This seminar investigates the diversity of global visual art practices through thematic topics such as activism, nature, identity, gender, memory, spirituality, colonialism, consumerism, beauty, participation, globalization, and science. Students will examine how practices, beliefs, systems and narratives have come under critique and are challenged by visual artists as well as how alternatives to these practices, beliefs, systems and narratives proposed by visual artists can lead to transformation. Emphasis is placed on contemporary art practices, but students are encouraged to consider artwork within larger historical and cultural contexts. Course discussions introduce students to aesthetic and theoretical developments, examine significant critical debates within the art world and explore various historical, stylistics and methodological questions raised within the visual arts and art history.
Prerequisite: ARH 1040FYW Survey of Western Art History or permission of the instructor.
ARH 1040FYW Survey of Western Art History (4 hours)
This course is a general survey of artworks of “western” cultures from prehistory to the present. “Western” typically designates art produced in Europe or the Americas in the European tradition, but the term can be imprecise and problematic at times. We will explore why. This course provides an overview of both typical and exceptional artworks from the western tradition; artworks range from tiny to colossal, relatively ephemeral to permanent, crude-looking to meticulously crafted, and banal to sacred. We will typically discuss artworks in roughly chronological order. Ultimately students will learn the range of artworks produced by each culture, how those artworks were made, why they looked the way they did, and what functions they served. They will also develop the skills to analyze, discuss, and write about the visual arts.
Archway Curriculum: Integrative Core: Going Global Thread
Archway Curriculum: Essential Connections: Diversity Instructive: Global
Archway Curriculum: First-Year Curriculum: First-Year Writing