Transfer Student Courses in History of ArtConsult the new Course Guide at: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/lsa/cg_subjectlist/0,2030,8,00.html?show=20&termArray=f_04_1510&cgtype=ug This page was created at 12:34 PM on Wed, May 5, 2004. Fall Academic Term, 2004 (September 7 - December 23)HISTART 101, 102, 103 and 108, while covering different areas, are all considered equivalent introductions to the discipline of art history. These four introductory survey courses consider not only art objects as aesthetic experiences but also the interactions among art, the artist, and society. The lecture and discussion sections explore the connections between the style and content of works of art and the historical, social, religious, and intellectual phenomena of the time. Attention is also given to the creative act and to the problems of vision and perception which both the artist and his/her public must face. Although it would be logical to move from HISTART 101 to HISTART 102, this is not required. One course in European/American art (HISTART 101 or 102) and one course in Asian or African art (HISTART 103 or 108) serve as a satisfactory introduction to the history of art for non-concentrators (concentrators should see the department's handbook for more information on requirements). The introductory courses are directed toward students interested in the general history of culture and are especially valuable cognates for students in the fields of history, philosophy, literature, and musicology as well as the creative arts. Course requirements and texts vary with individual instructors, but an effort is always made to introduce students to works of art in the collections of the university as well as in the museums of Detroit and Toledo. Photographic material is available for study in the Image Study Gallery, G026 Tisch Hall. Examinations usually include short essays and slides which are to be identified, compared, and discussed. HISTART 101. Art and Agency in a Pre-Modern World.
Section 001.Instructor(s): Thelma K Thomas (tkthomas@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: (4). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (4). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This course offers an introduction to major monuments and periods of art from antiquity through the Middle Ages. Its purpose is not only to acquaint students with key works of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Islamic, Romanesque and Gothic art and architecture, but also to help them develop a vocabulary for the description and analysis of works of art, and to provide them with a basic understanding of the methods and aims of art historical study. Lectures will be supplemented by weekly discussion sections on readings drawn from a general art historical survey and a course pack. Written work will consist of two short papers on objects in the Kelsey Museum and the Museum of Art; there will be a midterm and a final examination. This course, with HISTART 102, is meant to provide a foundation in the history of western art and will be useful to students taking higher-level courses in the department.
HISTART 108 / CAAS 108. Introduction to African Art.
Section 001.Instructor(s): David T DorisPrerequisites & Distribution: (4). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (4). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. Through the study of a select group of African and African Diaspora cultures, we will begin to investigate pivotal issues and narratives that lie behind the surfaces of some extraordinary objects and practices. African people have their own stories to tell about these things: stories of mythic power expressed as living form, stories of historical contact with other cultures, stories of struggle and redemption, stories of ordinary, everyday life. Our goal is to understand aspects of African cultures in the terms by which Africans understand them — to know African ideals and realities as they are shaped in word, sound, matter, and movement. Of course, we in "the West" also have had a decisive, often disturbing hand in the framing of African peoples, objects and stories. The coupled histories of colonialism and the slave trade, along with our inevitably distorted views and representations of what African people are and what they do, have affected Africa and its peoples to the core. When we look at and think critically about "African Art," then, we necessarily must look at and think critically about ourselves. Looking and listening closely, we will learn to see and to understand a wide range of African visual practices including architecture, textiles, body adornment, painting, graphic communication systems, photography, dance, ritual performance and, of course, sculpture — not only as these practices continue to unfold on the African continent, but also as they are transformed, and as they endure, in the African Diaspora.
HISTART 221 / CLARCH 221. Introduction to Greek Archaeology.
Section 001 — IV.1.Instructor(s): Lisa C Nevett (lcnevett@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: (4). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (4; 3 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted.
HISTART 250 / MEMS 250. Italian Renaissance Art, I.
Section 001 — IV.3.Instructor(s): Megan L Holmes (holmesml@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: (4). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (4). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. How did the works of Giotto, Donatello, Brunelleschi, and Piero della Francesca come to be regarded as so important in the history of western art? Why, even within the artists' lifetimes, was their art regarded as signaling a "rebirth" of painting and sculpture? This course aims at an understanding of early Renaissance art by seeing it in relation to broader transformations in the culture of the Italian city-states in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The city will be viewed as the site of divergent uses of art by different communities and interests. Images were employed in the expression of identity and status, as a strategic means of producing consensus or exploiting social division, and in an appeal for sacred mediation on behalf of the living and the dead. We will study different genres of visual representation (the altarpiece, mural painting, public sculpture) and the different social spaces where art was displayed (civic buildings, piazze, religious institutions, the domestic environment). Works of art will be considered as modes of argument and as points of interaction among networks of clients, artists, social groups and institutions (guilds, family associations, courts, confraternities), and figures of authority (popes, rulers, citizens, abbots and abbesses). From this multiplicity of uses and responses emerged highly varied conceptions of the nature of the image and the role of the artist, which, in turn, influenced artistic performance.
HISTART 271. Origins of Modernism: Art and Culture in Nineteenth Century France.
Section 001 — IV.4. Art & Culture in 19th Century France.Instructor(s): Howard G Lay (hglay@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: (4). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (4). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This course examines a series of remarkable episodes in modern French painting, from the establishment of an official, State-sponsored form of Classicism to the succession of movements — Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, and Neo-Impressionism — that emerged in opposition to official art. The Nineteenth Century is the period during which modern art developed its characteristic strategies and behavioral patterns: an insistence on innovation, originality, and individuality; a contentious involvement with tradition; a critical relationship with both institutional and commercial culture; and a somewhat strained allegiance with radical politics and alternative subcultures. It is also the period that witnessed a thorough-going reassessment of visual representation, and a parallel concern with the possibilities and limitations of the medium of painting. The course is designed to encourage close readings of images (by David, Gericault, Manet, Degas, Seurat, Cézanne, et al.) within the parameters of their historical contexts and of recent critical debate.
HISTART 292. Introduction to Japanese Art and Culture.
Section 001 — III.2,3.Instructor(s): Kevin CarrPrerequisites & Distribution: (3). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. No credit granted to those who have completed or are enrolled in HISTART 495. Credits: (3). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This lecture course takes an interdisciplinary approach to the history of Japanese visual culture, introducing the history of the art of the Japanese archipelago from ancient times through the present day. Although primarily a chronological examination of key artistic monuments, the class will also discuss issues such as the materiality of art, cultural exchange, the meaning of nature, and the relationships between artistic production and religion, class, and society. Two brief quizzes, three writing exercises, and a final exam will be required. All are welcome. The following book will be required: Mason, Penelope. History of Japanese Art. Abrams, 1993 (Reprint: Prentice Hall 2002)<$90;>. Readpak.
HISTART 394. Special Topics.
Section 001 — IV.2. Arts of Medieval Spain.Instructor(s): Cecily J Hilsdale (cjhilsda@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Upperclass standing. (3). (Excl). May be elected up to four times for credit. May be elected more than once in the same term. Credits: (3). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. The history and art history of medieval Spain is marked by the intersection of three prominent but distinct cultural and religious traditions: Christian, Muslim, and Jewish. While the concept of "convivencia" has been used to describe the social relations between these three groups, this course will investigate its relevance for understanding the artistic production generated by this confluence of cultures. The survey will examine both monumental and minor arts produced in Spain from the late antique "barbarian" invasions through the late fifteenth century. Chronologically, it will begin by considering the material culture of Late Roman and Visigothic Spain, followed by the Arab invasions of the eighth century through the Reconquista period and Christian recovery of most of the peninsula. The course will then conclude with an examination of the fall of the kingdom of Granada and the expulsion of the Jews in 1492. Within this broad historical survey, however, particular attention will be paid to a number of important themes and concepts, including the centrality of pilgrimage for shaping artistic practice, the stylistic distinctions between Mozarabic and Mudejar art and architecture, and the concept of convivencia. Finally, this course will also consider the historiography of medieval Spain and will situated it within larger medieval art historical debates. Weekly readings will be made available in a coursepack and a textbook required for purchase and also on reserve in the Fine Arts Library. There will be a web page for the course that will include study images and discussion questions. Student evaluation will be based on two in-class tests as well as written assignments.
HISTART 394. Special Topics.
Section 002 — I,IV.2. Medieval Pilgrimage: Creating Sacred Landscapes.Instructor(s): Cecily J Hilsdale (cjhilsd@umich.edu), Stella Elise Nair (stellan@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Upperclass standing. (3). (Excl). May be elected up to four times for credit. May be elected more than once in the same term. Credits: (3). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. While pilgrimage constitutes a central theme for many religions throughout history, in the Medieval West it played an unprecedented role in the definition and transformation of individual and communal identity. This course will examine the processes through which pilgrimage practices made landscapes sacred. The class will interrogate how these processes acted as powerful mediators in the relationship between individuals, Christian thought and the built environment. After exploring the rise of the cult of the saints in the late antique world, we will consider the most prominent pilgrimage sites, such as those in Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostella, as well as consider sacred spaces in Canterbury, Aachen ad Conques, among others. Our survey will include an examination of the most prominent aspects of the visual culture of pilgrimage ranging from the routes themselves and related architecture, to maps, manuscripts, relics and reliquaries, pilgrimage mementos, and ex voto images. The themes that will emerge from lecture and discussions will include economic influences and ramifications, sacred and secular power and completion, and regionalism. In an attempt to exceed the traditional parameters of scholarship on pilgrimage art and architecture, this course also considers emerging topics in the field, such as personal pilgrimage in the Middle Ages in the form of mental pilgrimage and reading practices. Moreover, for comparative purpose we will take into consideration pilgrimage sites and practices beyond the Medieval Christian West such as Muslim Mecca, Hindu Banares, and Catholic Latin America. Student evaluations will be based on two in-class exams as well as a number of smaller writing assignments.
HISTART 411. Interpretations of Landscape.
Section 001 — III.3.Instructor(s): Martin Powers (mpow@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Upperclass standing, and HISTART 102 or 103. (3). (Excl). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (3). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This course singles out the evolution of the taste for landscape painting as a special topic in the history of art, with special emphasis on the landscape painting of China. In the course of surveying the evolution of landscape in China, the class will bear in mind several key questions, including: Under what sorts of conditions does landscape arise as a genre? Why does landscape appear late in history relative to figure painting? What kinds of issues have been addressed through the landscape genre? What sorts of social groups have supported the landscape genre and what sorts of values can be encoded, debated, or negotiated through the forms of landscape? In order to consider these questions in historical context the class will review, among other things, the relationship between landscape painting and land ownership, the impact of gardening practices on the taste for landscape and the development of critical conventions for theorizing about landscape painting. Although the course concentrates on traditions of landscape painting in China, we shall read and discuss secondary sources on English and American landscape so as to provide a basis for comparative discussion. In addition the course will culminate with a reconsideration of the European encounter with Chinese garden traditions between the 17th and early 19th centuries in England and France. There will be a midterm, a final, a paper and study questions. The paper may focus on a specific Chinese landscape painting in local collections.
HISTART 433 / CLARCH 433. Greek Sculpture.
Section 001.Instructor(s):Prerequisites & Distribution: Upperclass standing, and HISTART 101. (3). (Excl). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted.
HISTART 453. Venetian Painting.
Section 001 — IV.3.Instructor(s): R Ward Bissell (bissellw@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Upperclass standing, and HISTART 102 or 250 or 251. (3). (Excl). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (3). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. Following introductory remarks on the history of Venice and on the character of that extraordinary city, renowned as La Serenissima and the Queen of the Adriatic, the course will survey North Italian and especially Venetian painting from the early 14th C. to the late 16th C. — that is, as it evolves from the first stirrings of a personal idiom, through the florid International Style to Early Renaissance realism and High Renaissance idealism, and finally to a Counter-Renaissance statement of great emotional fervor. The period 1450-1600, including such masters as Mantegna, Carpaccio, Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese, will be featured. At once attempting to define the special qualities of the Venetian tradition, with its painterly and poetic sensitivities, and the creative uniqueness of some of its leading exponents, the lectures will approach the works of art both with respect to the sociocultural contexts in which they were born and to their relevance to us today. Students will be evaluated by way of midterm and final examinations of essay type.
HISTART 463. Varieties of Dutch and Flemish Painting.
Section 001 — IV.3. Pictorial Art & Visual Culture.Instructor(s): Celeste A Brusati (cbrusati@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Upperclass standing, and HISTART 102 or 260. (3). (Excl). May not be repeated for credit.
Credits: (3). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This course explores the extraordinary production of pictorial art in the Netherlands during the seventeenth century, and key roles played by pictures in the formation and life of the Dutch Republic. Our explorations will take us into the spheres of painting, drawings, prints, maps, book illustrations and the entire range of pictorial representations and technologies that constituted Dutch visual culture. The course will situate Dutch art within its historical and social circumstances, and investigate its relation to the broader visual culture of the Dutch Republic. Lectures will give special emphasis to the innovative work in still life, landscape, portraiture, perspective and optics, and scenes of social life for which Netherlandish artists have long been renowned. Discussions will examine the character, meanings, and functions of these pictures; the aesthetic, social, and economic values they enjoyed, and the ways of seeing they generated. In the process we will look at how Dutch pictures were made and marketed, how people made sense of them, and how they circulated both in the Netherlands and beyond. The course will involve a mix of lecture and discussion. Evaluation will be based on participation, several kinds of writing assignments (about 20 pages altogther) and a final examination.
HISTART 472. Nineteenth-Century Architecture.Section 001 — Meets with ARCH 533.001.Instructor(s): Anatole Senkevitch, Jr. (senkanat@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Upperclass standing, and HISTART 102. (3). (Excl). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (3). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. No Description Provided. Contact the Department.
HISTART 482. Buddhist Art.
Section 001 — III.1,2.Instructor(s): Qiang Ning (qning@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Upperclass standing. (3). (Excl). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (3). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This course will present a detailed survey of the Buddhist architecture, sculpture, and painting of India, Southeast Asia, Tibet, China and Japan, with particular emphasis on the development of these arts in response to the evolution of Buddhist doctrine and changes in devotional practices. Students should therefore bring to the course an interest in Buddhism as a religion, as well as some prior knowledge of the history and culture of the countries involved. The main requirements will be a final exam and a term paper on a subject of the student's choice.
HISTART 534 / CLARCH 534. Ancient Painting.
Section 001 — IV.1. Ancient Monuments.Instructor(s): Elaine K Gazda (gazda@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Upperclass standing; and HISTART 101 or 221 or 222. (3). (Excl). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (3). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. In the ancient civilizations of the greater Mediterranean region, large-scale paintings decorated the walls of palaces, houses, tombs and public buildings, often in celebration of their patrons' lives, achievements, and cultivated tastes. Especially prized were painted wood panels. Some were kept in special cabinets and shown only to special guests. Others, like Fayoum portraits, commemorated the deceased in life and accompanied them to the eternal world of the grave. After a very brief introduction to the traditions of monumental painting developed by the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean world, this course will focus on the wall and panel paintings of the Roman era. Paintings from Rome, Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Ostia provide the core of visual material but paintings from the Roman provinces will be considered as well. This course will pay special attention to the meaning of various subjects in light of patrons' social concerns and contexts. These include (but are not limited to) images of gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, mortal men and women, children and slaves; daily, religious, and political life, landscapes, gardens and still lifes. Class discussion will take account of a number of overarching problems in the study of Roman painting such as the relationship of Roman imagery to Greek models, the validity of the four Pompeian styles as a 'scientific' tool, and the reception of Roman paintings in modern times. Students will learn about the technical processes of Roman wall painting as well as the problems and methods of reconstruction and interpretation by studying actual fragments of Roman painting in special sessions at the Kelsey Museum. Readings for twice weekly class discussions and lectures will be drawn from R. Ling, Roman Painting (1991) and an electronic course pack. An in-class report and short (3-4 page) paper to be prepared during the first half of the term will be followed by a ten-page research paper in the second half. Midterm and final examinations will be based on slide attributions and essays.
HISTART 555. Renaissance Architecture in Italy.
Section 001 — IV.3. Meets with ARCH 518.001.Instructor(s): Lydia M Soo (lmsoo@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Upperclass standing, and HISTART 101 or 102. (3). (Excl). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (3). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This course examines the architecture of the Renaissance; the buildings and cities of the 15th and 16th centuries in Italy, France and England. They will be discussed in relationship to contemporary theoretical writings, addressing issues of function, structure and beauty, as well as in relationship to the cultural context of the Renaissance, including philosophical, religious, political, economic and environmental factors. This course is comprised of lectures and discussions. Students are required to take written exams, to write a term paper, and to participate in discussions based on required readings.
HISTART 562. Baroque Sculpture in Italy and Spain.
Section 001 — IV.3.Instructor(s): R Ward Bissell (bissellw@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Upperclass standing, and HISTART 102 0r 260. (3). (Excl). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (3). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. Beginning with introductory lectures on 16th-century sculptural traditions and on the stirrings of a new way of seeing and working, the course will pass to an intensive investigation of the art of Gianlorenzo Bernini. Bernini's sculpture will be studied both for what it reveals of the master's artistic genius and of the changing sociopolitical/religious climate in Papal Rome. The influence of Bernini's vision and the alternative to the Berninian manner — that of Baroque Classicism — will then be discussed. This will be followed by a unit on the extraordinary sculpture of 17th-Century Spain. The course will end with suggestions as to the constants — that is, the peculiarly Baroque features — within so much astonishing diversity. The course will observe a lecture format and students will be evaluated on the bases of two examinations. A syllabus and a bibliography of reserve books will be provided, as well as an on-line Image Study Gallery. While the amount of assigned reading will be modest (text: Howard Hibbard, Bernini, Pelican PB), considerable additional reading will be recommended. In spite of the fact that the course bears a "500" number, undergraduates with history of art training should not hesitate to elect it.
Consult the new Course Guide at: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/lsa/cg_subjectlist/0,2030,8,00.html?show=20&termArray=f_04_1510&cgtype=ug This page was created at 12:34 PM on Wed, May 5, 2004.
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