Art History

This course focuses on Maori arts from the arrival from the Pacific c800 to the present day. It examines how the artists reflected, recorded and made history through their work. How did they respond to new presences and influences in the community, such as Christianity, colonialism, new materials and ideas. The course focuses on a different form of art every week from personal adornment to photography.

This course presents historical and aesthetic concepts related to the development of artistic styles that found an expression in architecture and visual arts. In addition to examining global artistic styles, their roots, and local developments, the course also explores various local, ethnic, religious, and societal facets, including Jewish art and architecture, different artistic representations that emerged at the turn of the nineteenth century, and the effects of the totalitarian system on the city through extensive construction of housing estates. Students discuss the development of Prague as a city, including the effects of technical advancements, philosophical and social concepts on city planning, housing, and daily life in different time periods. The course consists of lectures, discussions, group work, student presentations, and weekly field trips to various areas of Prague.

This course examines some of the wealth of artistic production in the Netherlands in the 17th century. The course is based around the study of Rembrandt and Vermeer as contrasting and complementary figures who represent some of the diverse tendencies of the time. This entails the study of the development of individual styles and subject matter ranging from history painting to portraiture, landscape, and genre painting. The distinct artistic character associated with centers of production, even ones that were geographically close, is assessed with an emphasis on Amsterdam, Delft, and Utrecht. The final block of the course looks at the posthumous reputations of Rembrandt and Vermeer, examining questions of attribution, authenticity, canonicity, and rediscovery.

This seminar is an initial foray into planning an exhibition that aims to trace the history of the Art of Memory which gave birth to the field of museology. The course adopts a global perspective. Beside the medieval and early modern European inheritance of Greco-Roman mnemotechnics, some other weekly topics of discussion include: papermaking, writing, and memory in Han Dynasty China; memorization, contemplation, and revelation in Tibetan Thangka images; repetition and recognition in Islamic calligraphy and geometric ornament; ethnic memory, cultural identity, and the emergence of ethnology. The course also examines some modern memories, e.g., Bergson's MATTER AND MEMORY; Philip K. Dick's DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?; Nabokov's autobiographical SPEAK, MEMORY; Joseph Beuys's false memories, Gordon Matta-Clark's displaced fragments of memories; and artistic utterance as cultural oracle in the immortalizing prose-poem sculptures of Jenny Holzer. The basic question that the seminar addresses is: How does one go about curating an exhibition that displays the art and architecture of memory and its place in the human imagination?

This course deals with aesthetic-formal questions of the representation and visualization of the cross in various pictorial media. The focus is on the Middle Ages, but early modern developments are also discussed. Topics covered include the cross in crucifixion representation, as a theological sign, and as a cultic object as well as the gradual development of the cross into a central element of iconography.

This course examines how audiovisual history has evolved in Spain and how cinematographic language, multimedia, and society are intertwined. Spanish audiovisual works are critically analyzed, taking into close consideration the sociopolitical and cultural climate. Topics covered include the second half of the 19th century: neoclassicism to Romanticism, and historical paintings to luminism; the early 20th century, from Modernism to the Civil War; post-war Spain, new realism and conceptual art; the New Generation through neo-expressionism, eclecticism, and other movements (La Movida Madrileña).

This course discusses the changes and upheavals observed in the nineteenth century in town planning, architecture, sculpture, printmaking, and the decorative arts. This includes the impact of the Industrial Revolution, incessant progress and new inventions, and the appearance of photography. The second part of the course looks at the notable changes that take place in conceptions concerning these fields and artistic practices, in relation to the evolution of societies. The course travels from London to Paris, from Munich to Vienna, from Barcelona to New York to discuss these topics.

Specifically for non-History of Art majors. This course covers 19th and 20th century art focusing on objects in London's galleries and museums. Can be taken over the fall term or spring term. The specific content of this course changes each year, but it introduces students to key issues in and aspects of 19th and 20th century and contemporary art, by focusing on objects in institutions such as Tate Britain and Tate Modern.