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Fall 2008 Course List

V43.0001(.001-004)    History of Western Art I  

MW    11:00-12:15  
Professor Connelly
Identical to V65.0001. Students who have taken V43.0100 or V43.0200 will not receive credit for this course. Given every semester. 4 points.

Introduction to the history of painting, sculpture, and architecture from ancient times to the dawn of the Renaissance, emphasizing the place of the visual arts in the history of civilization. Includes the study of significant works in New York museums, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cloisters, and the Brooklyn Museum.

 V43.0001.005 Recitation:  Honors
 M 9:30-10:45 302
 V43.0001.006
 Recitation:  Section 1  W 9:30-10:45
 302
 V43.0001.007 Recitation:  Section 2
 W
 2:00-3:15
 302
 V43.0001.008  Recitation:  Section 3  F 12:30-1:45  302
 V43.0001.009  Recitation:  Section 4  F 2:00-3:15  302
 V43.0001.010  Recitation:  Honors 5  F 3:30-4:45
 302
*HONORS SECTION -- GPA OF 3.5 OR HIGHER AND PERMISSION OF THE DEPARTMENT REQUIRED

V43.0002(.001-005)    History of Western Art II   

TR    11:00-12:15 
Professor Leader

V43.0002  Students who have taken V43.0300 or V43.0400 will not receive credit for this course. Given every semester. 4 points.

Introduction to the history of painting, sculpture, and architecture from the early Renaissance to the present day. Includes the study of significant works in New York museums, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick Collection, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art.


 V43.0002.006
 Recitation: Honors
 T 2:00-3:15
 302
 V43.0002.007 Recitation: Section 1
 T 3:30-4:45  302
 V43.0002.008
 Recitation: Section 2
 T 12:30-1:45 TBD
 V43.0002.009
 Recitation: Section 3
 M 11:00-12:15 302
 V43.0002.010
 Recitation: Section 4
 W 3:30-4:45 302
 V43.0002.011
 Recitation: Section 5  W 4:45-6:10 302
*HONORS SECTION -- GPA OF 3.5 OR HIGHER AND PERMISSION OF THE DEPARTMENT REQUIRED

V43.0003    Ancient Art

MW 4:55-6:10
Professor Roth
Formerly V43.0100.  Students who have taken V43.0001 will not receive credit for this course. Given periodically. 4 points.

History of art in the Western tradition from 20,000 B.C. to the 4th century A.D. From the emergence of human beings in the Paleolithic Age to the developments of civilization in the Near East, Egypt, and the Aegean; the flowering of the Classical Age in Greece; and the rise of the Roman Empire to the beginnings of Christian domination under the Emperor Constantine in the 4th century A.D. Study of the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum is essential.

V43.0004    Medieval Art 

MW    12:30-1:45
Professor Smith
Formerly V43.0200. Identical to V65.0200. Students who have taken V43.0001 will not receive credit for this course. Given periodically. 4 points.

Art of Western civilization between Constantine and the Renaissance (300 to 1500 in northern Europe, 1400 in Italy). Topics: Christian beliefs underlying medieval art; acceptance and rejection of classical tradition and the roles of non-classical traditions in medieval art; stylistic transformations in medieval art in the context of medieval society; development of abbey and cathedral, monumental sculpture and painting, mosaics, stained glass, and fresco, as well as manuscript illumination, ivories, metalwork, and panel painting.

V43.0005    Renaissance Art 

MW   4:55-6:10
Professor Schneider
Formerly V43.0300. Identical to V65.0333. Students who have taken V43.0002 will not receive credit for this course. Given every other year. 4 points.

The Renaissance, like classical antiquity and the Middle Ages, is a major era of Western civilization embracing a multitude of styles. It is, however, held together by basic concepts that distinguish it from other periods. Main developments of Renaissance art both in Italy and north of the Alps: the Early and High Renaissance; relation to the lingering Gothic tradition; and Mannerism. Emphasis is placed on the great masters of each phase. The survival of Renaissance traditions in Baroque and Rococo art is examined in art and architecture.

V43.0006    Modern Art 

MW    9:30-10:45
Professor Brown
Formerly V43.0400. Students who have taken V43.0002 will not receive credit for this course. Given every year. 4 points.

Art in the Western world from the late 18th century to the present. The Neoclassicism and Romanticism of David, Goya, Ingres, Turner, Delacroix; the Realism of Courbet; the Impressionists; parallel developments in architecture; and the new sculptural tradition of Rodin. From postimpressionism to Fauvism, Expressionism, Futurism, Cubism, geometric abstraction in sculpture and painting, and modernism in architecture in the 20th century. After World War I, Dadaism and Surrealism. Developments since 1945, such as Action painting, Pop art, Minimal art, and numerous strands of Postmodernism.

V43.0102    Archaic and Classical Art: Greek and Etruscan 

MW    3:30-4:45
Professor Connelly

Formerly V43.0102.  Identical to V27.0312. Prerequisite: V43.0001, V43.0100, or permission of the instructor. Given every other year. 4 points.

Greek and Etruscan art from the 7th century through the 4th century B.C., including the orientalizing and archaic styles, the emergence of the classical style, changes in art and life in the 4th century, and the impact of Macedonian court art under the conquests of Alexander the Great. Studies architecture, sculpture, and vase painting within their historical and cultural contexts. Includes study of the Metropolitan Museum of Art collections.

V43.0103    Hellenistic and Roman Art 

MW    12:30-1:45
Professor Boozer

Formerly V43.0103  Identical to V27.0313. Prerequisite: V43.0001, V43.0100, or permission of the instructor. Given every other year. 4 points.

Traces developments in art from the conquests of Alexander the Great to the beginnings of Christian domination under Constantine in the 4th century A.D. Includes Macedonian court art; the spread of Hellenistic culture from Greece to the Indus Valley; the art of the Ptolemaic, Attalid, and Seleucid kingdoms; the expansion of Rome in the western Mediterranean; and the art of the Roman Empire. Special emphasis on problems of chronology, choice of styles, and copies. Study of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Brooklyn Museum collections essential.

V43.0201    Art of the Early Middle Ages  

MW    3:30-4:45
Professor Smith

Formerly V43.0201  Identical to V65.0201. Prerequisite: V43.0001, V43.0200, or permission of the instructor. Given every other year. 4 points.

The art of Christian Europe and Asia Minor from the emergence of Christian representation through the Carolingian period (ca. 200-950). Considers early medieval art, East and West, including developments of the Early Christian, Early Byzantine, Merovingian, and Carolingian periods. Topics include sources of medieval art in the late classical world; acceptance, rejection, and revival of the classical tradition; the development of a Christian “image language” and architectural forms; funerary arts and the development of the cult of saints; relations between word and image; and iconoclasm and debates about the role of art in Christianity.

V43.0306    Early Masters of Italian Renaissance Painting  

TR    11:00-12:15
Professor Geronimus

Formerly V43.0306  Identical to V65.0306. Prerequisite: V43.0002, V43.0300, or permission of the instructor. Given every other year. 4 points.

Achievements of the chief painters of the 15th century studied through their major artistic commissions. Special attention is given to the Tuscan tradition. A brief introduction to Giotto and his time provides background for the paintings of Masaccio and his artistic heirs (Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Piero della Francesca, et al.). Topics include the role of pictorial narrative, perspective, and mimesis; the major techniques of Renaissance painting; and the relationship of painting to the other visual arts. In the later 15th century, social and cultural changes generated by power shifts from Medici Florence to papal Rome also affected art patronage, creating new tensions and challenges for artists and fostering the emergence of new modes of visualization.

V43.0309    Italian Art in the Age of the Baroque  

TR    9:30-10:45
Professor L. Rice

Identical to V65.0309. Prerequisite: V43.0002, V43.0300, or permission of the instructor. Given every other year. 4 points.

Topics include the new realism and eclecticism of the three Carraccis and Caravaggio in Bologna and Rome shortly after 1580; other members of the Bolognese school after 1600; the peak of the Baroque style associated with Pope Urban VIII in the sculpture of G. L. Bernini. Rome as the art capital of Baroque Europe and the diversity of its international community; Neoclassical trends; the art of Poussin and Claude Lorrain.

V43.0350.001    Special Topics: Rome: Bio of a City  

TR    3:30-4:45
Professor L. Rice

Rome wasn't built in a day: it is a city shaped and reshaped over time. The course will look at Rome as both a place and an idea. We will trace the history, mythology, and physical evolution of the city from its origins to the present day, mapping changes and developments to the urban fabric over time. Above all, we will consider how the city has continually renewed itself, creating its future out of its past. Some of the themes we will discuss include: time and movement as key concepts in Roman urbanism; the self-referential re-use of the past (revival or rivalry?); the impact of shifting religions and politics; the evolution of maps and the visualization of the city; and the idea of Rome as the center of the world. Our readings and discussions will touch on history, religion, literature, music, art, architecture, and urbanism.

Because this course does not satisfy the departmental distribution requirement, art history majors are advised that they may take it for elective credit only.

V43.0350.002    Northern Renaissance Art 1500-1600   

MW    2:00-3:15
Professor Croizat

V43.0450.002    Cubism to Abstract Expressionism  

MW    2:00-3:15
Professor Karmel

V43.0450.004    Post-Modernism  

MW    11:00-12:15
Professor Nugent

V43.0450.006    Museums and the Art Market  

MW    11:00-12:15
Professor Basilio

This course will provide an overview of the history and theory of museums and the art market. It will present a series of lectures and case studies exploring issues including the birth of the museum, the role played by world's fairs and biennials, the impact of collectors, the art market, and gallery system. Throughout the class, we will make use of museums, galleries and auction houses in New York.

V43.0450.007    The Social History of Photography  

TR    11:00-12:15
Professor S. Rice

This class will chronicle the history of photography’s complex and symbiotic relationship to the other visual arts: painting sculpture, architechture, installation and performance, among others. Beginning with the medium’s invention and the early fights of its practitioners to establish themselves as fine artists, the course will describe photographers’ unique attempts to negotiate their relationships with both artistic movements and the media culture of which they are a part. Robinson, Cameron, Emerson, F. Holland Day, Stieglitz, Moholy-Nagy, Rodchenko, Weston, Alvarez Bravo, Lartigue, De Carava, Cahun, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus and Cindy Sherman (among others) will be seen within the context of their respective art worlds, so the impact of art movements, cultural attitudes and new technologies on photographers during different historical periods can be assessed.

V43.0450.008    The Photographic Imaginary  

W    3:30-6:10
Professor Meltzer

V43.0433    Towards a Critical Vocabulary of Photography  

T    2:00-5:00
Professor S. Rice
Formerly V43.0450

This class takes as its main emphasis the analysis and synthesis of visual and written information. The readings include essays by Roland Barthes, Donna Harraway and Frederick Jameson as well as articles or excerpts by Thomas Kuhn, Mircea Eliade and John Berger; also included are The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Black Elk Speaks, Amin Malouf's Murderous Identities and Deborah Willis' Picturing Us. This mixture of topics and issues is designed to broaden students' understanding of important concerns in philosophy, art history, science, literature, and psychology that are relevant to photography. Class time is spent in analysis of these texts in relation to historical and contemporary pictures.

V43.0510    East Asian Art I: China, Korea, Japan to 1000 CE  

TR    2:00-3:15
Professor Liu
Formerly V43.0091.001

V43.0540   Art in the Islamic World I: From the Prophet to the Mongols  

TR    12:30-1:45
TBD

V43.0550.002    Arts of Africa  

TR    3:30-4:45
Professor Mount

V43.0601    History of Architecture from Antiquity to the Present 

MW    9:30-10:45   
Professor Krinsky

Formerly V43.0019.  Given every spring. 4 points.

See description under this department’s subheading, “Urban Design and Architecture Studies Required Courses.”

V43.0661    Shaping the Urban Environment   

TR    2:00-3:15  
Professor Broderick

Formerly V43.0021. Identical to V99.0320. Given every fall. 4 points.

See description under this department’s subheading, “Urban Design and Architecture Studies Required Courses.”

V43.0650    Special Topics: Layers of the City

F    11:00-1:45
Professor LaValva
Formerly V43.0850

The class will consist of a set of walks where we will look at buildings, streets, neighborhoods, infrastructure, and sharpen our sense of observation as we unravel what these inanimate things have to tell us about how cities are formed.  We will learn to make our interpretations of what we see without fear of being "wrong" or incorrect, because there is always something to be gained from educated and thoughtful supposition.  We will also discover the pleasure of referring to maps, views and panoramas, city council minutes, prints, and other primary and secondary sources to piece together a deeper understanding of what we observe.
 

V43.0663    History of City Planning; 19th and 20th centuries

TR    9:30-10:45
Professor Ritter
Formerly V43.0861. Identical to V18.0769. Prerequisite V43.0661 or permission of the program director. Given periodically.

Examines the history of cities and urban design in Europe and the United States since 1800. Students can expect both a survey of city planning history and detailed consideration of specific issues. Examines social, political, and economic factors affecting modern cities, including industrialization, housing, hygiene, transportation, social reform, recreation, and infrastructure. Students will also learn about cultural and aesthetic debates about style, monumentality, and diversity in cities. Field trips to notably planned sites in and near New York City. Readings include primary sources and recent interpretations.

V43.0670    Decision-Making and Urban Design

M    12:30-3:15
Professor Morgan
Formerly V43.0032.  Identical to V99.0321. Prerequisite: V43.0021 or permission of the program director. Given every year. 4 points.

The impact and limitations of private and public decision-making power on urban design and architecture. City architecture in light of the values and priorities set by a society. Recognition of citizens’ groups as increasingly important factors in city planning and related changes. Critically evaluates the complexity of decision making and historical circumstances as related to the built urban environment on the basis of historical and modern American and European examples.


V43.0671    Architecture in Context

R     4:55-7:25
Professor White
Formerly V43.0039  Prerequisites: V43.0021 and permission of the program director. 4 points.

Explores issues arising from relatively small-scale designs, including new structures and interventions to existing structures, which must relate to existing well-defined contexts of the sort found throughout New York City. Students are given the chance to think about, discuss, create, and present designs that recognize and work with their contexts. Focus on typical New York City building types, including townhouses, additions to existing structures, adaptive reuse of residential structures for institutional use, streetscape improvements, and urban parks.

V43.0672    Environmental Design: Issues and Methods 

M    6:20-8:50
Professor Phifer
Previously listed as V43.0034. Identical to V99.0322. Prerequisite: V43.0021 or permission of the program director. Given every year. 4 points

On the basis of selected topics, examines the manifold technological considerations that affect urban building and urban environmental quality in the city of today. Topics include the specifics of power supply, heating, lighting, ventilation, internal traffic (vertical and horizontal), pollution control, and other topics of immediate significance. Focuses on the potentials of technology to resolve urban environmental problems.

V43.0673    Urban Design: Infrastructure

W    6:20-8:50
Professor Haff
Formerly V43.0036  Formerly known as Urban Design and Health. Prerequisites: V43.0021 and permission of the program director. To be given every year. 4 points.

This course serves as a laboratory for the investigation of New York City’s infrastructure, using the definition of the word as a point of departure. In what ways can the city be perceived as a collective undertaking, whose intricate components are interwoven in continuous strands? What are the systems and forces that give the city and its neighborhoods their current form, and what influences their future shape? To what degree can these systems be themselves dissected, and what do these analyses tell us about the relationship of the city to both its inhabitants and the wider environment? Through lectures, reading assignments, discussions, and field trips we investigate some of the major components of the city’s infrastructure, such as the street grid, water supply, waste disposal, and the subway system.

V43.0676    Drawing for Architects and Others

W    6:20-8:50
Professor Benardete
Formerly V43.0040  Prerequisite: Permission of the director of the Urban Design program is required. 2 points.

This is a basic drawing course intended to teach students to perceive: to record manually what is in front of them without relying on formulaic methods of drawing perspective, volumetrics, etc. Students are encouraged to examine proportion, scale, light, shade, and texture; as well as means of expression, the nature and essence of objects, various media, and issues of graphic composition. The course assists students in creating a comprehensive series of drawings and in building a portfolio.


Senior Seminar

Permission of the director of undergraduate studies required. Open to departmental majors who have completed five 4-point art history courses. Given every fall and spring. 4 points.

Exposure in small group discussion format to historical/critical problem(s) of particular present concern to the faculty member offering the seminar. Requires oral report(s) and/or a substantial paper.

V43.0800.001    Senior Seminar 1: Arts of Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages

R    11:00-1:45
Professor Kornfeld

This seminar will examine the phenomenon of pilgrimage in Western Europe and the Holy Land, from early Christian times through the thirteenth century, through the study of texts, buildings and artifacts associated with specific saints, cults and pilgrimages sites. We will explore pilgrimage both from the modern perspectives of historians, art historians and anthropologists, and through the first-hand experience of medieval participants as revealed in the visual evidence and in original textual sources such as miracle stories, saints’ lives, liturgies and pilgrimage narratives. The emphasis will be on the way works of art contributed to the social and economic, as well as religious dimensions of pilgrimage, and on the special qualities and functions of
pilgrimage art.


V43.0800.002    Senior Seminar 2

F    9:30-12:15
Professor Brandt

The exhibition with this title which opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in mid- November, will provide members of this seminar with a unique opportunity for close encounters with works of art and with real life issues that mean a lot to most people today and meant as much or, in poignant ways, even more in the Renaissance.
 
Much of our study will take place at the museum and we will be given special access along with the chance to learn about the way the pictures, sculptures and objects of decorative arts and material culture were made, used and how they have changed over time.
 
Early meetings take place in the Department of Art History to build  an initial familiarity with the works in the exhibition and to frame them in the contexts of people's daily life in the Renaissance when constructions of identity, family, gender, sexuality, the emotions, and the cultural, economic and political pressures that shaped them were  dramatically different from ours. Renaissance notions of love and marriage also seems strange to us now and it takes empathy, imagination and information to enter this lost world of custom and feeling.
 
That is where the Exhibition comes to our aid, offering direct contact with the Renaissance objects and images. The signals they transmit sometimes remain astonishingly clear and intimate, sometimes the abyss of time has made them seem mysterious to us, but they all invite our response and interpretation today.
 
Each student will be able to explore in greater depth, one, or a small group, of the works in the exhibition.


V43.0800.003    Senior Seminar 3: Art of the 1930s

M    3:30-6:10
Professor Nugent

This seminar explores the subject of realism in art through parallel artistic developments in the United States, Mexico, Europe and the Soviet Union during the 1930’s. “Art in the 1930’s” also considers the alignment of avant-garde movements, such as Futurism and Constructivism, with authoritarian political regimes as they intensified throughout the decade. Despite different political goals, varieties of Realism emerged consistently in the visual arts across the ideological positions of competing nations. Whether the Social Realism that arose in the United States and Mexico, the Socialist Realism of the Soviet Union, or the National Socialist type propagated in Germany, “realism” took center stage in an art aimed at “the people.” The dictatorships of Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini defined a totalitarian aesthetic charged with the power of the state. At the same time, figurative realism under less repressive governments emerged in the United States and Mexico through ambitious public projects that nevertheless reinforced nationalistic aims. Meanwhile anti-realist and non-figurative art persisted alongside these trends; and photographers exploited the “reality effect” of their medium to similar politicized ends.

Through an examination of individual case studies drawn from an international context, we will interrogate “realism” as a style and as a rhetorical device often directed at the construction of an imagined utopia. We will study selected artistic developments of the 1920’s insofar as they conditioned the practices of the 1930’s. We also will consider avant-garde approaches as they adapted ideological positions to pressures on the left and on the right throughout the 1930’s and into the 1940’s. Students will be expected to complete weekly reading and writing assignments, participate actively in class discussions, and present a final project based on the course material. Artists to consider: Benton, Breker, Brik, Brodsky, Gerasimov, Kahlo, Klutsis, Lange, Marinetti, Mukhina, Orozko, Rivera, Shahn, Siqueros, Speer, Thorak, Troost, Wood, and more.


V43.0800.004    Senior Seminar 4: Beyond All Reason: Contemporary Art and the Sublime

T    4:55-6:10
Professor Vetrocq

How can we understand the broad swath of recent art that addresses such (big) themes as climate change, the technological redesign of the environment, bioengineering, and the aftermath of the loss of historical stability? We'll take as our starting point Edmund Burke's theory of the sublime (1756/1757) and look into retrofitting his ideas and vocabulary for application to the present day. One key aspect of Burke's essay (an Enlightenment manifesto that proceeds from an absolute faith in the power of reason) is its concern with effects and experiences--principally in nature though in the built environment as well--that defy measure, certainty, and human control. The seminar will consider the utility both of that model and of an inverted dynamic in which the human may supersede--and ultimately eclipse--the natural. The goal is to arrive at new insights into, and discover some affinities among, the works of Anselm Kiefer, Matthew Barney, Andreas Gursky, James Turrell, Tacita Dean, Edward Burtynsky, Olafur Eliasson, and others.

V43.0801.001    Senior Honors Thesis   

R    2:00-4:45
Professor Serdari
Open to departmental majors who have been accepted as candidates for honors in art history in the first term of their senior year and who have the permission of the director of undergraduate studies. See this department’s subheading, “Graduation with Honors,” for eligibility requirements. It should be noted that students are expected to work on their theses over a period of two semesters. A grade point average of 3.65 in art history courses and an overall grade point average of 3.65 as stipulated by the College Honors Program regulations are necessary. 4 points.

V43.0801.002    Senior Honors Thesis   

TBD
Professor Amsellem
Open to departmental majors who have been accepted as candidates for honors in art history in the first term of their senior year and who have the permission of the director of undergraduate studies. See this department’s subheading, “Graduation with Honors,” for eligibility requirements. It should be noted that students are expected to work on their theses over a period of two semesters. A grade point average of 3.65 in art history courses and an overall grade point average of 3.65 as stipulated by the College Honors Program regulations are necessary. 4 points.

V55.0720.001    Map Expressive Cultures: Images   

TR    4:55-6:10
Professor Geronimus

 V55.0720.002 Recitation: Section 1


 V55.0720.003 Recitation: Section 2


 V55.0720.004 Recitation: Section 3


 V55.0720.005 Recitation: Section 4


V55.0722    Map: Painting & Sculpture Field Study    

F    12:30-4:30
Professor Broderick

Freshman Honors Seminar

W    11:00-1:45
Professor Walton