Art History

Director of Undergraduate Studies: Thomas Cummins, CWAC 262,

702-0262

Department Secretary: Candace Stoakley, CWAC 166, 702-0278

Program of Study

Art history is a branch of humanistic learning concerned with the study of the visual arts in their historical context. Individual works are analyzed for the styles, materials, and techniques of their design and manufacture; for their meanings; and for their makers, periods, and places of creation. An informed appreciation of each work is developed, and the proper historical position of each piece is established. From the study of single works, the art historian moves to the analysis and interpretation of artistic careers, group movements and schools, currents of artistic theory, significant patrons, and cultural contexts. The study of our heritage in the visual arts thus provides a singular perspective for the study of social, cultural, and intellectual history.

Courses for Nonconcentrators. Introduction to Art (Art History 101) develops basic skills in the analysis and critical enjoyment of the visual arts. Issues and problems in the history of art are explored through classroom discussion of key works, critical reading of fundamental texts, and through writing. Art of the West (Art History 150-151-152) surveys the history of Western art from ancient Greece to the modern world. The Western survey furthers the student's appreciation both for major monuments of art and architecture, and for the place of art in the broad development of Western culture. Art of the East (Art History 161) provides an equivalent introduction to Eastern art. Art in Context (Art History 170) introduces students to a well-defined issue, topic, or period of art in depth. Any of these 100-level courses is an appropriate choice to fulfill the Common Core requirement in the musical, visual, and dramatic arts; usually the Core requirement must be met with a 100-level course. None presupposes prior training in art.

Students who have taken at least one course in art history or studio art, or who have equivalent nonacademic experience, may elect to take an advanced lecture course, numbered from 201 to 289. The prerequisites for these courses are any 100-level art history or visual arts course, or the consent of the instructor. The 200-level art history courses investigate the arts of specific periods and places from a variety of perspectives. Some courses embrace large bodies of material defined by national culture; others follow developments in style, iconography, and patronage as they affect works in selected media. The role of the individual artist in the creation and development of major movements is frequently examined, as is its complement, the growth of cultural systems and their expression in the visual arts.

Program Requirements

The Bachelor of Arts concentration in art history is intended to furnish students with a broad knowledge of Western and non-Western art and to provide an opportunity for the complementary, intensive study of an area of special interest. It is recommended for students who wish to develop their abilities of visual analysis and criticism; to acquire some sense of the major developments in the arts from ancient times to the present; and to understand the visual arts as aspects of social, cultural, and intellectual history. So conceived, the study of art is an element of a general, liberal arts education; the skills of analytical thinking, logical argument, and clear verbal expression necessary to the program are basic to most fields. Although the program in art history has no explicit preprofessional orientation, it does prepare interested students for advanced study at the graduate level and, eventually, for work in academic, museum, and gallery settings.

General Requirements for All Concentrators:

1. Concentrators are required to take Art History 150-151-152. They should do so as early as possible in their program, ideally by their sophomore year.

2. They must write at least two research papers of intermediate length before starting their senior year, ordinarily in conjunction with 200-level courses taken in art history. It is the student's responsibility to make the appropriate arrangements with the instructor.

3. They should develop a special field of interest (see following section).

4. Within the special field, they should write a senior paper (see following section). They should also participate in the senior seminar.

5. They must use an approved course in music, visual arts, or drama to fulfill the Common Core requirement in the musical, visual, and dramatic arts.

Recommendations for Concentrators:

6. Concentrators are encouraged to take graduate seminars, having obtained the permission of the instructor first. (Such seminars are also open to nonconcentrators with the same proviso.)

7. They are urged to pursue upper-level language courses. When such a course is relevant to the student's special field, he or she may petition the director of undergraduate studies to have it count toward their electives for the art history program.

8. Those planning to continue their study of art history at the graduate level are advised to fulfill their Common Core foreign language requirement in French or German, or in Italian for those with primary interest in the art of Italy. The prospective graduate student does well to achieve language competency equal to at least two years of college study.

Two Tracks. In structuring their programs, concentrators may choose one of two orientations (tracks): one offering a broad coverage of the history of art, the other a close study of a specific area or topic.

Track I. In addition to Art History 150-151-152 and Art History 295, Track I students take eight further courses within the department. Students are encouraged to distribute the eight courses widely throughout Western and non-Western art and are specifically required to take at least one course in Western art before 1400, one course in Western art after 1400, and one course in non-Western art. Within the eight departmental courses, students must develop a special field consisting of three courses whose relevance to one another must be clearly established. The field may be defined by chronological period, medium, national culture, genre, methodological concerns, or a suitable combination. Because they reflect the interests of individual concentrators, such fields range widely in topic, approach, and scope. Reading courses with art history faculty may be used to pursue specific questions within a field. The topic for the senior paper normally develops from the special field and allows for the further study of the area through independent research and writing.

Track II. In addition to Art History 150-151-152 and Art History 295, Track II students take eight further courses: three courses inside and two courses outside the art history department make up the special field; three additional courses in art are taken at the student's discretion. Because the last three courses are intended to give an overall sense of the discipline, each Track II student is encouraged to select them from widely differing periods and approaches in the history of art.

The special field may take many different forms. It may be civilization defined by chronological period, nation-state, cultural institution, or a suitable combination. Extradepartmental courses in history and literature would be particularly relevant to such a program. Another special field might be conceptual in character (for example, art and the history of science, urban history, and geography) and draw upon a variety of extradepartmental courses in the Humanities and Social Sciences Collegiate Divisions. A field could combine historical, critical, and theoretical perspectives (for example, visual arts in the twentieth century) and involve courses in art history, music, film, drama, and popular culture. Finally, art historical and studio courses (for example, Committee on the Visual Arts) may be combined in special fields exploring their interrelations (for example, abstraction and conceptualism in modern art). As with Track I, the senior paper normally develops within the special field.

Special Field. Whether a student is following Track I or Track II, the proposal for the special field, in the form of a written petition, must be received by the director of undergraduate studies and approved by a faculty committee no later than the end of a student's junior year. The student should consult the director for guidelines on the organization and preparation of the proposal. Students are strongly recommended to have completed at least two courses in their special field by the end of their junior year.

Senior Paper. It is the student's responsibility, by the end of the junior year, to have found a member of the faculty who agrees to act as the faculty research adviser. Together, they agree on a topic for the student's senior paper, preferably before the start of the autumn quarter of the senior year. The topic must be registered no later than the fourth week of that quarter on a departmental form available from the director of undergraduate studies.

The senior paper is developed during the course of the senior seminar (Art History 295). This is offered during autumn quarter and is required of all concentrators. Most commonly, students take the seminar in the autumn quarter before graduating in spring quarter; those graduating in the autumn or winter quarters should take the course in the previous academic year. In the closing sessions of the seminar students discuss their plans and initial research for the senior paper, and continue their research on the paper during the following quarters, meeting at intervals with their faculty research adviser. Students may elect to take Preparation for the Senior Paper (Art History 299) in autumn or winter quarter to afford additional time for research or writing. The first draft of the paper is due by the first week of the quarter of graduation; the final version is due the sixth week of that quarter. Both are to be submitted in duplicate, one copy to the research adviser, the second to the director of undergraduate studies. Because individual projects vary from student to student, no specific requirements for the senior paper have been set. Essays tend to range in length from twenty to forty pages, but there is no minimum or maximum requirement.

Summary of Requirements

General Introductory course in Music, Visual Arts, or Drama

Education

Track I 3 ArtH 150-151-152

3 ArtH courses in special field

5 ArtH electives (including one course each in

Western art before 1400, Western art after

1400, and non-Western art)

1 ArtH 295 (senior seminar)

- senior paper

12

Track II 3 ArtH 150-151-152

5 courses in special field (three departmental and
two extradepartmental)

3 ArtH electives

1 ArtH 295 (senior seminar)

- senior paper

12

Advising. Art history concentrators should see the director of undergraduate studies in art history no less than once a year for consultation and guidance in planning a special field, in selecting courses, in choosing a topic for the senior paper, and for any academic problems within the concentration.

Grading. Students taking art history courses in fulfillment of the Common Core musical, visual and dramatic arts must receive letter grades. Art history concentrators must also receive letter grades in art history courses taken for the concentration, with one exception: for Preparation for the Senior Paper (Art History 299), they may receive a Pass grade. Art history courses elected beyond concentration requirements may be taken for Pass grades with consent of the instructor. Students concentrating in other departments may take art history courses for Pass grades with the consent of their advisers and course instructors. A Pass grade is given only for work of C- quality or higher.

Honors. Students who complete their course work and their senior papers with great distinction are considered for graduation with special honors. Candidates must have a grade point average of at least 3.0 overall and 3.3 in art history. Nominations for honors are made by the faculty in the concentration through the Office of the Director of Undergraduate Studies to the master of the Humanities Collegiate Division.

Faculty

MICHAEL CAMILLE, Professor, Department of Art History and the College

CHARLES E. COHEN, Professor, Department of Art History, Committee on the Visual Arts, and the College

THOMAS CUMMINS, Assistant Professor, Department of Art History, Committee on the Visual Arts, and the College

TOM GUNNING, Professor, Departments of Art History and Cinema & Media Studies and the College

REINHOLD HELLER, Professor, Departments of Art History and Germanic Studies, Committee on the Visual Arts, and the College

ELIZABETH HELSINGER, Professor, Departments of Art History and English Language & Literature and the College

W. J. T. MITCHELL, Gaylord Donnelley Distinguished Service Professor, Departments of English Language & Literature and Art History, Committees on the Visual Arts and General Studies in the Humanities, and the College

ROBERT S. NELSON, Professor, Department of Art History, Committees on the Ancient Mediterranean World and the History of Culture, and the College; Chairman, Department of Art History

GLORIA PINNEY, Professor, Departments of Art History and Classical Languages & Literatures and the College

KIMERLY RORSCHACH, Senior Lecturer, Department of Art History and Committee on the Visual Arts; Director, Smart Museum

INGRID ROWLAND, Associate Professor, Department of Art History and the College

LINDA SEIDEL, Professor, Department of Art History, Committee on General Studies in the Humanities, and the College

JOEL M. SNYDER, Professor, Department of Art History, Committees on the Visual Arts and General Studies in the Humanities, and the College

BARBARA STAFFORD, Professor, Department of Art History and the College

KATHERINE TAYLOR, Associate Professor, Department of Art History and the College

YURI TSIVIAN, Professor, Departments of Art History, Slavic Languages & Literatures, Cinema & Media Studies, and the College

EUGENE WANG, Assistant Professor, Department of Art History and the College

MARTHA WARD, Associate Professor, Department of Art History, Committee on the Visual Arts, and the College

WU HUNG, Professor, Department of Art History and the College

Courses

101. Introduction to Art. For nonconcentrators, this course fulfills the Common Core requirement in the musical, visual, and dramatic arts. Students must attend the first class to confirm enrollment. This course seeks to develop skills in perception, comprehension, and appreciation when dealing with a variety of visual art forms. It encourages the close analysis of visual materials, explores the range of questions and methods appropriate to the explication of a given work of art, and examines the intellectual structures basic to the systematic study of art. Most important, the course encourages the understanding of art as a visual language and aims to foster in students the ability to translate this understanding into verbal expression, both oral and written. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.

150-151-152. Art of the West. For nonconcentrators, any course in this sequence fulfills the Common Core requirement in the musical, visual, and dramatic arts. May be taken in sequence or individually. Students must attend the first class to confirm enrollment. The major monuments and masterpieces of painting, sculpture, and architecture are studied as examples of humankind's creative impulses in the visual arts. Individual objects are analyzed in detail and interpreted in light of society's varied needs. While changes in form, style, and function are emphasized, an attempt is also made to trace the development of a unique and continuous tradition of visual imagery throughout Western civilization.

150. The Ancient and Medieval World. This course examines the nature of artistic production from the prehistoric animal images in the caves of southern Europe to the handmade, gilded books that circulated at French and English courts some fifteen thousand years later. Particular attention is given to the transformation of the natural landscape into imposing built environments around the Mediterranean, including Africa and the Near East, and to the role art played as image-maker for political and religious institutions. At the conclusion of the class we consider the ways every age reworks its past, selecting from an available array of visual production the material that gives shape to its sense of itself. L. Seidel. Autumn.

151. Renaissance to Rococo. The major achievements of European artists in painting, sculpture, and architecture from about 1400 to 1775 are discussed chronologically. While broad style groupings such as Renaissance, mannerism, baroque, and rococo are an important organizing principle, an effort is made to concentrate on fewer artists and masterpieces rather than a uniform survey. Attention is also given to the invention and development of distinctive artistic types and their association with particular moments in history. Where possible, study of the imagery is supplemented with contemporary written documents, such as contracts, letters, and theoretical texts. C. Cohen. Winter.

152. The Modern Age. This course considers selected works of painting, sculpture, and architecture from 1750 to the present, concentrating on how they can be understood in relation to development of the modern art world and changing conceptions of what the experience of art should be. Developments considered are the roles of subjectivity and nationalism in the rise of nineteenth-century landscape painting, the early twentieth-century conception of an artistic avant garde; and the notion of functionalism in architectural design. Emphasis is placed on the close examination of works in the area. Attendance at a weekly section, often devoted to a field trip, is required. M. Ward. Spring.

161. Art of Asia: China (Prehistory to Second Century) (=ArtH 161, Chin 261, EALC 261). For nonconcentrators, this course fulfills the Common Core requirement in the musical, visual, and dramatic arts. An introduction to ancient Chinese art and architecture from prehistory to the third century A.D., examined in its religious and cultural context. Ritual bronzes, monumental tombs, and funerary shrines are studied in the light of religious texts, such as temple hymns, ritual canons, poems, and songs. Students reconstruct the physical and cultural context of individual works of art, and study original art objects in Chicago museums. H. Wu. Autumn.

162. Art of Asia: China (Third Century to the Present) (=ArtH 162, Chin 261, EALC 262). For non-art history concentrators, this course fulfills the Common Core requirement in the musical, visual, and dramatic arts. Students must attend the first class to confirm enrollment. An introduction to Chinese art from the third century to the recent avant garde movement. Major subjects include the appearance of the individual artist and scroll painting; the introduction and Sinification of Buddhist art; the formation of different art genres, schools, and theories; and the influence of Western art in pre-modern and modern ages. E. Wang. Winter.

170-189. Art in Context. For nonconcentrators, this course fulfills the Common Core requirement in the musical, visual, and dramatic arts. Students must attend the first class to confirm enrollment. Courses in this series investigate basic methods of art historical analysis and apply them to significant works of art studied within definite contexts. Works of art are placed in their intellectual, historical, cultural, or more purely artistic settings in an effort to indicate the origins of their specific achievements. An informed appreciation of the particular solutions offered by single works and the careers of individual artists emerges from the detailed study of classic problems within Western and non-Western art.

174. The University of Chicago Campus. This course is an introduction to architecture and planning based on the groupings of buildings we have closest at hand and know best as users. We examine changes in thinking about the campus from its origins in the 1890s to the present, a time during which many of the particular choices confronted by University architects mirror the ones that shaped contemporary American architecture generally. We look at buildings first-hand and also at primary documents from the University archives. K. Taylor. Spring.

181. Nineteenth-Century Art in the Art Institute. This course introduces students to the methods and issues of art history through close consideration of selected works at the Art Institute of Chicago. We concentrate on nineteenth-century French art, including painting, sculpture, prints, and drawings. These areas are particularly well represented in the museum's collections. M. Ward. Spring.

182. Montage: Modern Form in Film and Other Arts. This course discusses the idea of montage as a basic stylistic choice and device in the twentieth century in film (primarily) and the other arts (secondarily). Montage is first approached as a theory of artistic form that arose in cinema, primarily in the work of Sergei Eisenstein. Eisenstein's writings and his film are the primary texts. The idea of montage as a basic form of modernism in other arts is also discussed, drawing on photo-montagists such as Hoch and Heartfield, constructivist aesthetics in Tatlin and Rodchenko, and the theater of Berthold Brecht. Screenings required. T. Gunning. Spring.

183. Visual Style in Still and Moving Images. The course surveys elements of styles and techniques common to the visual arts. We examine light and color, framing and editing, and action and narration, as well as blocking, interior design, and mise-en-scene as used by artists, photographers, and filmmakers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Y. Tsivian. Winter.

184. Socio-Cultural Dynamics of Pre-Columbian Civilization. This course explores, in a comparative framework, the social and cultural dynamics of selected Pre-Columbian civilizations of Mesoamerica and the Andean region, including the Maya, Moche, Inca, and Aztec, among others. We focus on three themes related to social structure and cultural expression: social production and human-environment interaction, systems of representation and knowledge, and the nature of rulership and sovereignty. T. Cummins, A. Kolata. Winter.

185. The Representation of Women in Ancient Greece. The materials of this course are archaic and classical painted vases and sculptures and selected literary texts. Through both visual and literary imagery, basic notions about female gender in ancient Greece are explored, such as the nature of female beauty, categories of age, definitions of virginity, and the importance of modesty. All work in English. G. Pinney. Winter.

186. Self-Portraits, Diaries, and Autobiographies: Imaging the Public Self. How is the self organized for presentation to the surrounding world, both present and future? What principles of selection, censorship, and invention underlie the written and pictorial images of the lives and physical appearance individuals offer to the public? How do we respond to, and what is communicated by, these self-projections of others? During this quarter we examine self-imagery in multiple genres from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in an effort to address these and related issues. R. Heller. Spring.

187. Resemblance. Modernity has become identified with allegory and difference. This course explores the virtues of discovering and making likenesses, and the art of creating connections. B. Stafford. Winter.

188. Art of the Book. This course provides an introduction to the art of the hand-produced book in the Middle Ages, from the end of the classical period to the invention of painting. How were manuscripts made? What were they used for? What are the relationships between the images and texts that they illustrate? From Monastic masterpieces, such as the Book of Kells, to late medieval books of hours, this course answers such question using the facsimiles and original manuscripts available for study in Regenstein Library. M. Camille. Winter.

The following 190-level courses are upper-level undergraduate courses that do not fulfill the Common Core requirement in the musical, visual, and dramatic arts unless 4 or 5 has been scored on the AP art history test. There are no prerequisites.

190. Introduction to Film I (=ArtH 190, CMS 101, COVA 253, Eng 108, GS Hum 200). PQ: This is the first part of a two-quarter course. The two parts may be taken individually, but taking them in sequence is helpful. The first part introduces basic concepts of film analysis, which are discussed through examples from different national cinemas, genres, and directorial oeuvres. Along with questions of film technique and style, we consider the notion of the cinema as an institution that comprises an industrial system of production, social and aesthetic norms and codes, and particular modes of reception. Films discussed include works by Hitchcock, Porter, Griffith, Eisenstein, Lang, Renoir, Sternberg, and Welles. T. Gunning. Winter.

194. Chinese Cinema (=ArtH 194, CMS 244, EALC 240). PQ: Knowledge of Chinese helpful but not required. This course covers Chinese cinema from its earliest inception in the beginning of the century to works of recent decades. Issues explored include the cinematic appropriation of theatrical traditions, the ordering of cinematic narration through vernacular architectural forms, the persistence of melodramatic impulse, the making of lyrical mode, and the taste of Chinese urban spectatorship. E. Wang. Winter.

197. The History of the Book. This interdisciplinary course examines the notion of the "book" from the emergence of the codex in Late Antiquity to the proliferation of computerized texts on the internet. A variety of issues concerning the social history of books as physical (not just textual) objects is considered, including their production and decoration. We discuss the fundamentals of codiology as we examine medieval manuscripts and early printed books in Chicago collections; the class also includes two special sessions on paper making and bookbinding. Major themes include how books were used, seen, and understood by different audiences throughout the two-thousand-year history of the codex format. Representations of books in other media, including painting, literature, and cinema, are also considered, as well as the manner in which books have been (and still are) displayed in libraries and bookstores. C. Nielsen. Autumn.

The following 200-level courses have as a prerequisite any 100-level art history or visual arts course or consent of instructor. These courses do not fulfill the Common Core requirement in the musical, visual, and dramatic arts unless 4 or 5 has been scored on the AP art history test.

205/305. Pompeii (=ArtH 205/305, ClCiv 227/327). PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course, or consent of instructor. Buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, Pompeii presents a time capsule of life in southern Italy under the Flavian emperors. Peopled in successive periods by Greeks, Oscans, Samnites, Etruscans, and Latins, the city harbored a surprisingly cosmopolitan mix of cultures, languages, and people, which produced a rich archaeological record. Each session of the course begins with an individual monument (like the amphitheatre) or area of the city (like the Forum), working outward to investigate various aspects of civic culture on the basis of literary as well as archaeological evidence. With four faculty members of widely differing backgrounds, the course aims for interdisciplinary and analytical depth. I. Rowland, G. Pinney, P. White, R. Saller. Winter.

211/311. Late Byzantine Art. PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course, or consent of instructor. The art of Byzantium and related cultures in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries in explored. The course considers all media, but concentrates on church decoration. We emphasize the social and economic basis of visual culture; the formation and interpretation of visual narratives; the relation of programs to liturgy and monastic function; the interplay between the ecumenical and the local; and the work of Byzantine artists outside Byzantium in Italy, the Balkans, Russia, Egypt, and the Caucasus. R. Nelson. Autumn.

217/317. Portals and Processions in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course, or consent of instructor. This class surveys both architectural and "enacted" entries in Europe between ca. 1000 and 1500. By the former we understand constructed elements such as doors, gates, and porches (civic as well as ecclesiastical) and their frequent association with particular events, such as judgments and marriages; by the latter, we imagine liturgical rounds and political parades, organized activities that assume points of arrival but invariably structure their own independent spaces. L. Seidel. Winter.

222/322. The Gothic Cathedral. PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course, or consent of instructor. This course examines the structure, function, and meaning of the Gothic cathedral in the thirteenth century. By focusing on three major examples in depth (Chartres, Rheims, and Amiens) we explore the ways in which art and architecture communicated to various groups in society and functioned not as transcendent symbol but as an instrument of social control. M. Camille. Autumn.

233/333. Early Renaissance Painting in Florence. PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course, or consent of instructor. This course concentrates on two themes: (1) The origins of the Renaissance in Florence as seen in the painting and sculpture of the early fifteenth century, examined in the context of civic humanism and contemporary politics; and (2) the diverse and often inconsistent responses of a second generation of artists to these radical ideas, especially in the linked areas of style and religious expression. As a coda to the course, the implications of this artistic environment for Leonardo and the last generation of Quattrocento painters is considered. Considerable attention is given to the changing social status of the artist as manifested both in the theoretical writings and artists' working methods. The main artists we study are Masaccio, Donatello, Gentile da Fabriano, Lippi, Angelico, Uccello, Domenico Veneziano, Castagno, and Piero della Francesca. In addition to reading, students are expected to do a considerable amount of visual study. C. Cohen. Autumn.

252/352. The Art Museum (=ArtH 252/322, COVA 252). PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course, or consent of instructor. This course examines a broad range of debates and practices related to the development of the museum in Europe and the United States. Topics include the eighteenth-century French debates over the founding of museums and the removal of objects from everyday life; the nineteenth-century German ordering of the museum in relation to the new discipline of art history; the efforts of early twentieth-century American museums to adapt John Dewey's ideas for local-based institutions; and the post-modern and multicultural critiques of museums and their impact on current practice. M. Ward. Autumn.

257/357. Perspectives on Imaging (=ArtH 257/357, BioSci 269). PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course. Third- or fourth-year standing. Consent of instructor. This course focuses on the evolution and history of the production and dissemination of knowledge by visual means. Topics include evaluation of light perception and vision; emergence of drawing, writing, and printing; early optical instruments to extend vision; photographic recording of images; X-rays and computer-based, non-optical imaging methods; conceptual foundations of imaging science; visual knowledge, education, and multimedia learning; and the cultural impact of imaging in the twenty-first century. R. Beck, B. Stafford. Winter.

258/358. Visual Culture (=ArtH 258/358, CMS 278, COVA 254, Eng 126/326). PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course, or consent of instructor. This course explores the fundamental questions in the interdisciplinary study of visual culture: What are the cultural (and, by the same token, natural) components in the structure of visual experience? What is seeing? What is a spectator? What is the difference between visual and verbal representation? How do visual media exert power, elicit desire and pleasure, and construct the boundaries of subjective and social experience in the private and public sphere? How do questions of politics, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity inflect the construction of visual semiosis? W. J. T. Mitchell. Winter.

259/359. Art in the Weimar Republic, 1918-1933. PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course. The years between the end of World War I and the rise of Adolph Hitler in 1933 were among the most productive and innovative in the history of German art. Movements ranging from Dada to the Bauhaus to Neo-Objectivity proliferated; artists as diverse as Kathe Kollwitz, George Grosz, Vassily Kandinsky, and Max Beckmann experimented with the limits of art or sought to reestablish tradition in a context of political and social turmoil. This course seeks to explore aspects of this doomed, hopeful generation of German artists and their work to analyze their critical import, and also to establish relationships with political events, literature, and film. R. Heller. Spring.

262/362. Historiography of Modern Architecture: Subjects. PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course. This course studies how the dominant history of modern architecture has been produced historically, taking the late nineteenth century as our starting point and the United States as our major site (a particularly rich one for its relationship with immigrant German-speaking and British historians). We examine a sequence of writers whose careers have been both influential and indicative of broader changing circumstances for conceptualizing buildings and their history in the twentieth century. In examining architectural history's rhetorical and circumstantial tradition, this course aims to make its bibliography more accessible to nonspecialists, and to equip specialists and prospective architecture students with a critical distance. K. Taylor. Winter.

272/372. Theories of the Photographic Image and Film (=ArtH 272/372, CMS 275, COVA 255, GS Hum 233/333). PQ: COVA 101, 102, or 100-level ArtH course, or consent of instructor. This course is an introduction and survey of theories concerning photography and cinema. A variety of works by the following authors, among others, is discussed: Stanley Cavell, Erwin Panofsky, André Bazin, Christian Metz, Susan Sontag, Edward Weston, Ernst Gombrich, Nelson Goodman, and John Szarkowski. J. Snyder. Winter.

276/376. The Imperial Arts of the Inca and Aztec. PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course, or consent of instructor. The Inca and the Aztec are the two ancient American civilizations about which we believe we know the most. Our knowledge comes essentially from two primary sources: colonial text and the art and architecture produced by these two cultures. This course concentrates on the latter, surveying the forms of representation used to establish imperial presence within the accepted vernacular of Mesoamerican and Andean artistic traditions. Special attention is given to the role of the arts as a means of expressing imperial claims to mythic and historic precedents upon which political and economic expansion could be legitimized. T. Cummins. Winter.

281/381. Japanese Cinema (=ArtH 281/381, CMS 243, EALC 245). PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course, or consent of instructor. This course surveys Japanese cinema through the 1960s. Through our focus on three directors (Ozu Yasujiro, Mizoguchi Kenji, and Kurosawa Akira) we deal with the recent scholarship on Japanese films, particularly debates among Noel Burch, Donald Richie, and David Bordwell about the specificity of Japanese cinema in relation to Japanese culture and in opposition to Hollywood cinema. We study each director in relation to pictorial and narrative values, use of traditional Japanese culture and contemporary social issues, and attitudes towards Western filmmaking. T. Gunning. Spring.

283/383. Medieval Chinese Art (=ArtH 283/383, Chin 317). PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course, or consent of instructor. Knowledge of Chinese helpful. This course covers medieval Chinese art between the third and tenth century, in which the notion of "Great Masters" and generic distinctions took shape and art theory was fully articulated. The currency of Buddhism gave impetus to fervent image making, and "neo-Daoism" refined the visual sensibility. We focus on wall paintings, engravings, and sculptures in the context of mortuary structures, Buddhist cave-chapels, and monuments. Issues include the relationship between art and religious practices, art as visual constructs evoking other possible worlds, and visual sensibility and its verbal articulation. E. Wang. Winter.

291/391. Art of Ancestral Worship. PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course, or consent of instructor. This course focuses on various art forms, including ritual jades and bronzes, tomb murals and sculptures, and family temples and shrines, which were created between the third millennium B.C. and the second century A.D. for ancestral worship, the main religious tradition in China before the introduction of Buddhism. Central questions include how visual forms convey religious concepts and serve religious communications, and how artistic changes reflect trends in the ancestral cult. W. Hung. Spring.

292/392. The Films of Joseph Von Sternberg (=ArtH 292/392, CMS 262, Eng 288/488). PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course, or consent of instructor. This course attempts to explore the contradictions of Sternberg within the classical Hollywood system. His role as auteur and as part of the studio logic, and his relation to the popular glamour (as well as to modernistic techniques) demonstrate his tension with the Hollywood system and the role he played within it. Sternberg's relation to Marlene Dietrich is also examined. The course closely considers films themselves, as well as studio publicity, fan discourse, censorship boards, and other contextual documents. T. Gunning. Winter.

293/393. Styles of Performance and Expression from Stage to Screen (=ArtH 293/393, CMS 282, Russ 280/380). PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course, or consent of instructor. This course focuses on the history of acting styles in silent film (1895-1930), mapping "national" styles of acting that emerged during the 1910s (American, Danish, Italian, and Russian), and various "acting schools" that proliferated during the 1920s ("Expressionist Acting" and "Kuleshov's Workshop"). We discuss film acting in the context of various systems of stage acting (Delsarte, Stanislavsky, and Meyerhold) and the visual arts. Y. Tsivian. Autumn.

294/394. Feminine Space in Traditional Chinese Art. PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course, or consent of instructor. "Feminine space" denotes an architectural or pictorial space that is perceived, imagined, and represented as a woman. Unlike an isolated female portrait or an individual female symbol, a feminine space is a spatial entity: an artificial world composed of landscape, vegetation, architecture, atmosphere, climate, color, fragrance, light, and sound, as well as selected human occupants and their activities. This course traces the construction of this space in traditional Chinese art (from the second to the eighteenth centuries) and the social/political implications of this constructive process. W. Hung. Winter.

295. Senior Seminar: Problems and Methods in Art History. PQ: Required of fourth-year art history concentrators, who present aspects of their senior papers in oral reports; open to nonconcentrators with consent of instructor. This course investigates fundamental methods of art historical research, with emphasis on perspectives characteristic of the discipline in the twentieth century. Topics include connoisseurship, formal and iconographic analysis, psychoanalytic approaches, and perspectives of social history. T. Cummins. Autumn.

298. Reading Course. PQ: Consent of instructor and director of undergraduate studies. Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Form. Must be taken for a letter grade. This course is designed for students in art history or advanced students in other concentrations whose program requirements are best met by study under a faculty member's individual supervision. The subject, course of study, and requirements are to be arranged with the instructor. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.

299. Preparation for the Senior Paper. PQ: Consent of instructor and director of undergraduate studies. Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Form. May be taken for a Pass grade with consent of instructor. This course provides guided research on the topic of the senior paper. The program of study and schedule of meetings are to be arranged with the student's senior paper adviser. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.

476. Eastern Zhou Funerary Art (=ArtH 476, Chin 425). PQ: Reading knowledge of modern Chinese and consent of instructor. This course analyzes new archeological evidence for Eastern Zhou funerary art and architecture. Focuses include changing tomb structure and symbolism, the grouping of tomb furnishings and their possible ritual significance, the development of "spirit articles" (mingqi), the appearance of mortuary sculpture and painting, and other phenomena pertaining to the changing concept of the afterlife. H. Wu. Winter.

483. The Making of Mental Topography in Medieval China (=ArtH 483, Chin 418). This seminar explores the concepts of mental topography and symbolic universe that shaped and ordered medieval Chinese visual experience. Wall paintings, architectural monuments, and other visual artifacts are treated as partial visual manifestations evoking larger entities of collectively shared mental or visionary constructs, such as Purgatory, the Phantom City, Pure Lands, foreign lands, and others. The primary drive behind this course is to ask what kinds of pragmatic art-historical strategies can be profitably developed to address the subject. E. Wang. Autumn.

487. Between Han and Tang: Funerary Art in a Formative Period (=ArtH 487, Chin 430). PQ: Reading knowledge of modern Chinese and consent of instructor. The four centuries between the Han and Tang dynasties (the third through sixth centuries) witnessed many crucial changes in Chinese art. More than a dozen great tombs with extraordinary murals have been found through recent excavations, indicating both new conventions and individual styles in funerary art. This course investigates these tombs and links them to other changes at the time, such as the appearance of individual artists and the popularity of Buddhist art. H. Wu. Spring.