Art History

This course is part of the LM degree and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course consists of lectures and visits and is divided into two parts. Part one provides an overview of the history of art, mainly Italian, from the end of the fifteenth century (High Renaissance) to the beginning of the nineteenth century. It focuses on artists, movements, and main topics, particularly seen from the point of view of the revival of antiquity; and at the same time provides the tools for understanding and analyzing the works of art, studying them within their cultural, social, and political context, and in their style, iconography, and technique. Part two deals with the spiritual “infrastructure” and visual network created in the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries in Italy by the Benedictine Cassinese Congregation (1419 – 1570 ca).

Berlin is an inspiring metropolis, a place of attraction for creative people and art and culture professionals from Germany and all over the world. Artists of all kinds, designers (including fashion), and technology experts are just as much a part of it as publishers, galleries, the music industry, or the film industry. Berlin is a focal mirror, a projection surface and a platform for a "creative class" (Richard Florida) and at the same time an urban-cultural incubator of a new lifestyle, of creative working practices of aesthetic capitalism. This seminar provides an overview of the creative industries in Berlin - their diverse fields, individual industries and players, and their self-image.

This course focuses on art works exhibited in London collections and temporary exhibitions, discussing, and theorizing the evolution of the modern art object from the 19th century to present. Through a series of seminars and gallery-based classes, the course closely scrutinizes a broad range of art objects, including painting, sculpture, photography, and video, to consider how the development of visual technologies, materials and techniques are negotiated by artists and have impacted on the critical methodologies developed by art historians. Each week takes a different thematic category to foreground discussion, helping to address changing cultural, social, and historical contexts in the making of visual art and its relationship to current sites of exhibition and mechanism of display

The course covers major artistic periods - Antiquity, Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Baroque - from the point of view of women's presence as artists, patrons, and subjects of the art of Rome. It takes advantage of the richness of monuments and works of art in the Eternal City, and uses them for direct analysis and discussions in the light of women's studies. Special importance is given to the reading of primary sources as well as to feminist art historical scholarship, with related discussions in class. The last part of the course is a monographic study of the Roman born Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi. In recent decades, art historical scholarship has re-discovered and re-evaluated this woman artist. For some scholars, her biographical experience and her career as a painter have become emblematic of women's presence in the visual arts. The course considers not only the life and career of this woman artist in its historical context, but also the impulse the study of her experience has given to women's studies in the field of art history.

This is an overview course of the history of Western art and architecture from the late Middle Ages to the present. Special attention goes to the art of the Dutch and Italians. Gain familiarity with some of the major periods of Western artistic production, including the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Baroque, the Dutch Golden Age, Impressionism, and Modern Art. The course provides the fundamental knowledge of art history, with a particular focus on Western Europe. In case of interest, a global perspective in the history of art is offered in the course Global Visions, taught in Block 2 (English course and not part of the minor.) A museum excursion is planned as part of this course, for which the students need to support their individual costs of travel and admission.

In this course, students examine established art markets in the developed world and emerging art markets in the developing world together with legal and management issues related to global art business practice; there is a particular focus on the international auction house system. Students focus firstly on legal and management strategy issues, as well as global auction house practice and procedure, and secondly, on analyzing key emerging markets. Through a variety of teaching and learning methods, delivered by both in-house Institute staff and external consultant specialists, students learn to identify the rise and sustaining influence of auctions and art object dealing, and achieve a comprehensive understanding of the functionality and interrelationships of the key art market institutions, structures, and frameworks. Students also develop research methodological skills to evaluate data relating to the established art market and to a number of emerging geographical regional markets.

This course is tailor-made for International Asian Studies Programme (IASP) students who want to engage in a short-term project. Students taking this course are required to write a research paper on a topic in international studies under the supervision of an academic staff member.