Syllabus
(Western) art history unpacked
This syllabus is a broad introduction to issues in art history and the period between c. 1200–1900. The focus is on Europe, but we won't ignore the rest of the world.
SCHEDULE
The semester moves very quickly — don't fall behind!
For each week, you can work at your own pace as long as you complete the work by the end date.
Unit 1
begins Monday August 28 — ends Monday September 4
Unit 2
begins Monday September 4 — ends Monday September 11
Unit 3
begins Monday September 11 — ends Monday September 18
Unit 4
begins Monday September 18 — ends Monday September 25
Unit 5
begins Monday September 25 — ends Monday October 2
Unit 6
begins Monday October 2 — October 9
Unit 7
begins Monday October 9 — October 16
MIDTERM
begins Monday October 16 — October 23
Unit 8
begins Monday October 23 — October 30
Unit 9
begins Monday October 30 — November 6
Unit 10
begins Monday November 6 — November 13
Unit 11
begins Monday November 13 — November 20
Unit 12
begins Monday November 20 — December 4 (2 weeks because of Thanksgiving)
FINAL EXAM
begins Monday December 5 — December 14
List View
Grid View
Key questions and ideas
• Describing what you see in words will help you enjoy and interpret a work of art.
• Looking takes time (way longer than you think it does) and it helps to ask yourself questions while you look.
• When you look, it’s helpful think about formal issues or the “elements of art” such as scale, composition, pictorial space, form, line, color, light, tone, texture, and pattern when you look at a work of art.
• What are the differences between naturalism, realism, abstraction and idealization?
• How to use iconography to understand a work of art.
• The difference between form and subject (and why form is so important).
Key questions and ideas
• What issues are involved in representing the divine in human form?
• In the 1200s and 1300s (the late medieval period) spiritual figures (saints, Christ, etc.) begin to appear more human.
• What is an altarpiece?
• Saint Francis (and his order, the Franciscans), encouraged a more emotional and personal connection to Christ and other spiritual figures.
• Duccio and Giotto are two artists in Italy (among many) from the 1300s who begin to create divine figures that appear more human and accessible.
• The late medieval period sees the rise of cities, and the Dominican and Franciscan friars who preach there.
• A newly wealthy merchant class commissions works of art.
Key questions and ideas
• Renaissance artists develop new tools to depict the world in a naturalistic way (linear perspective, atmospheric perspective, the study of human anatomy).
• Increasingly wealthy patrons (from banking, trade, manufacturing) commission works of art to signify their status, assure their place in heaven, and beautify their city.
• Different Renaissance styles emerge in Northern Europe (Flanders) and Italy.
• There was a growing Humanist outlook, that emphasized humanity’s capacity to achieve greatness through knowledge and free will.
• Italian artists looked back to classical antiquity (ancient Greece and Rome) for inspiration (artists borrowed forms from ancient Greek and Roman art such as contrapposto, and the forms of ancient Greek and Roman architecture)
• In Florence, the wealthy Medici Family encouraged Humanism and commissioned important works of art. They were also, for much of the century, the de-facto rulers of Florence.
• The artists of Northern Europe perfect the use of oil paint to depict fine details and textures.
• Art that is more naturalistic is not better art.
Key questions and ideas
• The Catholic church comes under attack by Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation begins (as does the Catholic church’s response—the Counter-Reformation)
• Spain conquers the Aztecs (in what is today Mexico City), establishes a colony in the Americas (New Spain), and begins to convert millions of indigenous people
• Protestants and Catholics have different ideas about the role of art.
• Pope Julius II was an important art patron.
• Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael develop a style art historians refer to as the High Renaissance.
• In the later part of the century, a new style develops in Europe: Mannerism
• The transatlantic slave trade begins.
Key questions and ideas
• Why do people study art history?
• The definition of art changes through history.
• The discipline of Art History is constantly changing.
• When did art history, as a discipline, develop? What are the ramifications of that?
• What are the recent changes taking place in art history?
• Why we should be skeptical about what we see and also critical of art history.
• What art gets remembered? What doesn’t get remembered?
Key questions and ideas
• Where do the works in the museum come from?
• Who decides what’s in the museum? Or the textbook?
• How is what is in an art museum different from other things in the world?
• How have museums changed?
• How have artists critiqued museums?
• How is the art in museums organized?
• How does looted art end up in museums?
• What are the effects of Napoleon’s confiscations of works of art?
• What happens when we change the context of a work of art (from a church to a museum, for example)?
Key questions and ideas
• During this period, empiricism and observation become important.
• Thanks to the scientific revolution (especially Copernicus), human beings recognize that they are not at the center of the universe.
• The dramatic style of Baroque art is related to the triumph of the Catholic church.
• The Manila Galleon trade created an important route for the global exchange of materials.
• In the Protestant Dutch Republic, artists create paintings for a wide audience (including new subjects such as landscapes, still-lives, and genre scenes).
• In New Spain, Casta paintings document the inter-ethnic mixing occurring in New Spain among Europeans, Indigenous peoples, Africans, and the existing mixed-race population
Key questions and ideas
• The French monarchy and the Rococo style
• Revolutions in France and the United States overthrow monarchies and lay the groundwork for the democracies of the modern world.
• The intimate relationship between Sugar and the slave trade
• The ideals of the Enlightenment are expressed in the work of Jacques Louis David and the style of Neoclassicism.
Key questions and ideas
• The Dutch West India Company brings slaves to the United States, and aside from South Carolina, New York at one point had the largest slave population in the U.S.
• The emergence of the characteristics of modern life (the growth of cities, the industrial revolution, and the beginnings of mass production and consumer culture)
• The importance of Paris as a center for art and artists
• An understanding of the role of artists as outsiders who create radical art that challenges the status quo
• The beginnings of photography
Key questions and ideas
• Understanding cultural heritage and how it has been endangered
(Seated Figure, terracotta, 13th century, Mali, Inland Niger Delta region, Djenné peoples, 25/4 x 29.9 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York))
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1.Introduction to art historical analysis
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2.How to do visual (formal) analysis
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3.Describing what you see: sculpture
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4.Naturalism, realism, abstraction and idealization
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5.An introduction to iconographic analysis
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6.Art historical analysis with Goya’s Third of May, 1808
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7.Familiarize yourself thoroughly with the "Elements of Art" and "Principles of Composition"
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8.Alejandro Cesarco, What does looking mean?
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9.How to enjoy art: Ben Street
Key questions and ideas
• Describing what you see in words will help you enjoy and interpret a work of art.
• Looking takes time (way longer than you think it does) and it helps to ask yourself questions while you look.
• When you look, it’s helpful think about formal issues or the “elements of art” such as scale, composition, pictorial space, form, line, color, light, tone, texture, and pattern when you look at a work of art.
• What are the differences between naturalism, realism, abstraction and idealization?
• How to use iconography to understand a work of art.
• The difference between form and subject (and why form is so important).
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1.Common quesions about dates
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2.A brief history of Western culture
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3.Classic, classical, and classicism explained
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4.Polykleitos, Doryphoros (Spear-Bearer)
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5.Rome’s history in four faces at The Met
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6.Digging through time
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7.Greek Architectural orders
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8.The Roman Forum: Part 1, Ruins in modern imagination
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9.Early Christianity, an introduction
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10.Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome
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11.The Lindisfarne Gospels
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12.Skellig Michael
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13.A new pictorial language: the image in Early Medieval art
Robert Campin (also called the Master of Flémalle), Christ and the Virgin, c. 1430-35, oil and gold on panel, 11-1/4 x 17-15/16 inches (28.6 x 45.6 cm) (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
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1.A brief history of religion in art
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2.The Medieval and Renaissance Altarpiece
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3.The Crucifixion, c. 1200 (from Christus triumphans to Christus patiens)
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4.Röttgen Pietà
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5.Inventing the image of Saint Francis
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6.Hiding the divine in a medieval Madonna: Shrine of the Virgin
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7.Siena in the Late Gothic, an introduction
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8.Duccio, Heaven on earth— The Rucellai Madonna
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9.Florence in the Late Gothic period, an introduction
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10.Watch all four parts: Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel (part 1 of 4)
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11.A rare embroidery made for an altar at Santa Maria Novella
Key questions and ideas
• What issues are involved in representing the divine in human form?
• In the 1200s and 1300s (the late medieval period) spiritual figures (saints, Christ, etc.) begin to appear more human.
• What is an altarpiece?
• Saint Francis (and his order, the Franciscans), encouraged a more emotional and personal connection to Christ and other spiritual figures.
• Duccio and Giotto are two artists in Italy (among many) from the 1300s who begin to create divine figures that appear more human and accessible.
• The late medieval period sees the rise of cities, and the Dominican and Franciscan friars who preach there.
• A newly wealthy merchant class commissions works of art.
Veduta della catena (chain map) of Florence, c. 1471–72, attributed to Francesco and Raffaello Petrini, etching, 1.25 x 1.38 m (Palazzo Vecchio, Florence)
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1.Humanism in renaissance Italy
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2.ITALY: Humanism in Italian renaissance art
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3.Why commission artwork during the renaissance?
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4.ITALY: Donatello, David
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5.ITALY: Masaccio, Holy Trinity
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6.ITALY: Filippino Lippi’s Madonna and Child, an early image of enslaved people in renaissance Florence
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7.ITALY: Michelozzo, Palazzo Medici
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8.NORTHERN EUROPE: Introduction to Fifteenth-century Flanders
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9.NORTHERN EUROPE: Workshop of Robert Campin, Annunciation Triptych (Merode Altarpiece)
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10.NORTHERN EUROPE: Rogier van der Weyden, The Crucifixion, with the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist Mourning
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11.NORTHERN EUROPE: Jan Van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait
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12.NORTHERN EUROPE: Hugo van der Goes, Portinari Altarpiece
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13.SPAIN: Fifteenth-century Spanish painting, an introduction
Key questions and ideas
• Renaissance artists develop new tools to depict the world in a naturalistic way (linear perspective, atmospheric perspective, the study of human anatomy).
• Increasingly wealthy patrons (from banking, trade, manufacturing) commission works of art to signify their status, assure their place in heaven, and beautify their city.
• Different Renaissance styles emerge in Northern Europe (Flanders) and Italy.
• There was a growing Humanist outlook, that emphasized humanity’s capacity to achieve greatness through knowledge and free will.
• Italian artists looked back to classical antiquity (ancient Greece and Rome) for inspiration (artists borrowed forms from ancient Greek and Roman art such as contrapposto, and the forms of ancient Greek and Roman architecture)
• In Florence, the wealthy Medici Family encouraged Humanism and commissioned important works of art. They were also, for much of the century, the de-facto rulers of Florence.
• The artists of Northern Europe perfect the use of oil paint to depict fine details and textures.
• Art that is more naturalistic is not better art.
Convento San Agustín de Acolman, c. 1539-80
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1.Introduction to the Spanish Viceroyalties in the Americas
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2.Tiny timeline: global Europe
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3.Alejo Fernández, Virgin of the Navigators
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4.The Protestant Reformation
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5.Introduction to the Protestant Reformation (part 1 of 4): Setting the stage
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6.The carpet and the globe: Holbein’s The Ambassadors reframed
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7.Leonardo, Last Supper
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8.Raphael, School of Athens
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9.Michelangelo, Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
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10.Grünewald, Isenheim Altarpiece
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11.Alonso Berruguete, Abraham and Isaac
Key questions and ideas
• The Catholic church comes under attack by Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation begins (as does the Catholic church’s response—the Counter-Reformation)
• Spain conquers the Aztecs (in what is today Mexico City), establishes a colony in the Americas (New Spain), and begins to convert millions of indigenous people
• Protestants and Catholics have different ideas about the role of art.
• Pope Julius II was an important art patron.
• Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael develop a style art historians refer to as the High Renaissance.
• In the later part of the century, a new style develops in Europe: Mannerism
• The transatlantic slave trade begins.
Marilyn Diptych 1962 Andy Warhol 1928-1987 (Tate)
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1.Why you don’t like art history
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2.What is art history and where is it going?
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3.Ever wondered… why people become art historians?
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4.Ever wondered…why study art of the past?
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5.Titus Kaphar, The Cost of Removal
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6.Omar Victor Diop: Black subjects in the frame
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7.Kerry James Marshall: Mastry
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8.Wendy Red Star, 1880 Crow Peace Delegation
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9.Ai Weiwei, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn
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10.Kehinde Wiley, Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps
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11.Guerrilla Girls, ‘You Have to Question What You See’ (interview)
Key questions and ideas
• Why do people study art history?
• The definition of art changes through history.
• The discipline of Art History is constantly changing.
• When did art history, as a discipline, develop? What are the ramifications of that?
• What are the recent changes taking place in art history?
• Why we should be skeptical about what we see and also critical of art history.
• What art gets remembered? What doesn’t get remembered?
Museums are tightly intertwined with politics and the expression of power.
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1.Museums and politics: the Louvre, Paris
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2.Faith Ringgold, Dancing at the Louvre
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3.An interview with Fred Wilson about the conventions of museums and race
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4.Remake the Met
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5.Art Museums and (Art) Objects
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6.Artists in and against the museum
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7.Why are there so few female artists?
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8.From tomb to museum: the story of the Sarpedon Krater
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9.Who owns the Parthenon sculptures?
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10.Napoleon’s booty—Perugino’s (gorgeous) Decemviri Altarpiece
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11.Napoleon’s appropriation of Italian cultural treasures
Key questions and ideas
• Where do the works in the museum come from?
• Who decides what’s in the museum? Or the textbook?
• How is what is in an art museum different from other things in the world?
• How have museums changed?
• How have artists critiqued museums?
• How is the art in museums organized?
• How does looted art end up in museums?
• What are the effects of Napoleon’s confiscations of works of art?
• What happens when we change the context of a work of art (from a church to a museum, for example)?
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Baldacchino, 1624-33, 100′ high, gilded bronze (Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, Rome)
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1.Baroque art, an introduction
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2.How to recognize Baroque art
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3.Andrea Pozzo, Glorification of Saint Ignatius
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4.Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa
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5.Caravaggio, The Conversion of St. Paul (also known as The Conversion of Saul)
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6.Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes
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7.Peter Paul Rubens, Elevation of the Cross
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8.Rembrandt, The Night Watch
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9.Francis Bacon and the Scientific Revolution
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10.Wooldridge, Indians of Virginia
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11.Christ Crucified, a Hispano-Philippine ivory
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12.Juan de Pareja, The Calling of Saint Matthew
Key questions and ideas
• During this period, empiricism and observation become important.
• Thanks to the scientific revolution (especially Copernicus), human beings recognize that they are not at the center of the universe.
• The dramatic style of Baroque art is related to the triumph of the Catholic church.
• The Manila Galleon trade created an important route for the global exchange of materials.
• In the Protestant Dutch Republic, artists create paintings for a wide audience (including new subjects such as landscapes, still-lives, and genre scenes).
• In New Spain, Casta paintings document the inter-ethnic mixing occurring in New Spain among Europeans, Indigenous peoples, Africans, and the existing mixed-race population
Covered sugar bowl, c. 1745, silver, 11.5 x 9.1 cm (Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art)
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1.The triangle trade and the colonial table, sugar, tea, and slavery
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2.African Burial Ground, New York City
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3.Louis le Vau, André le Nôtre, and Charles le Brun, Château de Versailles
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4.Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing
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5.The Age of Enlightenment, an introduction
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6.Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii
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7.Inventing “America” for Europe: Theodore de Bry
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8.Joseph Wright of Derby, A Philosopher Giving a Lecture at the Orrery
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9.J. Schul, Portrait of a Lady Holding an Orange Blossom
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10.Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Portrait of Madeleine
Key questions and ideas
• The French monarchy and the Rococo style
• Revolutions in France and the United States overthrow monarchies and lay the groundwork for the democracies of the modern world.
• The intimate relationship between Sugar and the slave trade
• The ideals of the Enlightenment are expressed in the work of Jacques Louis David and the style of Neoclassicism.
Édouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, oil on canvas, 1882 (Courtauld Gallery, London)
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1.Becoming Modern, an introduction
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2.What was the Industrial Revolution?
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3.Early Scientific Exploration in Latin America
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4.Francisco Goya, And there’s nothing to be done from The Disasters of War
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5.Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People
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6.Caspar David Friedrich, Monk by the Sea
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7.Théodore Géricault, Raft of the Medusa
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8.Honoré Daumier, Nadar Elevating Photography to the Height of an Art
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9.Mary Cassatt, In the Loge
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10.Latin American artists learning in Paris
Key questions and ideas
• The Dutch West India Company brings slaves to the United States, and aside from South Carolina, New York at one point had the largest slave population in the U.S.
• The emergence of the characteristics of modern life (the growth of cities, the industrial revolution, and the beginnings of mass production and consumer culture)
• The importance of Paris as a center for art and artists
• An understanding of the role of artists as outsiders who create radical art that challenges the status quo
• The beginnings of photography
People taking photos of the Mona Lisa, photo: Heather Anne Campbell (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
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1.What is cultural heritage?
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2.A Renaissance masterpiece nearly lost in war: Piero della Francesca, The Resurrection
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3.Saving Torcello, an ancient church in the Venetian Lagoon
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4.Saving Venice
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5.The Renaissance Synagogues of Venice
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6.Conservation as memorial — Mantegna’s St. James Led to his Execution
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7.The Looting of Cambodian Antiquities
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8.Repatriating artworks
Key questions and ideas
• Understanding cultural heritage and how it has been endangered
Adolf Hitler and Adolf Ziegler inspect the installation by Willrich and Hansen of the Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich, 1937
