Art History

This course examines the foundational issues of academic art history. How and where did the study of art history begin, and what were its founding principles? The course considers art history's origins in the late 19th century and traces how it has changed in the course of the succeeding century and into the contemporary period. Students examine debates over issues of aesthetic quality, questions of the relationship between art and society, and questions of the art-historical canon and its exclusions. The core theme is art history as a subject of academic study, but this inevitably links to broader issues of how art is taught within the art school and how art is exhibited within the museum.

The course focuses on the history of photography from its origins to the present with particular attention to technical and aesthetic developments. Special attention is placed on the role of photography in 20th century art and the application of photography in cultural industries such as fashion, publicity, and media. A section of the course is dedicated to contemporary artistic research and its applications in the field of communication. The first part of the course focuses on photography and art and the topics include the relationship between photography and art, definition/s of artistry in the 20th century, the role of the author and the production of the work of art, the contribution of technology in contemporary art, and contaminations between visual arts and other disciplines. The second part of the course focuses on photography and reality and discusses topics including the role of photography in 19th and 20th century art, the relationship with reality, the role of technology, painting and “ready-made” art, and the work of art and behavior.

The course provides an introduction to art and politics in the context of dictatorship, focusing on the examples of Hitler's Germany, Stalin's USSR, Mussolini's Italy, and Franco's Spain. In the first part of the semester, the students gain an understanding of art in a democratic society by analyzing the art and architecture of the Weimar Republic in Germany. Special attention is paid to Jewish artists like Max Liebermann, Erich Mendelsohn, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and El Lissitzky. The course examines the official art and architecture in Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union, focusing on the works of Albert Speer, Giuseppe Terragni, Arno Breker, and Leni Riefenstahl. Modernist and Jewish artists were persecuted, forced into emigration, or deported to concentration camps. Under the Nazi regime in Germany, the exhibition "Degenerate Art" served to propagate the fascist idea of what art should not be like. The course further examines the relation between art and the Holocaust. After 1945, artists like Wolf Vostell, Max Grundig, or George Segal focused in their paintings, sculptures, and installations on the totalitarian experience and the Shoah in particular. Additionally, art also served as a medium to commemorate the Holocaust: the memorials at Buchenwald concentration camp or the Holocaust memorial in Berlin are prominent examples. In the course of the semester, students gain an overview of important European art and architecture movements of the early twentieth century. In addition, the course provides a deeper understanding of art under totalitarian conditions. As a complement to the lectures, formal field-trips to historically significant sites and museums constitute an integral component of the course.

The course is part of the LM degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrolment is by consent of the instructor. The course explores some fundamental moments in the history of contemporary art from the 1950s to the present, focusing on the main methodological, thematic, and theoretical issues that have emerged in the visual arts. Case studies are documented through the support of audiovisual materials. Places for incoming exchange students are limited and are reserved primarily for students enrolled in art related programs at their home university.

This course examines how Jewish and Israeli art, architecture, and material culture have been both a reflection and creator of identity. It includes field trips to A Studio of Her Own (a women’s art center in Jerusalem) and the Umm El-Fahem Art Gallery. Assessment involves two reading reflections, a class presentation, and a final paper. Course prerequisites include a course in either Art History, Material Culture, or Jewish or Middle East History.

The course introduces the various ways of looking at and discussing works of art. The focus is chiefly on painting and sculpture; the emphasis is on analyzing the composition or design of art works and in constructing meanings for them. This course enables students to acquire critical skills for interpreting and connecting with works of art. Topics include Asian art traditions; Indian sculpture; Chinese landscape painting; Islamic calligraphy. The second part of the course surveys ideas and movements from the Renaissance in Italy to the end of the 20th century in Europe.

This combined seminar and lecture course discusses aspects of Central European visual culture from the modern era onwards. The course examines major art styles and personalities in Czech modern art from Art Nouveau's Alphonse Mucha and the pioneer of abstraction František Kupka, to contemporary provocations of David Cerný. Deep changes that occurred in architecture, from Art Nouveau decoration through Functionalist utopia, to deconstruction of Postmodernism is reviewed. All artworks are examined within their broader cultural and historical context. Students participate in excursions to Prague galleries and museums to encounter and study the originals in detail.