Art History

This course examines Japanese painting, calligraphy and craftwork from from the ancient through the early modern periods, with a focus on the Edo period (1615-1868), especially the Rimpa school associated with Ogata Korin. Students consider Japanese artistic products in light of various concepts, including “classicism,” “revival,” “school,” “decoration,” and “design.”

Renaissance art is often seen as the conceptual anchor for a conservative type of art history that focuses on great male artists and their revival of a classical past. This course uses recent research to challenge the idea, showing how old master painting can speak to current issues of sexual, gender, and political identity. Focusing on different roles for women, students investigate how visual culture promotes and challenges ideas of what it means to be female. Students look at women as archetypes of beauty, as wives, prostitutes, artists, patrons, poets, and witches. Students consider medical beliefs in women's inferiority; the notional link between male creativity and reproductive processes; and how the separation of 'art' from 'craft' denigrated traditional areas of women's expertise, notably textiles, to a lesser form of making.

This course explores European art from the fifteenth to the twentieth century with a particular focus on the travels of artists between urban centers like Florence, Rome, Venice, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Paris, London, and Berlin. The aim is to analyze how mobility contributed through the centuries to shape local identities as well as European cultural traditions common to different countries. The course presents iconic moments of the history of the arts in Europe by drawing a special attention to episodes of cultural exchanges and hybridization that arose from travelling artworks as well as from artists' travels. From the impact of Flemish art in fifteenth century Italy, to the stays of artists like Raphael and Michelangelo in early sixteenth-century papal Rome; from the rise of genre painting in the Flanders and the Dutch Republic of the Age of Explorations, to the “painters of modern life” in nineteenth-century Paris, and the European network of the Avant-gardes of the 1910s-1920s, students analyze the artworks and their authors in relation to the different historical contexts and the places of their creation. Recurrent is the focus on the complex interplay between artists and patrons, between local traditions, individual creativity and the broader social, political, and cultural contexts in which artworks were produced. Students gain understanding of the main art movements and relevant artists from the Renaissance to the postwar period and the special role played by travels in giving shape to a European cultural space. For the onsite program only: Visits to the outstanding collections of Berlin museums allow the participants to study original artifacts and to learn how to look closely at works of art.

This course introduces students to the full range of the material and visual culture of the ancient world in Rome from the Republican period to late Antiquity. The course includes a study of the built environment, from the major urban and imperial monuments to the forts and farms of the frontiers, the images housed in public buildings, houses and tombs, as well as portable objects, and the material residues of daily life and ritual. Students in this option undertake the spring term of the yearlong course Art & Archaeology of Greece & Rome.

This course introduces students to the rich museum culture of London. Through lectures, seminars, and visits to museums such as the British Museum, National Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Museum of London students explore how museums create histories of art, society, and national identity. The course draws on the approaches of several disciplines – art, social, and cultural history, anthropology, social geography, and critical theory – to interrogate the ways that museums reflect and shape what we know and how we see. Exploring a selection of sites dating from the eighteenth century to the present day, the course considers the historical context in which these museums came about, the nature of their collections, and debates on current presentation, considering issues of museology, curatorial practice, and the construction of knowledge.

Film, literature, and the arts have always played a central role in reflecting the attitudes towards the twin ideologies of Nazism and Communism in Central and Eastern Europe. They were central to propagandizing these ideologies and building their strength after World War I. However, they also provided the most vibrant forum for those challenging the totalitarian regimes established by Nazis and Communists. In the period since their fall, politics and academia have frequently failed to enable an accessible debate on their legacy. Thus, film and literature remain the site of a debate. This course explores the theme in a multi-disciplinary manner, drawing on history, political science, literature, film studies, and psychology. A thematical, rather than chronological, approach was selected to emphasize the occurrence of the examined issues across regions and times, using different methods of exploration. As Prague is one of the few capitals that experienced liberal democracy, Nazism, Communism, and a return to liberal democracy over the scope of slightly more than 50 years, first-hand experience through field trips and guest speakers is incorporated into the course to enhance understanding of the topic.

This course provides a study of the history of contemporary artistic movements, from the Enlightenment through the present day.