100 Units.

This course seeks to develop skills in perception, comprehension, and appreciation when dealing with a variety of visual art forms. It encourages the close analysis of visual materials, explores the range of questions and methods appropriate to the explication of a given work of art, and examines the intellectual structures basic to the systematic study of art. Most importantly, the course encourages the understanding of art as a visual language and aims to foster in students the ability to translate this understanding into verbal expression, both oral and written. Examples draw on local collections.

Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter, Spring
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, this course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 14200. From Missionary Images to Image Explosion: Introduction to Medieval Art. 100 Units.

This course explores the challenging world of medieval art. Beginning with the fourth-century fusion of Imperial and Christian images and ending with the advent of print, we trace how images and art-making took on new roles—and re-invented old ones—over the course of the Middle Ages. We consider architecture, sculpture, wall-painting, manuscript painting, stained glass, metalwork, and textiles in their historical contexts, questioning why medieval objects look the way they do and how they were seen and used by medieval viewers. Readings include medieval sources (in translation) and exemplary modern scholarship.

Instructor(s): A. Kumler     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 14000 through 16999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 14307-14407. Greek Art and Archaeology I-II.

Greek Art and Archaeology

ARTH 14400. Italian Renaissance Art. 100 Units.

This course is a selective survey of the major monuments, personalities, and issues in the Italian art from around 1400 to 1550. At the same time, it attempts to introduce students with little or no background in art history to approaches, methods, or tools for looking at, thinking about, even responding to works of art. The origins and value of broad style groupings such as Late Gothic, Early Renaissance, High Renaissance and Mannerism are critically examined, though we concentrate on fewer artists and works rather than attempt a uniform survey of the vast body of material at the core of the Western tradition. We also examine the invention and development of distinctive artistic types and their association with particular moments in history ("sacred conversation" altarpiece, centrally planned church, landscape painting). A major theme of the course is the changing social context for the practice of art and with it the evolving nature of artistic creativity. Where possible, students are asked to supplement their close study of the imagery with contemporary written documents (e.g., contracts, letters, theoretical texts). The ability to talk critically and creatively about text and image is the focus of required biweekly section meetings.

Instructor(s): C. Cohen, J. Konova     Terms Offered: Winter, Spring
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 14000 through 16999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 14505. The Global Middle Ages: Visual and Intercultural Encounters. 100 Units.

Focusing on the art and architecture of the Mediterranean and Middle East, this course examines how the mobility of objects, people, and social practices remapped cultural boundaries.  We will investigate cultures of contact through topics such as cultural cross-dressing, gift exchange, visual translation, and the reuse of objects.  By combining case studies of artifacts with critical readings of comparative and theoretical work drawn from a variety of academic disciplines, we will also consider how work on modern cultures can inform interpretations of cultural production and experience before the modern “global age.”

Instructor(s): H. Badamo     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 14000 through 16999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 15500. 19th Century Art. 100 Units.

This course provides a critical survey of the major developments in 19th-century European art. We will look at stylistic transformations in art of the period within their broader cultural, historical, and political contexts. A strong emphasis will be put on close examination of works of art in different media (painting, sculpture, drawing, print) and thinking about them through various interpretive models. While doing so we will be addressing questions of modernism, artistic innovation and relation to tradition, genre definitions, and public versus private settings of display. Artists to be discussed include Jacques-Louis David, Théodore Géricault, Eugène Delacroix, Caspar David Friedrich, J.M.W. Turner, Honoré Daumier, Gustave Courbet, August Rodin, Eduard Manet, Edgar Degas, Adolph Menzel, Odilon Redon, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van-Gogh, Paul Cézanne, and others.

Instructor(s): T. Mayer     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 14000 through 16999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 15510. The Visual Arts in American Culture, 1830–1945. 100 Units.

This course introduces students to multiple modes of art's production and reception from the Jacksonian era to World War II—the period broadly characterized by the United States' consolidation of North American territories into nationhood; its emergence as an imperial power; its competitive participation in industrialization and modernization alongside other western societies; and near-constant turmoil over the parameters and requirements of citizenship and "culture." The arts in the U.S. have never been limited to an elite tradition of painting and sculpture; indeed much of their vitality derives from interchange between European academic models of art and the popular, vernacular, and mass-media visual forms developed in the Americas, inflected by both indigenous traditions and those carried by slaves and immigrants. Our subjects will include monuments, landscape and urban design, architecture, mural and easel painting, popular prints and illustration, photography and avant-garde cinema, modern iterations of "craft," public and private forms of patronage and collecting, and the establishment and aspirations of civic art museums. We will study relationships of artistic production to aesthetic, political, economic, environmental, and religious discourses—asking how those intersections precipitated new visual forms, practices, and iconography; new audiences; rapidly changing definitions of "art" and "artist;" and ongoing efforts to define what is, or should be, "American" in visual art and culture. Some written assignments will require visits to local museums.

Instructor(s): S. Miller     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 14000 through 16999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 15600. Twentieth-Century Art. 100 Units.

Focusing on the interrelationships between avant-garde culture and the emerging mass cultural formations of industrializing societies in Europe, North America, Asia and South America, our survey will address a wide range of historical and methodological questions: the impact of new technologies of production, the utopian projects of the Euro-American avant-gardes, the transformation of modernist conceptions of artistic autonomy, the changing roles of cultural institutions, the construction of social Others, the formation of new audiences, and the rise of “contemporary art.” Prior knowledge of art history not required.

Instructor(s): M. Jackson, L. Lee     Terms Offered: Autumn, Spring
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 14000 through 16999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 15605. 20th Century Photography. 100 Units.

This survey course explores major developments in formal, technical, and critical approaches to photography over the 20th century. Examining photography’s growing global presence in the realms of fine art and mass media, as well as in public and private life, we address the work of individual practitioners as well as key movements such as pictorialism, surrealism, documentary, street, and straight photography. Considering everything from photography’s role in transforming reportage to representing the remnants of a half-eaten sandwich, we will discuss the breadth of the medium’s influence on visual culture while also engaging critically with how the canon of photography developed. Writing assignments will require visits to local museums.

Instructor(s): L. Wilson     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 14000 through 16999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 15609. Visual Art in the Postwar U.S. 100 Units.

A survey of major figures and developments in visual arts and related fields since roughly 1945. Chronological in progression, this course nevertheless affords a wide view of consequential developments in and beyond major art centers and occurring across mediums and national borders. Themes to be considered will include Abstract Expressionism, Color Field Painting, Happenings, Neo-Dada, Pop Art, Op Art, Minimal Art, Process, Performance, Situationism, Conceptual Art, experimental film and video, Earth Art, Neo-Geo, and others.

Instructor(s): D. English     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 14000 through 16999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 16003. Art of Mesoamerica. 100 Units.

This course provides an introduction to the art and architecture of Mesoamerica, a region that encompasses much of modern-day Mexico and northern Central America. We will examine sculpture, painting, architecture, ceramics, and other arts of the Olmec, Maya, Aztec, and other Mesoamerican civilizations over a period of three millennia, from ca. 1500 B.C. to the time of the Spanish invasion in 1519. We will study sacred art, courtly art, architecture and urbanism, writing systems and their relation to images, and the interactions between artistic traditions.

Instructor(s): C. Brittenham     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 14000 through 16999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 14003

ARTH 16100. Art of Asia: China. 100 Units.

This course is an introduction to the arts of China focusing on major monuments and artworks produced in imperial, aristocratic, literati, religious, and public milieus. Lectures will reconstruct the functions and the meanings of objects, to better understand Chinese culture through the objects it produced.

Instructor(s): Q. Ngan     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 14000 through 16999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 16100

ARTH 16109. Arts of Asia: Korea. 100 Units.

This course is an introduction to the visual arts of Korea from prehistory to the contemporary period and is organized both chronologically and thematically. The course considers objects within a variety of contexts (i.e., archaeological, cultural, historical, social, and ritual/religious) to both examine the meaning and function of the objects and to consider the issues of cultural transmission and exchange. In addition to better understand Korean culture, the aim of the course is to develop the skills of formal analysis, critical thinking, and writing about visual arts.

Instructor(s): E. Hyun     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 14000 through 16999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 20210

ARTH 16709. Islamic Art and Architecture, 1100 to 1500. 100 Units.

This course surveys the art and architecture of the Islamic world from 1100 to 1500. In that period, political fragmentation into multiple principalities challenged a deeply rooted ideology of unity of the Islamic world. The course of the various principalities competed not only in politics but also in the patronage of architectural projects and of arts (e.g., textiles, ceramics, woodwork, arts of the book). While focusing on the central Islamic lands, we consider regional traditions from Spain to India and the importance for the arts of contacts with China and the West.

Instructor(s): P. Berlekamp     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 14000 through 16999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.
Equivalent Course(s): NEAA 10630

ARTH 17015. Blood, Sweat, and Tears: The Sacred Image in Byzantium. 100 Units.

During the Middle Ages, icons—sacred images—played a pivotal role in the devotional practice of Byzantium, the eastern Christian empire that had its capital in Constantinople from 324-1453.  “Windows to heaven,” sacred images provided access to the divine.  Despite their spiritual function, icons also drew attention to their materiality by erupting into life – bleeding, weeping, and attacking foes.  In this course, we will combine the study of Byzantine images with Byzantine primary sources (in translation) to explore a range of topics related to the icon, including medieval image theory, iconoclasm, visuality, enshrinement, the copy, and materiality.  Our investigation of Byzantine images will be enhanced through comparison with responses to the image in Islam, Judaism, and the Christian west.

Instructor(s): H. Badamo     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 17000 through 18999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 17110. Sinotopos. 100 Units.

This course surveys major areas of study in the Chinese landscape painting tradition, focusing on the history of its pictorial representation during pre-modern eras.  Format will be primarily class discussion following a series of lectures.  Areas for consideration may include: first emergence and subsequent developments of the genre in court and literati arenas; landscape aesthetics and theoretical foundations; major attributed works in relation to archaeological evidence.  Emphasis is on artistic options and the exercise of choice within the context of social, political, religious, and economic forces.  Students are expected to gain skills in formal analysis through looking with reading, and a critical perspective on the processes of art historical placement and interpretation based on assigned readings in secondary literature.

Instructor(s): P. Foong     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 17000 through 18999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 17110

ARTH 17121. The Art of Leonardo da Vinci. 100 Units.

The central focus of this course will be on the small, damaged and disputed body of paintings that Leonardo has left to us, the wealth of his drawings that help us make sense of that problematic heritage and provide the most direct route into his creative thinking, and the hundreds of pages of text in the form of notes in mirror-image handwriting that comment on art and so many other subjects.  Our structure will be roughly chronological, including his late fifteenth-century Florentine artistic and social context (e.g., artists such as Verrocchio, Pollaiuolo, Ghirlandaio and Botticelli), his two long periods in Milan as a court artist, his triumphant return to Florence and rivalry with the young Michelangelo, his brief and unsatisfying stay in papal Rome, and the little known, mythic final years in France.  Among the themes that will be critically examined are: Leonardo’s role in the creation of what is still grandiosely called the High Renaissance; the value and problematic aspects of thinking of him as the quintessential artist-scientist; the significance of the fact that he has been a figure of such obsessive art-historical and broader cultural significance for over 500 years (ie.g., readings by Vasari, Freud, and the innumerable artists who have interpreted and mimicked his work); and the ways in which recent scientific and digital imaging have shed surprising amounts of new light on his art.  Through the concentrated art-historical material studied, the course will take seriously the attempt to introduce students with little or no background in art history to some of the major avenues for interpretation in this field, including formal, stylistic, iconographical, psychological, social, feminist, theoretical and reception.  Readings are chosen with this diversity of approach in mind.

Instructor(s): C. Cohen     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 17000 through 18999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 21414

ARTH 17409. The 1930s as Culture Laboratory. 100 Units.

The 1930s was a decade of wildly diverse artistic experiments in the United States, a veritable laboratory for modernizing American art and for redefining “culture” itself.  This course introduces a wide range of those experiments, with readings drawn largely from primary sources.  Topics include debates about realism vs. abstraction; American versions of surrealism; the work and impact of Mexican muralists in the U.S.; Midwestern regionalism and its controversial nativist sources; African-American artists in Chicago and New York; the impact of European émigré artists and scholars; the involvement of American artists in international anti-fascist movements; experiments in curatorial practice at the fledgling Museum of Modern Art, including the “Machine Art” exhibition; the emergence of “documentary” theories and practices in photography, film, and literature; the rise of photo-magazines LIFE & Look; the WPA Federal Arts Program; and the 1939 World’s Fair.

Instructor(s): S. Miller     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 17000 through 18999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 17410. Frank Lloyd Wright in Chicago and Beyond. 100 Units.

This course looks at Wright's work from multiple angles. We examine his architecture, urbanism, and relationship to the built environment, as well as the socio-cultural context of his lifetime and legend. We take advantage of the Robie House on campus and of the rich legacy of Wright's early work in Chicago; we also think about his later Usonian houses for middle-income clients and the urban framework he imagined for his work (Broadacre City), as well as his Wisconsin headquarters (Taliesin), and spectacular works like the Johnson Wax Factory (a field trip, if funds permit), Fallingwater, and the Guggenheim Museum. By examining one architect's work in context, students gain experience analyzing buildings and their siting, and interpreting them in light of their complex ingredients and circumstances. The overall goal is to provide an introduction to thinking about architecture and urbanism.

Instructor(s): K. Taylor     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 17000 through 18999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 17505. The Black Arts Movement in Chicago. 100 Units.

This course studies the 1960s-1970s Black Arts Movement in Chicago, in particular its visual artists, in the broader context of African American art and artists in Chicago from the 1940s to the 1990s. The class will make frequent trips to the South Side Community Art Center at 3831 S. Michigan Ave. Topics include the relationship of art to political militancy, the place of history, the formation of a "Black aesthetic," text-image relations, and the uses of different media (painting and sculpture, printmaking, performance). Students in the course will work together to curate an exhibition. No art history expertise is required, but willingness to work independently and as a group is essential. 

Instructor(s): R. Zorach     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 17000 through 18999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 17610. Modernism. 100 Units.

This course will explore the development of European and American modernism by concentrating on examples in local collections, especially the Smart Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago. The modernist era, from roughly 1860 to 1960, brought dramatic changes in the conception and making of art. We will analyze these by attending to the media of painting, sculpture, and printmaking. The class will meet frequently at the Art Institute, and students will need to be able to arrive at the museum in time for classes beginning there at 3:00 p.m.

Instructor(s): M. Ward     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 17000 through 18999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 17700. 19th Century Art in the Art Institute. 100 Units.

This course introduces students to the methods and issues of art history through detailed consideration of selected works at the Art Institute of Chicago. We concentrate on nineteenth-century French art, including painting, sculpture, prints, and drawings. These are areas particularly well represented in the museum’s collections. Visits to local collections required.

Instructor(s): M. Ward     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 17000 through 18999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 17707. Materiality As Meaning: Art from 1950 to the Present. 100 Units.

This course investigates art after 1950 through specific ways artists have exploited non-traditional materials and their properties for symbolic significance and affective power. By working in chocolate or latex, urban detritus or industrial waste, painters and sculptors have not only pushed against conventional modes of art-making, but have responded to contemporary society. We will pay particular attention to the economic, political, and social contexts that give meaning to a given choice of artistic materials and means of production. Do such choices respond to post-war privation, to planned obsolescence in advanced capitalism, or to the impact of globalization on developing nations? Are they charged with private meaning or do they claim to have universal impact? How does exacerbated materiality alter viewer-object relations by eliciting affective responses like revulsion, alienation, identification, and attraction? This seminar will approach major American and European artistic movements after 1950—including arte povera, proto-pop, minimalism, process art, feminist performance, and installation art—through their expanded material repertoires.

Instructor(s): L. Lee     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 17000 through 18999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 18000. Photography and Film. 100 Units.

This core course serves as an introduction to the history of art by concentrating on some fundamental issues in the history of photography and film. The course is divided roughly in half between still photography and film. The central theme of the course concerns the way in which photographs and films have been understood and valued during the past 165 years. There have been profound changes in attitudes and beliefs regarding the nature of photographs throughout the history of photography (this is likewise true of film). The current range of views is very different from those held by the various audiences for photographs and films in the last century and the century before. For instance, photographs were originally conceived of as copies of things that can be seen, but the notion of copy was drawn from a long established set of views about what makes a picture a work of art, and copies were said to be incapable of being works of art. This view continues to haunt the writings of some critics and historians of photography and film. The course will concentrate on the work of photographers, theorists of photography and film, and on films by John Huston, Billy Wilder, and Roman Polanski. ,This core cours serves as an introduction to the history of art by concentrating on some fundamental issues in the history of photography and film. The course is divided roughly in half between still photography and film. The central theme of the course concerns the way in which photographs and films have been understood and valued during the past 165 years. There have been profound changes in attitudes and beliefs regarding the nature of photographs throughout the history of photography (this is likewise true of film). The current range of views is very different from those held by the various audiences for photographs and films in the last century and the century before. For instance, photographs were originally conceived of as copies of things that can be seen, but the notion of copy was drawn from a long established set of views about what makes a picture a work of art and copies were said to be incapable of being works of art. This view continues to haunt the writings of some critics and historians of photography and film. The course will concentrate on the work of photographers, theorists of photography and film, and on films by John Huston, Billy Wilder, and Roman Polanski.

Instructor(s): J. Snyder     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): ,Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 17000 through 18999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 18305. New Art in Chicago Museums and Other Spaces. 100 Units.

Through very regular, required site visits to museums, galleries, and experimental spaces in the greater Chicago area, this course will introduce students to the close consideration—in situ—of works of art created in our times, as well as to the application to these works of pertinent modes of critical and historical inquiry. Sites to be visited include the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, the Fraction Workspace, Mess Hall, the Hyde Park Art Center, The Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Gallery 400 at the University of Illinois at Chicago, among others.

Instructor(s): D. English     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Course limit of 12 students.
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 17000 through 18999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 18700. The Arts of Arabic and Persian Manuscripts. 100 Units.

This undergraduate art in context course focuses on Islamic arts of the book from the eleventh through sixteenth centuries. We will pay particular attention to relationships between painting, calligraphy, and illumination; problems of copying and originality; challenges posed by manuscripts that have been altered by successive generations of users; multiple levels of text-image relationships; and identify special considerations related to the manuscript format. Throughout the seminar we will consider points of congruence and divergence between how such issues were theorized in (translated) primary texts contemporaneous to the manuscripts being studied, and how they are theorized today.

Instructor(s): P. Berlekamp     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 17000 through 18999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 20603. Image and Text in Mexican Codices. 100 Units.

In most Mesoamerican languages, a single word describes the activities that we would call “writing” and “painting.”  This seminar will investigate the interrelationships between image and text in Central Mexico both before and immediately after the introduction of alphabetic writing in the 16th century. We will also review art historical and archaeological evidence for the social conditions of textual and artistic production in Mexico, and how these traditions were transformed under Spanish colonial rule. We will consider the materiality of text and image by working with facsimiles of Mesoamerican books in the Special Collections of the Regenstein Library. At the end of the course, students will have acquired a basic literacy in Aztec and Mixtec writing systems, and will have refined their ability to look productively and write elegantly about art. 

Instructor(s): C. Brittenham     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 30603,LACS 20603,LACS 30603

ARTH 22402. "Writing" Modern Life: Lit and the Etching Revival, 1850-1940. 100 Units.

This course begins from the parallels between writing and etching (as varieties of both hand-writing and authorship) noted by contemporaries as disparate as Charles Baudelaire and Samuel Palmer (a visionary disciple of William Blake). The course will explore different approaches to writing modernity in the two media, from Poe-Dickens-Baudelaire-Meryon (and other French artists)-Whistler in the middle of the nineteenth century through Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, and British and American urban etchers of World War I and the 1920s and early 30s, comparing visual and verbal representations in several genres (poetry, fiction, and journalism as well as artists' etchings and etched illustration) with particular attention to representations of urbanization and its impact on more traditional forms of narrative, lyric, and landscape. Attention will be paid to the uneven development of non-narrative and increasingly abstract languages and modes of notation. We will also study the rhetorics of value (economic and aesthetic) surrounding the etching and the book. In addition to readings (literary and critical) and close study of prints in the Smart Museum or the Art Institute collections, the course may include a demonstration/workshop with printmakers. Response papers, final paper.

Instructor(s): E. Helsinger     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Cross listed courses are designed for advanced undergraduate and graduate students.
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 22402

ARTH 22409. Late Antique Treasures. 100 Units.

Taking advantage of the opportunity afforded by the Art Institute’s special exhibition of hallmarks of Late Roman and Early Byzantine art (ca. 300-600 C.E.) from the British Museum, this class will consider what treasured objects from Late Antiquity meant in their original contexts, and what they mean today in the context of the world’s encyclopedic museums. We will first examine in detail works of art produced in luxurious media, primarily ivory and silver, as we discuss the various contexts in which they were seen and used—both in wealthy households and/or at important ecclesiastic sites. In so doing, we will focus on several general themes, including the continued popularity of classical imagery among the well-educated, aristocratic classes; the theater and spectacle of dining; and the ultimate emergence of a new, “Byzantine” aesthetic. Finally, we will conclude by looking at the ancient practice of burying treasure hoards, and the impact of their discovery on modern archaeology and museum practices.

Instructor(s): C. Nielsen     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course will be held at the Art Institute.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 32409

ARTH 23000. 19th-Century Pasts. 100 Units.

This course will interrogate the various senses of the past that emerge from European (particularly French) art of the 19th century, which has been called the great age of historical revivalism. No doubt the turbulence of contemporary events—replete with revolutions as well as rapid social and technological change—had something to do with the unprecedented ways in which 19th-century artists regarded and represented history, with a protean embrace of past styles. Themes and topics to be considered include Homer and the classical past; Joan of Arc and medieval revivalism; Napoleon; the Bourbon dynasty; troubadour painting; modern life and the uses of the past; and primitivism. The course will be grounded in the close study of objects from the Smart Museum's permanent collection and in a series of critical and theoretical readings. One visit to the Art Institute of Chicago can also be expected. The course will culminate in a small, collection-based exhibition to be presented at the Smart Museum.

Instructor(s): A. Leonard     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Some knowledge of French 19th-century art history preferred; reading knowledge of French desirable.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 33000

ARTH 23400. Art, Architecture, and Identity in the Ottoman Empire. 100 Units.

Though they did not compose a “multi-cultural society” in the modern sense, the ruling elite and subjects of the vast Ottoman Empire came from a wide variety of regional, ethnic, linguistic, and religious backgrounds. The dynamics of the Empire’s internal cultural diversity, as well as of its external relations with contemporary courts in Iran, Italy, and elsewhere, were continuously negotiated and renegotiated in its art and architecture. This course examines classical Ottoman architecture, arts of the book, ceramics, and textiles. Particular attention is paid to the urban transformation of Byzantine Constantinople into Ottoman Istanbul after 1453, and to the political, technical, and economic factors leading to the formation of a distinctively Ottoman visual idiom disseminated through multiple media in the sixteenth century.

Instructor(s): P. Berlekamp     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 33400,NEAA 20801,NEAA 30801

ARTH 23900. Text and Image in Renaissance France. 100 Units.

This course studies manuscripts, printed books, and printed images produced in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century France that combine text and image, particularly those that do so in unusual, innovative, or provocative ways. We will consider problems of interpretation, "illustration," friction and gaps between text and image, and the uses of print vs. manuscript. Types of objects studied include emblem books, books of hours, scientific books, mythological and romance literature, captioned prints and print albums, and ceremonial books made to document events. We will visit several local collections (n.b. because of this, several class meetings will run past 4:30). Basic reading knowledge of French required.

Instructor(s): R. Zorach     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Some reading knowledge of French required.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 33900

ARTH 24030. Sexuality Studies in American Art. 100 Units.

Taking the recent, controversial exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference & Desire in American Portraiture as our springboard, this course examines the plural strategies by which sexuality studies (in modes ranging from feminist history to psychoanalysis to queer theory) have been brought to bear on the canon of modern American art over the past thirty years, and the ways they have refigured our investigative methods, our objects of study, and the canon itself. Treating sexuality as a multivalent force in the creation of modern art and culture (rather than merely as subject), our topics will range from the 1870s to the 1960s—the years before artistic engagements with sexuality and gender were radically transformed by postmodernism and contemporary identity politics. Case studies will include the work of, and recent scholarship about, Thomas Eakins, John Singer Sargent, the Stieglitz circle (Charles Demuth, Georgia O'Keeffe), the trans-Atlantic "New Women" of the 1920s (Berenice Abbott, Romaine Brooks), the downtown bohemian and uptown Harlem Renaissance scenes of 1920s-30s New York, Joseph Cornell, Jasper Johns & Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, and Eva Hesse. Readings are drawn from recent art historical and key theoretical texts, with an emphasis on methodological analysis.

Instructor(s): S. Miller     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Any course in modern or American art history or ARTH 10100 or a course in gender studies.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 34030,GNSE 26102

ARTH 24110. Venetian Painting from Bellini to Tintoretto. 100 Units.

The works of Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto and other major figures are studied in the context of the distinctive Venetian version of the Renaissance.  The course will explore the patterns of patronage, iconography and practice as they are impacted by the Venetian cult of the state, the role of the great charitable institutions in Venetian society, the conservative Venetian guild and workshop organization.  Some of the major art-historical themes will include the understanding of Giorgione and Giorgionism as a decisive turn towards modernity in European art; the complex place of the long-lived Titian throughout the entire period; the role of drawing in an art most noted for its light, color and touch; the complex interaction of Venetian and Tusco-Roman visual cultures throughout the Renaissance.

Instructor(s): C. Cohen     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Any 100-level course in art history or visual arts.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 34110

ARTH 24500. Arts in Italy and France in the 17th and 18th Centuries. 100 Units.

The course will present the evolution of art in Italy and France in the fields of painting, sculpture, and architecture from the early 17th century to the middle of the 18th century. In Italy, we will examine the 'classicist' reform of the Carracci and the quest for a naturalistic painting with Caravaggio, up to the assertion of the baroque figurative language (Bernini, Pietro da Cortona, Borromini) and the extraordinary narrative freedom of Tiepolo. We will see how Italy represents for France, throughout this period, a model to emulate and surpass, both artistically and institutionally. Poussin and Lorrain are good examples of how fundamental Italy’s lessons were to French artists of this time. We will also see how France aims at the development of a national art. While a prime example being the Galerie des glaces in Versailles, the assertion of rococo is to be seen in the very particular context of the peaceful years of the beginning of the reign of Louis XV.

Instructor(s): S. Caviglia-Brunel     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 34500

ARTH 24812. Museums and Art. 100 Units.

This course considers how the rise of the art museum in the 19th and 20th centuries affected the making of modern art and the viewing of past art. It is not designed to be a survey course, but rather a historical investigation of certain issues and developments. We will concentrate on the following:  what has been said to happen to objects when they are uprooted and moved into the museum; how and why museums have changed display practices so as to get viewers to look at art in new ways; what artists have understood museums to represent and how they have responded to that understanding in their work and their display preferences. Though reference will be made to the contemporary art world, the focus will be on materials and case studies drawn from the French Revolution through the 1960s. French, German, English and American museums will be featured.

Instructor(s): M. Ward     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 34812

ARTH 25011. Africa, America. 100 Units.

This seminar explores the dynamic exchanges in the expressive cultures of Africa and the Americas. It examines a range of visual and material traditions that emerged and grew from the sustained contact between the two continents from the era of the Atlantic Slave Trade to the present. Class discussion, readings, assignments, and museum visits address topics such as carnival performances, santería and candomblé traditions, Vodou ritual forms, Luso-African architecture on both continents, and contemporary art.

Instructor(s): C. Fromont     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 35011,LACS 25011,LACS 35011

ARTH 25300. Early 20th Century East Asian Art. 100 Units.

This course will examine modern artistic production in China, Japan, and Korea from 1900 to 1945. We will study the formation of modern aesthetic theories, the experience of the project of modernism, and the problematic terms of “modernization” and “Westernization” against the background of tremendous political and social upheaval across East Asia. The rise of various literary and artistic movements came into dialogue with other international trends in imperial Japan, but also took on a life of their own in the cities of Seoul and Shanghai as artists traveled and documented their impressions of the rapidly changing modern world. Topics to be discussed include the institutionalization of art training, the formation of public exhibition spaces, the emergence of the modern artist as a cultural figure, the simultaneous search for the “avant-garde” that was accompanied by a self-reflexive nostalgic look back to the past, and the transformation of traditional mediums and subject matter in new forums such as the explosion of images of beautiful women in print media.

Instructor(s): N. Lin     Terms Offered: Winter

ARTH 25800. 20th Century Performance Art. 100 Units.

Though encompassing a variety of activities, the term performance art generally refers to event based practices in which the artist’s body functions as a medium. This course will introduce students to a number of performance art’s developmental trajectories, along with an equally expansive range of historical and conceptual frameworks through which to understand them. Focusing on performances both within and outside of major art centers throughout Europe and America, we will survey canonical movements and practitioners while also investigating less familiar practices. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which specific performances intersect with and, in some cases, productively complicate topics central to the study of modern and contemporary art, including spectatorship, presence and the body, dematerialization, participation and collectivity, spectacle and mass culture, autonomy and alienation, and the politics of representation. Artistic practices will be framed through readings drawn from the fields of art history, cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, and performance studies.

Instructor(s): M. Maydanchik     Terms Offered: Spring

ARTH 26803. Enlightenment and 19th Century Architectural Theory and Practice. 100 Units.

This course examines influential new ideas about architectural design from the Enlightenment and nineteenth century in terms of writings and related buildings in Europe and the U.S.  This experimental period generated theoretical writing that continues to matter to architects today; we will study it in terms of its initial contexts and application.  Major themes are: (1) the relationship of a building’s structure to its decoration (or body to clothing, as it was sometimes put); (2) the rise of historical interest in older buildings from divergent stylistic traditions (e.g., classical and Gothic) and its impact on new design; (3) the development of aesthetic theory suited to mass as well as elite audiences (e.g., the sublime and the picturesque); and (4) the idea that architect and building could and should be ethical or socially reformative. 

Instructor(s): K. Taylor     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Prior course in art history or permission of the instructor.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 36803

ARTH 26910. Visual Culture of Rome and Its Empire. 100 Units.

This general survey of Roman material culture will use the archaeological evidence complementary to literary sources in order to delineate the development of Roman society from the Early Republic down to the first sacking of Rome in 410 CE. Urban planning, public monuments, political imagery, and the visual world of Roman cities, houses, and tombs will be discussed in relationship to the political and social processes that shaped their formal development.

Instructor(s): E. Mayer     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CLCV 27909,CLAS 37909,ARTH 36910

ARTH 27304. Photo/Modernism/Esthetic. 100 Units.

The course presents the history of photographic practices in the United States, beginning in the late 19th century and extending into the 1980s, aimed at gaining an audience for photographs within museums of art. The issues under study include the contention over claims about medium specificity, notions of photographic objectivity, a peculiarly photographic esthetics, the division of photography into two categories—art vs. documentary—and the role of tradition and canon formation in the attempted definition of the photographic medium.

Instructor(s): J. Snyder     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 37304,ARTV 25704,ARTV 35704

ARTH 28001. Drawing in France in the 18th Century. 100 Units.

Drawing has long been regarded as a preparatory work subject to the final artwork. In the 18th century, drawing achieves an intellectual status as a representation of the idea of the artist. Primary expression of the creative process, the drawing is now seen by amateurs as a tool to understand the genesis of the work and as such becomes an object of delight. Through the study of different techniques and the development of a specific vocabulary in contemporary sources, this course aims in particular to study drawing as a means of building the [hi]story at a time when the narrative as a representation of action is questioned.

Instructor(s): S. Caviglia-Brunel     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 38001

ARTH 29600. Junior Seminar: Doing Art History. 100 Units.

The aim of this seminar is to deepen an understanding of art history as a discipline and of the range of analytic strategies art history affords to students beginning to plan their own BA papers or, in the case of students who are minoring in art history, writing research papers in art history courses. Students read essays that have shaped and represent the discipline, and test their wider applicability and limitations. Through this process, they develop a keener sense of the kinds of questions that most interest them in the history and criticism of art and visual culture. Students develop a formal topic proposal in a brief essay, and write a final paper analyzing one or two works of relevant, significant scholarship for their topics. This seminar is followed by a workshop in Autumn Quarter focusing on research and writing issues for fourth-year students who are majoring in art history, which is designed to help writers of BA papers advance their projects.

Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Required of third-year students who are majoring in art history; open to nonmajors with consent of instructor. This course does not meet the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 29700. Reading Course. 100 Units.

This course is primarily intended for students who are majoring in art history and who can best meet program requirements by study under a faculty member's individual supervision. The subject, course of study, and requirements are arranged with the instructor.

Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter, Spring
Prerequisite(s): Consent of Instructor and Director of Undergraduate Studies
Note(s): Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Form. Must be taken for a quality grade. With adviser's approval, students who are majoring in art history may use this course to satisfy requirements for the major, a special field, or electives. This course is also open to nonmajors with advanced standing. This course does not meet the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 29800. Senior Seminar: Writing Workshop. 100 Units.

This workshop is designed to assist students in researching and writing their senior papers, for which they have already developed a topic in the Junior Seminar. Weekly meetings target different aspects of the process; students benefit from the guidance of the workshop instructors, but also are expected to consult with their individual faculty advisers. At the end of this course, students are expected to complete a first draft of the senior paper and to make an oral presentation of the project for the seminar.

Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Required of fourth-year students who are majoring in art history. This course does not meet the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 29900. Preparation for the Senior Paper. 100 Units.

This course provides guided research on the topic of the senior paper. Students arrange their program of study and a schedule of meetings with their senior paper adviser.

Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter, Spring
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor and Undergraduate Program Chair
Note(s): Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Form. May be taken for P/F grading with consent of instructor. This course may not count toward the twelve courses required in the major. This course does not meet the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.