Oct 04, 2024  
2024-2025 Undergraduate Catalog 
    
2024-2025 Undergraduate Catalog

AH 102 Introduction to Global Art History: 1300 to the Present


(4 Credits)
How did artworks help facilitate encounters between cultures in the Early Modern period? How did artists in this period imagine the ideal human body? Do we use similar practices of bodily adornment today? How was art complicit in colonialism, and how was it used to assert postcolonial identity? Why are so many contemporary artists using their work to investigate history? These are just some of the many questions we will tackle in this course, which examines visual art produced around the world from 1300 to the present. The course proceeds chronologically and thematically, prompting us to compare how artists approached similar issues (such as the body, freedom, abstraction, identity, and history) in the same period in different cultures and locations. Along the way, we will practice the analytical, theoretical, and research skills that art historians use to interpret the meaning and function of works of art based on their materials, style, content, and context. We will also turn a critical eye on the discipline of art history by exploring how institutions (such as museums and universities) and systems of power (such as colonialism, white supremacy, and patriarchy) have allowed some stories of art to be told while obscuring others. In addition to providing a solid foundation for future study in the field of art history, this course aims to develop your interpretive and critical thinking skills and the cultural perspective needed to navigate today’s increasingly global and media-saturated world.

Spring