Art History

This course provides students with a general overview of how Spanish artists in the 20th and 21st centuries seek references and are influenced by religion, politics, identity, gender and popular culture while simultaneously re-appropriating historical icons and images to provide new readings and modify traditional interpretations. It examines specific art works that have shaped Spain's contemporary history and society such as Picasso's “Guernica,” Dalí's references to psychoanalysis and sexuality, or Miró's multiple interpretations of Abstraction. The course also focuses on the role of the viewer in the 21st century: that of an active viewer that must interact with art works to decode their meanings via the study of Abstract Expressionists such as Tàpies or Saura, the Abstract Geometric such as Chillida, political and social critics such as Arroyo and Grupo Crónica, more well-known contemporary artists, such as García Alix or Plensa, as well as young emerging artists. This course highlights important events in Spanish history such as the Civil War, Franco's dictatorship, the transition to democracy, terrorism or today's current economic and political crisis through the public art works or manifestations that—officially or not—influence the city of Madrid and demonstrate how contradictions become compatible and how a city might become the ultimate example of a Post-Modern society.

This is a historical survey of three thousand years of Chinese visual arts with emphasis on painting. The course covers the historical transformation of Chinese art from the classical towards the modern and contemporary, as well as key aesthetic and philosophical conceptions underpinning the production of visual arts in the Chinese culture. In addition, the course provides some comparative studies of Chinese and Western visual arts. There will also be a component introducing the special linkages between the history of Singapore art and the Chinese context.

This course discusses the various creative fields in which Barcelona has been a pioneer. Topics include: urban design, art, culture, design and fashion, theater, dance, music.

This course explores the various ways that artists—male, female, and genderqueer—have used their work to examine, question, and criticize the relationships between gender and society. The course involves sustained visual analysis, as well as a critical engagement with both primary and secondary texts.

This course develops skills which enhance our interpretation, appreciation, and enjoyment of paintings. Lectures combine in-depth visual analysis with art historical understanding, imparting students with the skills and confidence to engage critically and creatively with paintings from a range of eras and places. Students incorporate other visual arts (sculpture, drawing, installation art, for instance), where these have been relevant to methods and histories of painting, as well as modern and contemporary strategies of display and exhibition-making. The course focuses on histories of British art and art collections in Britain (especially public collections accessible to students, in Oxford or London), though the course gives students a rounded understanding of painting made in prominent art centers, especially across Britain, Western Europe, and the United States.

The course surveys the art and archaeology of ancient Greece from the Bronze Age (c. 3000-1100 B.C.) to the early Roman imperial period (1st century AD). The chronological sequence of lectures considers the physical remains of ancient Greek life and society, including religion, domestic life, civic spaces, burial practices, social practices, the military, and interactions with other cultures.