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150-151-152. Art of the West. For nonconcentrators, any course in this
sequence fulfills the Common Core requirement in the musical and visual arts.
May be taken in sequence or individually. Students must attend the first class
to confirm enrollment. The major monuments and masterpieces of painting,
sculpture, and architecture are studied as examples of humankind's creative
impulses in the visual arts. Individual objects are analyzed in detail and
interpreted in light of society's varied needs. While changes in form, style,
and function are emphasized, an attempt is also made to trace the development
of a unique and continuous tradition of visual imagery throughout Western
civilization.
150. The Ancient and Medieval World. This course examines the nature of
artistic production from the prehistoric animal images in the caves of southern
Europe to the handmade, gilded books that circulated at French and English
courts some fifteen thousand years later. Particular attention is given to the
transformation of the natural landscape into imposing built environments around
the Mediterranean, including Africa and the Near East, and to the role art
played as image-maker for political and religious institutions. At the
conclusion of the class we consider the ways every age reworks its past,
selecting from an available array of visual production the material that gives
shape to its sense of itself. L. Seidel. Autumn.
151. Renaissance to Rococo. The major achievements of European artists in
painting, sculpture, and architecture from about 1400 to 1775 are discussed
chronologically. While broad style groupings such as Renaissance, mannerism,
baroque, and rococo are an important organizing principle, an effort is made to
concentrate on fewer artists and masterpieces rather than a uniform survey.
Attention is also given to the invention and development of distinctive
artistic types and their association with particular moments in history. Where
possible, study of the imagery is supplemented with contemporary written
documents such as contracts, letters, and theoretical texts. C. Cohen.
Winter.
152. The Modern Age. This course examines art and architecture from the
rococo to the present. An attempt is made to define the movements that have
conditioned modern art. Romanticism, realism, impressionism, and expressionism
are among the "-isms" discussed; other topics include the evolution of abstract
painting, the international style and the development of modern architecture,
and city planning. Major figures include J. L. David, Turner, Manet, Monet,
Rodin, Matisse, Picasso, and Frank Lloyd Wright. M. Ward. Spring.
161. Art of the East: China. For nonconcentrators, this course fulfills
the Common Core requirement in the musical and visual arts. Students must
attend the first class to confirm enrollment. This course surveys Chinese
art and architecture from prehistory to the recent avant-garde. Though this
introduction follows a chronological order, it is also thematically motivated.
We see how visual artifacts--paintings, sculpture, architectural
monuments--both consciously encode different pragmatic agendas and
circumstantial exigencies and unconsciously betray cultural anxieties and
tensions. The purpose is to enable students to look at Chinese history in
visual terms and to view visual objects in historical terms, with a critique of
the perception of Oriental art as static aesthetical objects suspended in a
timeless vacuum. E. Wang. Spring.
170-179. Art in Context. For nonconcentrators, this course fulfills the
Common Core requirement in the musical and visual arts. Students must attend
the first class to confirm enrollment. Courses in this series investigate
basic methods of art historical analysis and apply them to significant works of
art studied within definite contexts. Works of art are placed in their
intellectual, historical, cultural, or more purely artistic settings in an
effort to indicate the origins of their specific achievements. An informed
appreciation of the particular solutions offered by single works and the
careers of individual artists emerges from the detailed study of classic
problems within Western and non-Western art.
170. Leonardo's Last Supper and Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel. This
course examines in-depth two works of visual art famous enough to need no
further identification than their titles, yet are still subject to considerable
controversy. The premise is to explore how visual artists created levels of
meaning and communication in the mature Renaissance, and what tools of analysis
and understanding are available to us in the late twentieth century. The course
is meant for students without background in art history (though others are
welcome), in the belief that exploring a couple of works of great complexity
can serve as an excellent introduction to seeing, understanding, and responding
to visual art. C. Cohen. Spring.
173. Art in Motion: Movies of the Middle Ages (=GS Hum 207). This course
studies ten movies, each of which evokes a different aspect of the medieval
period, in an attempt to understand the ways such visualization provides us
with particular understanding of our own time even as it poses as a
representation of the past. Issues addressed include the authenticity of the
presentation (sources for story, set, and costumes); the nature of the argument
(assumptions about events and individuals); and expectations of the audience
(conditions in which the film was made/released). L. Seidel.
Spring.
176. Dada Art and Literature (=German 276). PQ: Knowledge of French
and/or German helpful, but not required. The group of artists and
writers who identified themselves as "Dada" first met in Zurich in the Cabaret
Voltaire in 1916. Striving to negate traditions of European culture and art
that were, in their view, complicit in the massacres of World War I, they
invoked a new creativity of opposition rooted in the unconscious, the
irrational, and the ridiculous. Using original texts and recent critical
studies, this course explores the images, provocations, and writings of Dada,
and their contexts and significance as manifested by the Dada groups in Zurich,
Paris, Berlin, Cologne, and New York. R. Heller. Spring.
177. The Robie House. Probably the most celebrated artifact in the
University's collection, the Robie House is a rich focus for an introductory
look at architecture, its design and production, and its cultural and social
implications. We get to know the building closely, benefiting from a new
restoration study, focusing on its artistic conventions and innovations, its
relationship to social and family life, and what was involved in its physical
production. More broadly, we consider not only Frank Lloyd Wright's work and
persona in the context of his times, but also the biography of the
building--the new roles and meanings it assumed after its initial moment of
production for a particular client, including its status as an icon of
modernism and a monument on a tourist itinerary. K. Taylor. Autumn.
The following upper-level undergraduate courses do not fulfill the Common Core
requirement in the music or visual arts unless 4 or 5 has been scored on the AP
art history test.
161. Music, Liturgy, and Art in Sacred Spaces in the Middle Ages (=ArtH 181, GS
Hum 232). PQ: Ability to read music not required. This class
explores the dynamic relationship among music, liturgy, and art in the great
churches of the Middle Ages. Among other topics, the course investigates how
changes in style of cathedral building brought about modifications in musical
style, how the liturgy takes on specific characteristics to mirror the physical
details of these structures, and how all the arts act in concert to express the
philosophies of theologians and other persons active in these churches. A.
Robertson. Autumn.
185. South Asian Visual Cultures (=Hum 164). From ancient Buddhist cave
paintings and monumental Hindu temples to the medieval Islamic architecture of
the Taj Mahal and contemporary Bombay films, the history of South Asian arts
and architecture includes diverse visual cultures. This course studies the ways
these varied art forms generate meanings for audiences within the specific
historical and cultural contexts of their use. These include their contextual
use in religious rituals, at imperial courts, as political rhetoric, in the
formation of national and postcolonial identity, and as self-representation.
Visits to the Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago and the Art Institute of Chicago
are included. W. Taylor. Spring.
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The following 200-level courses have as a prerequisite any 100-level art
history or art and design course or consent of instructor. These courses do not
fulfill the Common Core requirement in the music or visual arts unless 4 or 5
has been scored on the AP art history test.
206/306-207/307. The Classical Collection at the Smart Museum I. PQ: Any
100-level ArtH or ArtDes course, and consent of instructor. Must be taken in
sequence. This is the first stage of a larger project aimed at producing a
catalog of the Greek and Roman antiquities in the Smart Museum, in conjunction
with an exhibition of the collection to be held in the spring of 1997. This
initial two-quarter sequence is followed by a course taught by Museum Director
Kimerly Rorschach in the autumn of 1996. The Smart's antiquities collection
consists of approximately 800 objects, of which about 150 will receive full
treatment in the catalog. They range chronologically from the Bronze Age to
late antiquity and geographically from Cyprus to Italy, and include a variety
of media: pottery, marble, terracottas, bronzes, and glass. Most are Greek
artifacts of the archaic and classical periods, particularly painted pottery.
The course provides instruction on traditional classifications and approaches
to each class of objects. Each student writes a number of catalog entries.
Throughout the course, we explore the nature of classification and whether
objective description is possible. Guest speakers hold seminars on issues of
method (the art of describing), the use of style, technique (ceramics,
sculpture), and on particular media (terracottas, glass). ArtH 207/307 is a
continuation of ArtH 206/306. G. Pinney. Winter, Spring.
209/309. Late Antique and Early Christian Art, ca. A.D. 300-700. PQ: Any
100-level ArtH or ArtDes course, or consent of instructor. The long
transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages involved manifold political,
geographical, cultural, and religious changes. This course concentrates on the
rise of Christian art from a minor, derivative, visual language within the
Roman Empire to the dominant expression of religious and political authority in
the Mediterranean. Questions posed include: How were the tenets of the new
religion expressed visually and distinguished from the arts of other religions?
What form did its places of worship take and how were they decorated? How did
the creation of a Christian art affect the secular imagery of rule and
vice-versa? How did Christian art represent the holy and how was that
representation controlled? R. Nelson. Autumn.
218/318. Monstrosity in Medieval Art. PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or ArtDes
course, or consent of instructor. This course explores all aspects of
monstrosity, deformity, and fantastic creaturely-combination that is typical of
medieval representational art from the eighth through the fifteenth centuries.
Special emphasis is placed on its anthropological and social function and the
theoretical notions of the monster as a form of revelation (the Latin word is
from monstrare, to show), intellectual apprehension (Aristotle's fabled
chimera), and decorative nonmeaning (the marginal babewyne).
Another emphasis is that of magic. The Christian theology of monstrosity in the
form of demons and the devil is also discussed, as is the problem of the ugly
as an aesthetic category. M. Camille. Spring.
224/324. Florence. PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or ArtDes course, or consent
of instructor. This course is a survey of Florentine culture from the
eleventh-century commune to the seventeenth-century Grand Duchy. I. Rowland.
Spring.
227/327. High Renaissance Painting in Florence and Rome. PQ: Any
100-level ArtH or ArtDes course, or consent of instructor. This course
concentrates on Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael, the giants of what has
been considered the culminating moment of the Renaissance in Florence and Rome.
Some attention is paid to the history of the style concept of High Renaissance
(what is so "high" about it?) and its usefulness as a context for understanding
three such diverse personalities. The accomplishment of these artists and the
parameters of the artistic culture of the High Renaissance is explored and
contextualized by briefly discussing other major artists, such as Fra
Bartolommeo and Andrea del Sarto, and by introducing the complex question of
the critical change of style and cultural direction in Florence and Rome around
1520, known as mannerism. C. Cohen. Winter.
242/342. Sites of Power: Art and Patronage in England 1520-1820. PQ: Any
100-level ArtH or ArtDes course. This course traces the development of the
visual arts in England from the Renaissance through the dawn of the Victorian
period, with particular emphasis on patterns of patronage and collecting in a
pre-museum age. Topics include the strongly political nature of art patronage
in England, the construction of national identity in particular works of art,
and the impact of the English social and economic structure on the development
of English art and its audiences. The course examines not only painting and
sculpture, but also garden design, architecture, and the decorative arts. K.
Rorschach. Autumn.
246/346. Giotto's Jewel (=GS Hum 231/331). PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or
ArtDes course, or consent of instructor. The centerpiece of a course is the
Scrovegni Chapel, built within the ancient arena of Padua around 1300 and
decorated by a Florentine artist shortly thereafter with a series of paintings
that illustrate the lives of Mary and Christ. We attempt to situate the
monument within the context of contemporary and earlier forms of commemorative
construction and view it in relation to traditions of painted interiors. L.
Seidel. Spring.
254/354. Visual Pedagogy: Collecting at the University of Chicago. PQ:
Any 100-level ArtH or ArtDes course, or consent of instructor. This class
addresses a fundamental disciplinary issue: how objects and artifacts are
collected and deployed in teaching and research and how, as a result, they
determine or define educational practices. The chief premise of the class is
that strategies of visual pedagogy have shaped the University since its origins
and that the establishment of the Smart Museum was but one significant moment
in that continuing history. Course participants will plan an exhibition for the
Smart Museum's Mellon Study Gallery. The course offers the opportunity to
develop archival and oral history and, in a limited way, technological skills,
and provides experience in planning an exhibition as it explores a disciplinary
practice; it is appropriate for generating B.A. paper topics. L. Seidel, K.
Taylor. Autumn.
258/358. Visual Culture (=Eng 126/326, GS Hum 230/330). PQ: Any
100-level ArtH or ArtDes course, or consent of instructor. This course
explores the fundamental questions in the interdisciplinary study of visual
culture: What are the cultural (and thus, natural) components in the structure
of visual experience? What is seeing? What is a spectator? What is the
difference between visual and verbal representation? How do visual media exert
power, elicit desire and pleasure, and construct the boundaries of subjective
and social experience in the private and public spheres? How do questions of
politics, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity inflect the construction of visual
semiosis? J. T. Mitchell. Spring.
259/359. Art in Germany: Neo-Classicism to Romanticism (=German 359).
PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or ArtDes course. "In our time, something is
about to die," said the German romantic artist Philipp Otto Runge in 1802. The
era of radical transition--artistic, political, social, cultural, scientific,
and religious--that Runge characterized, and for which he formed resolution
only by withdrawing into his own subjectivity, is the concern of this course as
it surveys the issues and problematics of art in Germany from the time of
Frederick the Great to the post-Napoleonic restoration. Western European
artistic practice and belief were undermined and reconstructed in the imagery
of such artists as Runge, the Nazarenes, Caspar, and Hegel; and in the urban
transformation of Berlin, Dresden, and Munich as planned by C. F. Schinkel,
Gottfried Semper, and Leo von Klenze. This artistic and intellectual
revolution, viewed in its social setting and in terms of its contributions to
an ideology of the modern, marks the focus of this course. R. Heller.
Autumn.
264/364. History of Photography 1839-1969 (=GS Hum 232/332). PQ: Any
100-level ArtH or ArtDes course. The invention of the photographic system
as a confluence of art practice and technology is studied in detail. The
aesthetic history of photography is traced from 1839 through the present.
Special emphasis is placed on the critical writings of P. H. Emerson, Erwin
Panofsky, Alfred Stieglitz, Lewis Mumford, Susan Sontag, and Michael Fried.
J. Snyder. Winter.
265/365. The Sites of Twentieth-Century Art. PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or
ArtDes course, or consent of instructor. This course examines how the modes
of distribution and the destinations (both real and imaginary) of
twentieth-century art have affected the production and reception of cultural
objects. We examine in detail a series of examples drawn from both European and
American art in order to address such concerns as the interdependence of
modernism and the museum; decorative painting and the domestic interior; the
fears of and hopes for the mechanical reproduction of art; the archive as a
site of radical resistance (the situationalists); public space and performance
gesture; and "site-specificity" in contemporary sculpture. M. Ward.
Winter.
295. Senior Seminar: Problems and Methods in Art History. PQ: Required
of fourth-year art history concentrators, who present aspects of their senior
papers in oral reports; open to students outside the department with consent of
instructor. This course investigates fundamental methods of art historical
research, with emphasis on perspectives characteristic of the discipline in the
twentieth century. Topics include connoisseurship, formal and iconographic
analysis, psychoanalytic approaches, and perspectives of social history. T.
Cummins. Autumn.
298. Reading Course. PQ: Consent of instructor and director of
undergraduate studies. Students are required to submit the College Reading and
Research Form. Must be taken for a letter grade. This course is designed
for students in art history or advanced students in other concentrations whose
program requirements are best met by study under a faculty member's individual
supervision. The subject, course of study, and requirements are to be arranged
with the instructor. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
299. Preparation for the Senior Paper. PQ: Consent of instructor and
director of undergraduate studies. Students are required to submit the College
Reading and Research Form. May be taken for a Pass grade with consent of
instructor. This course provides guided research on the topic of the senior
paper. The program of study and schedule of meetings are to be arranged with
the student's senior paper adviser. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
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Art History Courses
101. Introduction to Art. For nonconcentrators, this course fulfills
the Common Core requirement in the musical and visual arts. Students must
attend the first class to confirm enrollment. 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 important, 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. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
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