ARTH 1100 - Art Histories: An Introduction

(crosslisted) SHUM 1100
(CA-AS, ALC-AS, HST-AS)

Fall. 4 credits. Student option grading.

C. Robinson.

This lecture course introduces students to the History of Art as a global and interdisciplinary field. Team-taught by a selection of professors from the department, in collaboration with members of the staff and faculty of the Herbert Johnson Museum of Art, its primary aim is to familiarize students with the most significant geographical areas, epochs and works of art, as well as with methods employed in their study and analysis. The course will be organized around a changing selection of themes central to the history of art. The theme for fall 2020 is “Ornament,” departing from a broad understanding of just what constitutes a work of art (in addition to painting, sculpture, and architecture, we will consider a range of objects of material culture, from ceramics to metalwork to the human body itself), paying particular attention to intersections of aesthetics and utility, and the attitudes of various cultures, from antiquity to the present, toward adornment and its interpretation.