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Academic Catalog 2013-2014 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Courses
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History of Art |
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HART100 Introduction to Western Art 3 cr.
This course is a condensed and comprehensive introduction to the history of Western art from prehistorical times to the twenty-first century. The basic purpose of the course is three-fold: to examine a selection of the most significant monuments of creative endeavor which constitute the canon of Western art; to contextualize succinctly, with historical references and coetaneous examples in other media (especially literature), those monuments; and, finally, to engage students in the ongoing discourse which determines and revises the canon and the ways in which we see and interpret works of art.
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Required
Fall
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HART206 Ancient Greek and Roman Art 3 cr.
This course will survey the public and private art and architecture produced in Greece and Italy (and their colonies) beginning with the Geometric Period in Greece (c.eighth century B.C.) and continuing through the Roman empire until the time of Constantine. The class will first discuss the formation of the Greek polis and the rise of Athens as the cultural center of the Greek world in the mid-fifth century B.C. We will then address the spread of Hellenism under Alexander the Great in the fourth century B.C. and conclude with Rome’s eventual domination of the Mediterranean region beginning with Augustus in the first century A.D.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART207 Ancient Greek Art 3 cr.
Glory of Ancient Greece: Gods, Politics, and Art will survey the private and public art and architecture produced in Greece and its colonies in the east and west. Emphasis will be placed on the interrelationships among art, mythology, religion, athletics, and history. The class will first discuss the early periods before the people known as Greeks and continue with the formation of the Greek city-state and the rise of Athens as a cultural center of the Greek world in the mid-fifth century B.C.E. Students will then address the spread of Hellenism under Alexander the Great, and conclude with the Late Hellenistic Period shortly after Roman domination of the Mediterranean world.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
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HART208 Ancient Roman Art: Politics, Propaganda, and the Decadence of Rome 3 cr.
By the beginning of the third century CE, Rome’s dominance reached to England in the north, Africa in the south, and Russia and Iraq in the east. By the late third century CE, however, the Roman Empire became unstable. How was one city able to amass such a vast territory in a relatively short period of time? What were the long-lasting effects of Rome’s attempt at world domination? To help answer these questions and others, students will explore the numerous advancements made in architecture, engineering, and art during the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Students will also become familiar with various forms of entertainment and literature that address the social, political, and religious makeup of the Roman world.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
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HART209 Early Christian and Byzantine Art 3 cr.
This course will examine the visual arts of early Christianity from its roots until the fall of the Roman Empire in the Latin west in the fifth century, and will continue with an examination of the visual arts of the Roman Empire in the Greek east until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Topics to be considered will range from whether the image of Christ might be rooted in that of Zeus or of the Roman Emperor to the role and function of icons; from iconoclasm to the art of monumental mosaics; and from cross-cultural interactions between Christian, Jewish and Islamic visual cultures to the role of visual culture in marking the development of a variety of Christian identities.
Prerequisites: Freshman Seminar
Lecture/Seminar
All College Elective
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HART210 Early Medieval Art 3 cr.
A survey of art produced in early Medieval Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa, focusing on the interaction among the diverse cultural traditions of classical Rome, Byzantium, and Northern Europe from the decline of the Roman Empire through the Christianization of Europe, the advent of Islam, and the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire under Charlemagne. Emphasis will be on wall painting, manuscript illumination, stone sculpture, and portable metalwork objects.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART211 Romanesque and Gothic Art 3 cr.
European art and architecture produced between the years 1000 and 1400. Focus will be on figural and decorative arts (monumental and miniature painting, stained glass, sculpture, and metalwork) and on architecture as a physical context for monumental public images. The functions of objects and the audiences for whom they were made will be considered along with their styles, subject matter, techniques and materials. Medieval ideas about sight, vision, and representation will be examined as essential to an understanding of the art of this era.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
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HART212 Medieval Castles and Cathedrals 3 cr.
A survey of major monuments of European architecture from the Early Christian era through the Gothic style, including both religious and secular buildings. Elements of structure, and design sources and processes, will be considered alongside the function and reception of different buildings and building types. The class will also explore the place of architecture in urban and rural settings, the importance of pilgrimage and Crusading for the transmission of ideas, and the translation of monastic ideals into buildings.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART222 Artistic Personality in the Renaissance I: The Early Renaissance 3 cr.
Artistic Personality in the Renaissance I: The Early Renaissance is the first part in a two-part sequence, opening in the fall semester with an investigation of Italian art in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Students will concentrate on those artists whose works signal the transition from the Early to the High Renaissance, a brief period when Western culture finds a spectacular climax in the artistic productions of Florence, Rome and Venice, and when such work comes to be known, imported, emulated and revered throughout Western Europe and beyond. Primary sources, and above all the artistic biographies of Giorgio Vasari, will be complemented by modern and contemporary scholastic commentaries. Artists include Giotto, Duccio, Masaccio, Brunelleschi, Alberti, Donatello.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART223 Artistic Personality in the Renaissance II: The High Renaissance 3 cr.
In the second semester of Artistic Personality in the Renaissance, students undertake a detailed examination of the High Renaissance, the supreme moment of artistic achievement in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Primary sources, and above all the artistic biographies of Giorgio Vasari, will be complemented by modern and contemporary scholastic commentaries. Artists include Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Bramante, Raphael, the Bellini, Giorgione, Titian.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART226 Northern Renaissance Art 3 cr.
This course explores the art of the Netherlands, France, England, Bohemia, and Germany between about 1350 and 1560, focusing on the development of panel painting and portraiture, and on changes in subject matter, patronage, and the artist’s practice related to the Protestant Reformation. Modern debates about interpretation and the revelations of recent technical analyses will be brought to bear on the works of Claus Sluter, Jan Van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Petrus Christus, Hieronymous Bosch, Pieter Brughel, Albrecht Durer, Hans Holbein, and others.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART230 Italian Baroque Art 3 cr.
This course comprehensively investigates the Baroque style in painting, sculpture and architecture from its origins in Counter-Reformation Rome at the end of the Renaissance to its dissemination throughout Italy during the seventeenth century. The course identifies and places in context masterpieces of the Baroque and considers the transformation of the Baroque into what is known as the Rococo at the beginning of the nineteenth century, briefly considering nineteenth and twentieth centuries - American variations on Italian baroque themes.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART231 American Art and Visual Culture, 1600 to the present 3 cr.
A survey of American painting, architecture, sculpture, prints and photography from 1600 to the present, covering a wide range of movements including Early American Art, Native American Art, Civil War era photography, Gilded Age painting and architecture, the Ashcan School, Early American Modernism, Regionalism, Surrealism, and Abstract Expressionism. The course will include visits to local museums and institutions that house some of the finest collections of American art in the country, including the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Fogg Museum. We will examine style, technique, and iconography in their historical and cultural contexts, considering the political, social, and intellectual climates articulated in the arts, including systems of patronage and public reception.
Lecture/Seminar
All College Elective
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HART232 Seventeenth-Century Baroque Art 3 cr.
This course will examine the works of major artists in the seventeenth century in Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and France. The work of Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi, Bernini, Rubens, Rembrandt, Velazquez, Poussin, and others will be considered in the context of religion, politics, and patronage. Special emphasis will be placed on the widespread diffusion of Baroque trends, which was stimulated not only by ongoing artistic dialogues, but also trade, exploration, and colonization.
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART233 Northern Baroque Art 3 cr.
Art of Northern Europe in the seventeenth century. The course will emphasize the changing social and political contexts for the making of art, including the effects of exportation and colonization of the Americas. Stylistic continuities with Renaissance art, the influence of Italian art, and the adaptation of native American ideas will be considered.
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
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HART240 Art and Archeology of Ancient Mesoamerica 3 cr.
Students explore the arts and cultures of the Aztec, Maya and other ancient civilizations of Mexico and Guatemala from 3000 B.C. to the Spanish Conquest of 1521. Special emphasis is given to the formation of religious ideologies and to the processes of urbanization and state development and decline. The legacy of ancient Mesoamerica in modern and contemporary art and culture in the Americas also will be addressed.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART252 Survey of Japanese Art 3 cr.
Japanese culture has been taking and transforming diverse cultural elements from various traditions into its own. The unique art of Japan continues to inspire modern artists. This class is designed as a basic introduction to Japanese art from antiquity to the modern era. It is a chronologically organized survey of the canon of Japanese art, including ceramics, architecture, sculpture, painting, woodblock prints, and religious art. We will analyze the works of art and place the art in historical and social context. We examine how this unique tradition develops and changes through the ages and how this tradition interacts with other traditions of art.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART257 Islamic Art and Architecture 3 cr.
The creation of the Islamic arts has historically involved multiple factors, physical, conceptual, and social, which have shaped its character and meaning. With this in mind, the course will explore the art and architecture of Islam from its beginnings in seventh century Arabia through the early modern period under the rule of the Ottoman and Mughal dynasties (fifteenth to eighteenth centuries). It will address the role of medium, technique, visual program (how Islamic art is composed, placed and structured, whether on a page or in a building), and the temporal dimension - the impact of movement through time and space on the interpretation, development, and physical character of the Islamic arts. Attention will be given to the relationship of image and text. The agency of artist and patron, spirituality, politics, social identity, reception, display, and cultural exchange will also be primary areas of study. The cultural diversity within the Islamic world, which produced various artistic traditions, will be emphasized.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART260 Arts of Africa 3 cr.
Students examine royal, sacred and secular arts from Western, Central and Southern Africa in this survey course. The impact of the African Diaspora on belief systems and the arts in the United States, Brazil and Haiti also will be examined. The focus of study is on work in wood, metals, fibers, clay and body decoration and modification. Form, design, technique and what they reveal about women’s and men’s roles in the community will be examined.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART261 Contemporary African Art
This course will examine the work of contemporary artists from diverse situations, locations, and generations, both within Africa, and far beyond its borders. Critical texts will provide insight into the geopolitical, social and cultural complexities that inform the art of the past thirty years. Finally, the work produced by African artists in the twenty-first century will be situated in the sphere of global art.
Prerequisites: HART100
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HART270 Modernism in European Visual Culture, 1886-1936 3 cr.
This surveys major movements and theories of modernism in the European visual arts from the end of the nineteenth century to the 1930s.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART271 Nineteenth Century Art in Europe 3 cr.
A survey of the major artistic and cultural developments in European visual art and culture from the late eighteenth century to Impressionism.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART272 History of American Art Before the Civil War 3 cr.
This course will examine American art from the time of European settlement to the Civil War with special emphasis on political, social and cultural contexts. The course is both chronological and thematic. It focuses on major figures, such as John Singleton Copley, Benjamin West, Charles W. Peale, and Thomas Cole. It also focuses on issues such as the construction of an American identity, the role of the fine arts in American society, and the tensions of class, gender, race and ethnicity in American art. This course will combine slide lecture with discussion of secondary readings.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART273 American Architecture: From Thomas Jefferson to Frank Gehry 3 cr.
This course will trace the evolution of American architecture from the country’s earliest days to recent years. It will explore how national identity, landscape, and history have factored into the creation of a uniquely American architectural dialogue. The course will engage primary source texts and local sites to illustrate the nuances of important themes.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
All College Elective
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HART274 Early American Art 3 cr.
This course will focus on art and architecture in colonial and early America beginning with Native American Art up to the early nineteenth century, including artists such as John Singleton Copley, Joshua Johnston, Charles Willson Peale, Rembrandt Peale, Paul Revere, Gilbert Stuart John Trumbull, John Vanderlyn. The course will examine American art, architecture, decorative arts and visual culture from the period c. 1600 to c. 1825 from a variety of perspectives. This course will have at its center the question of how we read/should read works of art, and thus the varied course readings will range from traditional to more recent and even controversial methodological frameworks.
Lecture/Seminar
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HART280 Art Since 1945 3 cr.
Advanced study of the artists and issues of the visual arts since 1945, with emphasis on the arts of the 70s, 80s, and 90s.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART283 Russian Modernism 3 cr.
A survey of modern art and architecture in Russia
from the beginning of the twentieth
century. The course will explore issues of
national identity and cultural autonomy that
informed the emergence of modernism; the
postcolonial relationship to European art; the
tension between nationalism and internationalism,
and how the experiences of exile and diaspora
affect these feelings and the artistic
expressions
thereof; how artists respond to forces such as
imperialism, authoritarianism, and revolution;
and
how globalizing and transnational social,
economic
and political processes call into question the
notion of Latin American art. (Formerly
“Twentieth Century Russian Art”)
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
Spring
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HART284 Moving Pictures: Visual Language of Narrative Cinema: Techniques and Traditions 3 cr.
Concentrating on the visual language of film, this course will consider the pictorial traditions upon which the new medium draws, and out of which, to some extent, it can be said to grow. We will compare the composition of the standard modules of cinema, the shot and the scene, with precedents drawn from Western art history, from Greek vase paintings to Renaissance fresco cycles and nineteenth-century English narrative pictures. We will simultaneously consider what is unique to the new medium. Weekly examinations of film clips in order to illustrate traditional and non-traditional visual techniques of cinematic narrative will be complemented by wide-ranging readings and regular viewing and reviewing of full-length films. Following a brief history of the medium before the Second World War, we will identify and examine many of the traditional ways in which cinematic artists compose their visual narratives. We will then undertake an in-depth study of some of the major works of cinema since 1945, including films by Rossellini, Bresson, Hitchcock, the French New Wave directors and those of Das Neue Kino in Germany, and the American Independents.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART285 History of Photography 3 cr.
An introduction to the history of photography from the inventions of Daguerre and Fox Talbot to the twentieth century masters. The course addresses problems and issues arising from the different techniques of, and the interrelationships between, art, photography, science, and society.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART286 Modern Architecture 3 cr.
An investigation of the designed and built environment, from the end of the nineteenth century to the present day. This course examines the influence of technology, aesthetics, politics, social history and economics on modern architecture and urban planning, including the Chicago School, Art Nouveau, international modernism of the 1920s to the 1960s, Post-Modernism, Deconstructivism and worldwide contemporary theory and practice.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART287 Survey of Video Art, 1968-Present 3 cr.
In this course we trace the new answers and new questions formulated by selected video artists over the last forty years. Throughout the semester, we study these two trajectories thematically. Artists’ investigations of video-imaging tools, signal processing, recorders, magnetic tape, and cathode-ray tube screens may continue in surprising ways the modernist tradition of a medium’s self-reflexivity (and so offer new answers to existing questions). Alternatively, experimentation with audience behavior, criticism of broadcast television, and women’s use of video as a medium untainted by patriarchy amount to fresh areas of exploration (so, new questions). Students watch two hours of video each week in preparation for classroom discussion. In addition to viewing the works themselves, students analyze several kinds of written accounts-by artists, by art critics, and by art historians-surrounding video art practices from 1968 to the present.
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART294 Fashion History I 3 cr.
A survey of the history of costume from its beginnings as primitive adornment with skins, grasses, body paints, tattooing, and beads, to the extravagant fashions of the sixteenth Century through the Renaissance periods. Visual aids such as videos, slides, and pictorial references will help the student to explore the historical development of clothing, from draped classical garments to the elaborate structured clothing of the Spanish and English courts of the Northern Renaissance. Emphasis is placed on the influences of social, political, and economic conditions, and how these variables reflected an individual’s status, taste, and culture. Field trips to museums, vintage stores and other historical institutions are required in order to appreciate the three dimensional aspect of the way in which garments were made during specific periods. The quality of fabrics used, and body types that were typical of each period will be considered.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART295 Design History 3 cr.
This course will provide an overview of one hundred and sixty years of American and European decorative arts and design theory, beginning with the English Aesthetic Reform movement, covering Le Corbusier’s modernist coat of whitewash and the international style, and ending with contemporary designers and thinkers. The class will analyze furniture, ceramics, silver, architecture, clothing, and textiles using the design theories of such seminal figures as John Ruskin, William Morris, Owen Jones, Henri Van de Velde, Walter Gropius, Adolf Loos, and Le Corbusier. The time frame will encompass the nineteenth century historicist revivals, the Arts and Crafts movement, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, “purist” functionality, and the “modern.” Other themes that will be addressed are the art/craft divide, the origins of the unified interior, the dissemination of design theory to the broader public via the world’s fairs and the department store, and the attempt to develop “national” styles.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART297 Roots of Design History, 1650-1920 3 cr.
This course examines the history of designed
objects, largely furnishings, inclusive of
industrial design and graphic design, handicraft
and automation. The industrial revolution changed
the domestic sphere as much as the conditions of
labor. The increase in mass- produced and
accessible goods (and in ownership) is often
referred to in shorthand as ‘democratization’ and
as a characteristic component of the American
experience. IKEA and Philippe Starck employ the
phrase ‘democratic design’ and DIY practitioners
use it to stake out their independence from
corporations. Can we also use this perspective to
evaluate the proliferation of such things as
newspapers, clocks, mantelpiece statuary, chairs,
ice cream bowls and sardine forks between 1650
and 1920? (Formerly American Design, 1650- 1920)
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture
All College Elective
Spring
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HART300 Art of Ancient Iraq 3 cr.
The arts of the ancient Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian cultures of Mesopotamia (Iraq) from the eighth millennium BC through the fall of the Babylonian Empire in 539 BC. Emphasis is on the interpretation of art objects as evidence for such historical, social, and cultural developments as urbanism, social stratification, the institutionalization of religion, imperialism, and international commerce.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART301 Art of Ancient Egypt 3 cr.
Survey of the visual culture of ancient Egypt from the Predynastic period (ca. 5000 B.C.) until the end of the New Kingdom (ca. 1000 B.C.). Emphasis is on major examples of architecture, sculpture, and painting viewed in their historical, political, social, economic, and religious contexts. The class looks at the methods and goals of archaeological work in Egypt and how these have shaped contemporary views of the ancient culture.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART302 Egypt of the Pharaohs
Intensive study of the visual culture of ancient Egypt from the Predynastic through Roman periods (ca. 5000 to 0 B.C.). Visits to major sites and museums in Egypt will be accompanied by lectures on their historical, political, social, economic, and religious significance. Students are encouraged to make connections between the sights seen and their own research and visual interests. SEE TRAVEL COURSE SECTION FOR OFFICIAL REGISTRATION PROCEDURES. TRAVEL TO EGYPT REQUIRED.
Prerequisites: HART100
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HART304 Maya: Archaeology and Community (travel course) 3 cr.
While the cities built by the ancient Maya of Guatemala are among the most sophisticated and widely studied archaeological sites in the world, the enduring culture of their descendents, the living Maya, often goes unrecognized. During this semester-long academic course on the archaeology and culture of the Maya, students will spend Spring Break in Guatemala visiting archaeological and cultural heritage sites, meeting local artists, and engaging in service-learning projects with Maya communities. Students will enrich their study of ancient Maya art and culture with an invaluable opportunity to live and work among Maya communities of today. Admission by application only.
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
Travel Course; By Application
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HART311 Materials and Methods in Medieval Art 3 cr.
This course will examine the broad range of materials used to create works of art during the Middle Ages, the techniques used and the thinking that underpinned medieval ideas about artists, art works and the process of artistic creation. Attention will be given to a variety of artistic media produced during the Middle Ages from monumental architecture, stone sculpture and wall painting, to manuscript illumination, textiles and metal work.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
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HART320 Villas and Gardens of the Italian Renaissance 3 cr.
An investigation of the architecture of leisure in Renaissance Italy, from the early Humanist villas of the powerful Medici family to the farm-villa complexes designed by Palladio in the sixteenth century. Gardens and villas are considered in their role as purveyors of the economic, social and political power of the elite, and in relation to ancient literary and archeological sources and Renaissance design theory. Examples include the Medici villa at Fiesole, Palazzo Te in Mantua, Palazzo Farnese at Caprarola and Villa d’Este at Tivoli.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART331 Seventeenth Century Dutch Painting 3 cr.
The focus of this course is the paintings and culture of the Dutch Republic during its “Golden Age” : 1600-1675. Topics to be considered in detail include Dutch Mannerism; the school of Utrecht; Hals and developments around him in Haarlem; Rembrandt and the Rembrandt Research Project; associates, pupils and followers of Rembrandt; Vermeer, the School of Delft and other genre painters; and Ruisdael, Hobbema and landscape painting. Emphasis is also given to Dutch painting in the following contexts: Dutch capitalism and the growth of Dutch wealth in the early Golden Age; the open market situation of Dutch “patronage”; Dutch work ethic Protestantism; and the greatness of Dutch lens-making as an aspect of Dutch science. Some of the following topics may also be considered: the “twilight” of the Golden Age 1675-1725; sources of the French Rococo in seventeenth-century Dutch painting; sources of eighteenth century English painting in Dutch realism. This course was formerly titled Northern Baroque Art.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART340 Mayan Art and Archaeology 3 cr.
An intensive study of the ancient Maya of Mexico and Guatemala, creators of magnificent sculpture, architecture, painting and ceramics. Students will examine the origins of the Maya, their calendars, writing and artistic traditions, trace the history of the major Maya cities and investigate the decline of Classic Maya art and civilization. The course concludes with the study of modern Maya culture and political issues.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART341 Native American Art and Culture 3 cr.
An examination of issues in the history of Native North America using architecture and art from the diverse societies of the region. Students confront questions of tradition, identity, authenticity, and display of sacred objects in the museum setting through understanding the social and religious use of art in a number of different Native American communities. Students also study the biographies of Native American artists, past and present.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART346 Australian Art 3 cr.
This course will examine aspects of visual art and architecture produced on the Australian continent before, during and after the colonial era. In addition to questions of style, meaning and technique, attention will be placed on the question of identity: what do terms such as Australian, Aboriginal, western, non-western mean in the context of contemporary Australia, its history and artistic culture.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
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HART347 Renaissance Splendor: Venice + Mantua
An on-site, comprehensive examination of the painting, sculpture and architecture produced during the Golden Age of Venice, the Veneto and southern Lombardy, 1200-1800. There will be a classroom component at MassArt, in which students will discuss relevant art historical texts and learn conversational Italian. Beginning with a week-long stay in the great city itself, we will study the evolution of Venetian culture from its origins as an outpost of the Byzantine Empire to its rise as the greatest and most enduring republic the world has ever known, as well as one of the richest and most magnetic artistic centers in Europe. After seven days in Venice, we will leave for Mantua, stopping first in the foothills of the Alps to view Palladio’s Villa Barbaro, and then at Padua to view the frescoes by Giotto in the Arena Chapel, which for many mark the beginning of the Renaissance. In Mantua we will study the architecture of Alberti, the frescoes by Mantegna in the Ducal Palace, and finally, the tour-de-force of Renaissance pleasure construction, Giulio Romano’s Palazzo Te. SEE TRAVEL COURSE SECTION FOR OFFICIAL REGISTRATION PROCEDURES. TRAVEL TO ITALY REQUIRED.
Prerequisites: HART100
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HART355 Survey of Chinese Art 3 cr.
The long tradition of Chinese art is an important part of human aesthetic experience and a part of the cultural heritage of every modern woman and man in the global family. This class is a chronologically organized survey of the canon of Chinese art, including ceramic, jade, bronze, sculpture, architecture, garden, furniture, calligraphy, painting, and religious art. This survey is meant to provide a historical perspective on the works of art in their historical and social context over the centuries in China and to introduce the students to a repertoire of usable methods of approach to art. The concept of “China” itself is culturally constructed. Students in this class will be asked to think and examine critically how the works of art under the label “Chinese”. constitute a special tradition and how this tradition develops, changes, and interacts with other traditions of art through the ages.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART373 Architecture of Boston 3 cr.
This course will explore the evolution of Boston’s architectural landscape from colonial times to the mid-twentieth century. Challenging the common adage that “Boston’s streets were laid out by cows,” the course will identify the local geographical, industrial, and social factors that uniquely shaped Boston’s development, and will situate the city’s growth within the context of larger national trends. Topics will include individual neighborhoods, as well as celebrated architects like Charles Bulfinch, H.H. Richardson, and Ralph Adams Cram. Primary-source texts and local site visits will supplement in-class mastery of material.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
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HART375 Landscape: Space and Place in Art 1600-2000 3 cr.
Focusing on how artists have engaged with their environment from the eighteenth century through the twentieth, this class will subject the subject matter of landscape to close scrutiny. This class will look at parallel developments in Europe and America, and will consider how various stylistic movements in eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century painting, as well as photography, graphic arts and even sculpture have reacted to the significance of space and place, and humankind’s impact on the land. Through regular reading assignments, student presentations and research projects, students will track their own relationship to the land, the city and the environment in which we live.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART377 History of Printmaking 3 cr.
A history of the invention and development of printmaking techniques through the study of the work of major historical and contemporary artists. Material is drawn primarily from Western traditions and includes cross-cultural influences.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART378 Modern Mexican Art 3 cr.
This course is a general survey of the main developments of Modern Mexican art in its social, economic, and political contexts. It runs from the late eighteenth century founding of the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City to the major movements of the 1960s, including La Ruptura. This includes discussion of easel painting, mural painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, popular arts and cinema. The final lectures focus on art that offers a critique of Muralism and on Chicano art, which continues an ancient tradition of discourse between Mexico and North America. Particular attention is given to the Muralist movement and the works of Posada, Herran, Rivera, Siquieros, Orozco, Tamayo and Kahlo.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
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HART379 Colonial Latin American Art 3 cr.
This course will survey the art produced in Latin America during the colonial period, an era that began with the arrival of Cortes in Mexico in 1519 and ended in the nineteenth century when Spain and Portugal lost the last of their American territories. Students will examine the art produced during this period in the context of both preexisting indigenous traditions and contemporary European trends. In particular the class will focus on how indigenous art forms and concepts were able to persist amidst dominating colonial forces.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
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HART382 Painting and Sculpture in the USA 1900-1950. 3 cr.
This course will survey the most significant achievements in painting and sculpture from the Ashcan School to the origins and early development of abstract expressionism. Emphasis will be given to the relationships between American modernism and its European sources as well as to the more-or-less constant presence of realism in American art. The instructor will prepare a reader for the course which will include scholarship of monographic focus as well as selections from such classic studies about the period as Milton W. Brown’s “American Painting from the Armory Show” to the Depression, Abraham A. Davidson’s “Early American Modernist Painting 1910-1935,” and Irving Sandler’s “The Triumph of American Painting.” A special feature of the course will be the inclusion of assignments in American literature of specific pertinence. Selections from Hart Crane’s “The Bridge” will be studied in relation to visual representations of the Brooklyn Bridge by Joseph Stella and Sherwood Anderson’s “Winesburg Ohio” will be read in conjunction with the paintings of Charles Burchfield.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART386 Communication Design History 3 cr.
The history of communication design, from the Industrial Revolution to the present, with selected references to pre-industrial developments. The course investigates diverse languages and technologies of visual communication to help students understand their own role as producers and/or consumers of communication design.
Prerequisites: HART100
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART391 Rome: Glorious and Notorious
Rome: Glorious and Notorious (From Rome to Venice) Enrollment by application only. See travel course section for official registration procedures. This on-site course provides students with a profound educational experience, placing them in a long tradition of artist-travelers and nascent scholars living and working in the Eternal City and the Serene Republic. Immersed in the culture of ancient and post-imperial Rome, students examine at first-hand a breathtaking variety of monuments and works of art, including many not generally accessible to the public. The course then moves to Venice, where the legacy of Rome, transformed as the Byzantine Empire, gave rise to another great culture, and also established, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a “rival Renaissance,”. under the auspices of its myriad artists and architects.
Prerequisites: HART100
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HART400 Directed Study in Art History 3 cr.
Directed Study is designed to provide students
with the opportunity to pursue an independent
research project in a Liberal Arts and History of
Art area. Typically, the end result of this
project would be a research paper of 30 plus
pages, or the equivalent, as agreed upon by the
faculty member supervising the project. A
Directed Study is a 3-credit course. Because of
their advanced nature, Directed Studies Courses
are open only to seniors, and are limited to one
per semester. No more than two Directed Studies
may be counted toward degree requirements. You
must fill out and return a Directed Study form
with a complete description of the project
including a bibliography, and a description of
the final project. You must also register for
Directed Study.
Prerequisites: By Permission of Instructor
Fall/Spring
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HART403 Archaeological Theory and Practice 3 cr.
An introduction to applied archaeology as a preparation for participation in an archeological excavation. Investigation of archeological theory including history, purposes, goals, and ethics of excavation.
Prerequisites: HART100 and any 200 or 300 level HART course
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART404 Protection of Cultural Heritage 3 cr.
Examination of the forces that threaten the world’s shared artistic, architectural, and archaeological heritage, and discussion of the practical and theoretical responses to deal with these threats. Class readings and discussion will focus on threats from looting, collecting, museums, and armed conflict. For Art History majors only.
Prerequisites: HART100 and any 200 or 300 level HART course
Lecture/Seminar
Departmental Elective
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HART411 Gothic Architecture: Great Cathedrals of Europe Great Cathedrals of Europe 3 cr.
An in-depth look at the medieval Gothic architecture of Europe, focusing on selected cathedrals from the earliest examples around twelfth century Paris to the fanciful stonework and towering spires of fifteenth century England and Central Europe. Following an overview of the period and its monuments, students will undertake individual research projects with the professor’s guidance, and will share their progress and conclusions with one another. The course is designed to provide students with tools for professional and/or graduate work in the field of art history. Preference will be given to History of Art majors.
Prerequisites: HART100 and any 200 or 300 level HART course
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART412 Seminar: Monumental Images in Medieval Art 3 cr.
This course will consider the large-scale sculpture, wall painting, and stained glass created for medieval architectural settings in Europe between about 1100 and 1400. The course will begin with an overview of materials and techniques and of common iconographic themes such as the Last Judgment, the passage of time, beasts and gargoyles, Biblical interpretation, and the Life of Christ. The ways in which these images were deployed in architectural settings, the effect of that architecture on one’s ability or inability to see images, and the meanings that might be read into the interaction of image and space will be ongoing themes in the course. Students will explore different methodologies that art historians have used to interpret medieval art in professional journals and recent books, and will produce a major research paper with the guidance of the instructor.
Prerequisites: HART100 and any 200 or 300 level HART course
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
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HART440 Seminar: When Worlds Collide: Aztecs at the Conquest and Beyond 3 cr.
The 1521 Spanish conquest of the Aztec of Mexico forged a new world from a monumental collision of religions, philosophies and visual cultures. Through critical reading, research and oral and written presentation of 10-12 page papers, students in this seminar explore the power and paradoxes of Aztec civilization before and in the wake of conquest through examination of Aztec art and documentary sources including pictorial manuscripts and codices, sculpture, painting and architecture. Students also analyze first-hand accounts, memoirs and philosophical treatises recording Spanish conquistadors’ and clergies’ ambivalent responses to Aztec culture, to its sophistication and to its seeming barbarity. The influence of Aztec art on modernism in Mexico, North America and Europe also will be a focus of student discussion and research.
Prerequisites: HART100 and any 200 or 300 level HART course; Art of Mesoamerica and/or Maya Art &Architecture (recommended, not required)
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART451 Seminar on Chinese Calligraphy and Literati Painting 3 cr.
In Chinese conception, calligraphy and painting are closely related to poetry. Many literati engage in two or all three of these arts. Theories of calligraphy and painting developed along parallel lines with those of poetry. Treatises on these arts use similar or even identical concepts, terms, and images that are closely related to Chinese concepts on Nature. In 687, Sun Qianli described different scripts of calligraphy are “sometimes heavy like threatening clouds and sometimes light like cicada wings; when the brush moves, water flows from a spring, and when the brush stops, a mountain stands firm.”. Zhao Mengfu (1254 - 1322) claimed that when he paints, “Rocks like Flying White; tree like the Great Seal script; the sketching of bamboos should include the Eight Strokes of calligraphic technique.”. This seminar focuses on the sophisticated written literature and the canonical works of Chinese calligraphy and literati painting. Students will read and discuss important ancient Chinese treatises (in English translation), perform book review on modern scholarships on Chinese calligraphy and painting, and write individual research papers (10-12 pages) and present their papers to the class. This course also includes a hands-on Chinese calligraphy and ink-monochrome painting workshop.
Prerequisites: HART100 and any 200 or 300 level HART course
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART455 Cultural Crossings: China and Japan after 1840 3 cr.
This seminar is a critical examination of the visual cultures created in China and Japan after the events of the Opium War and Matthew Perry encounters. The visual cultural crossing between the West and East and between China and Japan is an important part of the developing inter-civilizations in the global age.
Prerequisites: HART100 and any 200 or 300 level HART course
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART481 Topics in Contemporary Art 3 cr.
An advanced-level research seminar with intensive focus on a topic in contemporary art.
Prerequisites: HART100 and any 200 or 300 level HART course
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART484 Seminar: The American Scene, 1930-1950 3 cr.
American Art of the 1930s and 1940s, including Regionalism, Social Realism, the Federal Art Project and the Mural Movement both in the US and Mexico. Using a variety of perspectives, we will examine art that was labeled as “American Scene,” and will discuss and problematize that very categorization. Through an examination of 1930s politics, Depression-era America, European modernism, cultural nationalism, and racialism, we will investigate the age-old question: “What is American about American Art?” and will look at artists who wanted to create a national art as well as those who resisted such an impulse. Artists include: John Stuart Curry, Grant Wood, Diego Rivera, Aaron Douglas, Charles Burchfield, Reginald Marsh, Jacob Lawrence, Thomas Hart Benton, Stuart Davis, Frida Kahlo, Jose Clemente Orozco, Romare Bearden, Andrew Wyeth, David Alfaro Siquieros, and Edward Hopper. The course will combine discussions with visits to local museums.
Prerequisites: HART100 and any 200 or 300 level HART course
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART486 Seminar: Topics in Modern Art 3 cr.
Photographic technologies and modernism in the 1920s and 30s. During the years between the end of World War 1 and the beginning of World War II, avant-garde groups and modern artists, theorists and critics, eagerly explored the artistic and cultural promises of photography and film for a new vision of art. Their accomplishments and ideas continue to inspire and influence artists in the twenty-first century. In this course we will study European (mostly) and American developments, ranging from Constructivism and the Bauhaus, Brancusi’s use of photography, Surrealism, the Film and Photo League, and the writings of Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Kracauer. Students will write research papers and give presentations on their work to the class.
Prerequisites: HART100 and any 200 or 300 level HART course
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART490 The Methodologies of the History of Art 3 cr.
This seminar explores the different ways of seeing, thinking, and writing about art and the history of art. Topics include: art historical narratives, history of form and style, iconology, psychology and art, biography and autobiography of artists, sociopolitical histories of art, gendered histories of art, semiotics— structuralism and deconstruction, post-colonialism, and museology. Students are exposed to the problems of why art changes over time, the hermeneutic challenge to interpret the meaning of arts of various cultures, and how art historians’ own perspectives shape the narratives of the history of art.
Prerequisites: HART100 and any 200 or 300 level HART course
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
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HART491 Seminar: Topics in the History of Art History 3 cr.
Today there are numerous approaches to the thinking and writing of art history each claiming, or implicitly assuming, greater validity than its rivals. The inquisitive student might very well ask “how did this situation come about?” Further curiosity might lead to the question “what is art history, really?” In this course we will not aim primarily to answer the second, ultimate question, which would entail philosophical approaches to our subject. We will, however, come closer to answering the first question. Our approach to art history will be itself historical. Throughout its history and development art history has been many things; that is, art history’s axioms, or basic assumptions, have varied greatly throughout its history, and the multiple “varieties” of older art history underlie the art histories of the present day. In order to study the history of art history effectively we will read with extreme care examples of art historical writings from the past 125 years in order to penetrate to the level of the writers’ assumptions about what constitutes art historical understanding.
Prerequisites: HART100 and any 200 or 300 level HART course
Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
Senior Elective
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HART586 Modern and Contemporary Architecture History and Theory 3 cr.
An in-depth examination of world architecture and urban planning from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present. Students will become familiar with the major formal and structural systems of world architecture of the last two centuries, and will examine the ways in which politics, economics, patronage and technology, as well as issues relating to sustainability, have influenced the modern and contemporary built world. In addition, students will become conversant in the literature of criticism and theory of the period in question. The format of the course is lecture/discussion, and features a substantial writing component, in which students will be responsible for exam essays, written responses to readings, and a cogent critique of a building and/or urban design.
Lecture/Seminar
Graduate Course
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