HAA Course Descriptions - Recent Years
The Department of History of Art and Architecture offers a wide variety of courses for undergraduates, including introductory survey sessions, specialized writing seminars, and special topics classes. The following is a compilation of courses offered over the past three years. Several are offered every year, while some specialized courses are offered infrequently.
Courses by Subject Area
Introductory Survey Courses
Introduction to Art, Introduction to Asian Art, Introduction to Modern Art, Introduction to Architecture, Introduction to Medieval Art, Introduction to Paintings, European Visual Traditions, Introduction to Contemporary Art
Ancient/Medieval Art
Ancient Art, Ancient Cities, Medieval Artistic Patronage, Ancient Sites, Greek Art, Greek Architecture, Pre-Colombian Art, Roman Art, Roman Architecture, English Medieval Architecture, Romanesque Architecture, Byzantine, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, Gothic Architecture, Gothic Art, Medieval Iconography
Asian Art
Art of China, Art of Japan, Chinese Landscape Painting, Art of India, Avant-Garde in Contemporary Chinese Art, Issues of Authority in Japanese Art and Architecture, Japan -The Artist and the City, Issues of Authority in Japanese Art and Architecture, Ancient Rituals Through Text and Archaeology, Modern and Contemporary Asian Art, Material Culture of Early East Asian Cultures, Ancient East Asian Visual Tradition, Ancient Chinese Art, Chinese Architecture, Chinese Archaeology, Japanese Art of the Heian, The World of Japan, The Language of Japanese Aesthetics
Renaissance/Baroque Art
Renaissance Art, Northern Renaissance Art, Landscape Painting 1500-1700, Baroque Art, Italian Art to 1400, Florence in the 15th-Century, Early Netherlandish Painting, Early Renaissance Architecture, High Renaissance Architecture, 16th-Century Italian Painting, Italian 17th-Century Painting, Dutch and Flemish Painting, The Afterlife of the Antique in Italian Renaissance Art, Biographies of Michelangelo
Modern/Contemporary Art
Foundations in Art History, Van Gogh, Frank Lloyd Wright, Photography and Art, Modern Architecture, 20th-Century Art, American Art, Dada, Surrealism, and the Politics of Desire between the Wars, Theories of Photography and Film, Modern Sculpture, Expressionism, Art and Architecture of the 18th Century, Realism and Impressionism, Photographers and Photography Since World War II, Early American Architecture, Modern American Architecture, The Civil War in American Art, Documentary Film, Experimental Cinema, American Independent Film
Cross-Subject Area
Approaches to the Built Environment, History of Architecture Theory, World Cities, Independent Study, Senior Thesis, Introduction to Historic Preservation, Space for Art: Rethinking the Campus Core, Architectural Seminar: Monographic Topics - Florence Cathedral: Text and Context, Women Artists, 1550-1980, World Film History
HAA 1010 Writing Seminars
Feminism and Art History, Approaches to Medieval Art and Architecture, Gendered Space in the Greek City, Rembrandt and his Interpretors, History of Photography, Pittsburgh Architecture and Urbanism, Public Monuments, Women in Chinese Art, Italian Renaissance Portraiture, Caravagggio, Abstract Expressionism, Photographic Media, Berlin: Episodes in Architectural History
0010 Introduction to Art
From prehistoric to modern times, works of art can be understood as significant cultural documents. This introductory course, designed for students with no previous background in art or art history, is intended to demonstrate how to interpret European, Asian, and American works of art and architecture within their historical context. Illustrated lectures and recitations will discuss selected works of art in depth and relate them to the historical culture in which they were produced. In the broadest light, the course is designed to demonstrate and teach some of the basic tools of analysis and critical thinking with which to approach works of art as both aesthetic objects and historic documents.
0020 Introduction to Asian Art
This course is intended to introduce major artistic traditions of South and East Asia and to demonstrate the basic tools of analysis with which one may learn why the objects look the way they do. Some of the topics to be studied included: Art of the Family in China; Zen and the Art of Landscape Painting; Japanese Narrative and Film; Buddhist Temple Sculpture. Upon completing the course students will be familiar with important monuments in Indian, Chinese, Japanese art and will know something about interpreting them. The syllabus and the key visual monuments will be available through electronic reserve.
Recitation sections will provide an opportunity for the section teacher to discuss original works of art, related to the topic of that week's lectures. Note that there are 2 W-practica that carry an extra hour of credit (for a total of four hours). While all students must register for a section, W-practica students must register for BOTH a regular section AND a W-practicum.
0030 Introduction to Modern Art
This course will address critical issues in Vanguard Western painting, sculpture, photography, and architecture from the 19th century to the present. The first part of the course will be devoted to discussion of the nature, history, and cultural practices of artistic Modernism in the West, with special attention to the work of the Realists, Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, Cubists, Surrealists, and the Abstract Expressionists, among others. The last part of the class will explore recent contemporary issues in art.
0040 Introduction to Architecture
This course introduces students to the art of architecture in the Western world from antiquity to the present. The content is presented chronologically as a history of building types and period styles, and culturally examines the contextual issues that shape each period's distinctive architecture. Students who take this course will learn to analyze what they see in the built environment and develop an understanding of why certain structures are considered exemplary works. Students will be encouraged to consider how architecture has developed through time to become the buildings of today and will be equipped to pursue more specialized studies in the history of architecture.
0050 Introduction to Medieval Art
This course is a survey of the major monuments of painting, architecture, sculpture and minor arts made between the 3rd and 15th century for major patrons in the nation states, the Christian church, and other religious groups in Europe. Students learn to recognize, understand, and write about the major techniques, stylistic developments, and iconographic themes, of art and the major structural and aesthetic development in architecture. Lectures focus on demonstrating the evolution of style across time and on the characteristics of particular historical periods and geographical eras in Europe. The course is being transferred to the web. Most components will be available on the course site.
0061 Introduction to Paintings
This course will help students with no experience in the arts feel comfortable when they visit a museum or discuss paintings. Upon completing this course a student should not only have an easy familiarity with some of the greatest masterpieces of paintings, but he or she should also have attained the background and skill to understand and to discuss paintings they might discover in a gallery, antique shop or home. This course is especially intended for students without background in the arts
0070 European Visual Traditions
An introduction to European art and architecture from the early Renaissance to the present, the course will also include American works from the 18th century onwards. It will focus on a few key works by major artists in each period in all three media, and will consider the function or purpose of each work, the aesthetic principles they embodied, the motives of the patrons who commissioned or bought these works, and the historic impact of major artistic innovations.
0090 Introduction to Contemporary Art
This course explores the latest developments in contemporary art in the context of changes in world visual cultures since the 1960s. The first weeks will concentrate on the transformations of artistic practice that occurred initially in Pop Art, and on the Minimal-Conceptual shift in Western art. This will be followed by a survey of the diversification of artistic practice in the 1980s and 1990s, including the emergence of new internationalisms reflecting postcoloniality, global Contemporary Art, indigenous art and digital media. The course will conclude with a consideration of multiplicity of art today. Throughout, the critical and theoretical discourse of contemporaneity will be examined.
0100 Special Topics (Ancient) - Ancient Cities
Cities and their Architecture embody the personal goals and collective values of the planners, patrons, and people who occupy them. This course will survey the archaeological and literary evidence for ancient cities of the Near East (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, Anatolia) and Mediterranean area (Greece, Italy), emphasizing the form of the city and its monuments as cultural ideas and as responses from planners, architects, and patrons to recurring problems, such as: the creation of distinctive architectural forms and urban spaces, problems that arise from the structural limitations of traditional materials and/or building methods, and the need to deal with large-scale projects economically, though the use of new materials, new construction methods, or new systems of organization.
The Mediterranean Sea is a lake and its shores have produced many important cultures and artistic traditions. The course will survey the artistic and cultural traditions of the Near East (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Turkey, Iran) and the Aegean, from the Neolithic to the Persian Empire. Special attention will be paid to: 1) the relationship between the artistic traditions of these areas and the societies which produced them, and 2) the way in which influences from one culture were transformed by another.
0240 Medieval Artistic Patronage
This is a survey of medieval art focusing on some of the major ecclesiastical and secular patrons of the period. The works of art and architecture are studied in relation to contemporary writings - chronicles, inventories, descriptions - that provide documentary evidence for their creation and appreciation. Specific patrons include Justinian, Charlemagne, Herald of Landsberg, Henry the Lion, and Jean de Berry. Prior knowledge is an advantage.
The Italian Renaissance represents one of the high points in Western civilization. In art, this self-conscious "rebirth" of ideas and ideals from Classical Antiquity gave new forms to painting, sculpture, and architecture, and fundamentally transformed the social environment for the artists who created its masterpieces. This course will explore the art of the Renaissance as it developed in Italy between 1250 and 1600. Artists to be discussed include Giotto, Duccio, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca, Botticelli, Mantegna, Leonardo da Vinci, Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, and Palladio.
0303 Landscape Painting, 1500-1700
Landscape as a viable subject of painting emerged slowly in Europe during the Renaissance but, by the end of the seventeenth century, had become the most popular category of art made in the Dutch Republic, and was produced throughout Europe, though predominantly by artists trained north of the Alps. Its status as a serious genre of art with the expressive potential of religious, mythological and historical subjects took much longer. The course will explore reasons for the slow acceptance of landscape, the role it played before it became an independent genre, and the cultural, political and religious developments that affected these developments. Among artists to be discussed are Patenir, Giorgione, Altdorfer, Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Titian, Elsheimer, Rubens, Hercules Seghers, Rembrandt, Ruisdael, Claude and Poussin.
0310 Northern Renaissance Art
Although traditionally considered an Italian phenomenon, the Renaissance achieved some of its most spectacular results north of the Alps. Northern artists in the period of 1300 to 1600 provided the final flowering of the Middle Ages, as their Gothic environment gradually gave way to an infusion of Classicism from the south. At the same time, these skilled masters – particularly those of the Low Countries – set the stage for the outstanding diverse art production of the coming “Golden Age” of seventeenth-century Holland. This course will explore the art of the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, and Britain during the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries, concerning upon issues of naturalism, symbolism, devotion, patronage, economies, the status of the artist, the rise of new artistic genres, the arrival of the Renaissance, and the crisis of the Reformation. Objects of study will emphasize the pictorial arts (painting, manuscript illumination, the graphic arts), with additional examples drawn from architecture, sculpture, and luxury items. Artists to be addressed include the Limbourg brothers, Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hieronymus Bosch, Albrecht Durer, and Pieter Bruegel.
0320 Special Topics (Northern European Art) - Dutch and Flemish Painting
Aside from Italy, no region of Europe has a richer artistic heritage between the years 1400 and 1700 than that of the modern nations of Belgium and the Netherlands. While today they are two of Europe's smallest countries, the prominent place they once occupied in history is indisputable. Formerly known as Flanders and Holland, these territories were the center of Northern European commerce and culture for centuries. Cities like Bruges, Antwerp, and Amsterdam produced many of the greatest artists of all time, including Van Eyck, Bosch, Bruegel, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Vermeer. And it was the Protestant Netherlands--not Italy--that finally brought art into the modern era by democratizing painting and popularizing contemporary secular imagery. This course will explore the Flemish and Dutch painters who produced this Golden Age in the history of art, from the groundbreaking pioneers of the 15th century through the incomparable masters of the 17th century.
0350 Baroque Art
This course will focus on the most significant artists working in 17th century Italy (Caravaggio, the Carracci, Bernini, Algardi, Ribera, Cortona, Poussin, Claude), Spain (Zurbaran, VelÃ'Âzquez, Murillo), France (Georges de la Tour, Champaigne, the Le Nains, Puget, Le Brun), Flanders (Rubens, Van Dyck) and Holland (Hals, Rembrandt, Ruisdael, Vermeer), and will also emphasize the rise of new themes (portraiture, landscape, still life and scenes of daily life) and the growth of middle-class patronage of the visual arts. The broader political and cultural context of these images will also be considered.
0400 Special Topics (Modern) - Foundations in Art History
This new course is designed to give students who are majoring in the History of Art and Architecture a core understanding of the history of the discipline as it has been and is practiced internationally. In this seminar, students will begin recognizing the methodological approaches that are predominant in the field and hone their own critical voices. In assignments, students will learn to look at, analyze and interpret original works of art. This course is meant to serve as a foundation from which students will engage with the discipline in the upper-level courses offered in the department. This class is particularly helpful as a preliminary to the intensive reading and writing seminar required of all majors: HAA 1010.
0400 Special Topics (Modern) - Twentieth-Century Art
In this course, we will address the fundamental changes that have taken place in the concepts and practices of art during the twentieth century. You will be introduced to a variety of different types of art, ranging from work in traditional media such as painting and sculpture to contemporary videos, installations, and beyond. We will address modernism and its aftermath, the status of the art object, the role of gender and identity, and the place of a predominantly European tradition in an increasingly global culture.
The course will study the social and cultural situation of European women from the 15th through the 18th century, focusing on some of the first women artists who had successful careers at this time (S. Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, Artemisia Gentileschi, Elisabetta Sirani, Rosalba Carriera, Judith Leyster, Rachel Ruysch, Elizabeth Vigée- Lebrun, Angelica Kauffmann). We will use images of women by both male and female artists as a focal point for discussions of the position of women, attitudes towards women and evidence of the changes that made it possible for women to emerge as professionals in the visual arts at this time.
0420 Van Gogh
Van Gogh is one of the most famous artists, yet most people know only one or two things about him. This class will study his life and works in depth, and in the context of Realism and Impressionism in France, and in the framework of Dutch art. He also will be viewed as an artist interested in playing a role as a mad genius and ill artist, which were cultural models for artists in the late l9th century. This class is intended for students who have had little or no background in art history.
0440 Frank Lloyd Wright
T
he course is an introduction to the major works of architecture by Frank Lloyd Wright, whose career spans much of the 20th century. His incomplete projects and goals to create an American-style architecture will be compared to his interests in Far Eastern architecture and the European art movements like Cubism and Bauhaus architecture.
0470 Photography and Art
This introductory course is intended to provide a thorough familiarity with the history of photography from its development in the 19th century to the present day, and to link that history to major trends in the history of modern art, such as Realism, Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Abstract art, etc.
0480 Modern Architecture
From the late eighteenth century, new processes and cultural phenomena that may be globally described as effects of modernization have impinged on architectural design and urban planning throughout the world. The development of new technologies and materials, of colonial expansion and extensive state planning in the 19th century, of multi-national corporations and sprawling urban centers in the 20th century, continue to reshape societies and environments. Through case studies of texts, monuments and sites, this course will investigate the consequences of these trends on architectural design and thought from 1800 to the 20th century.
0501 American Art
America is, and has always been, a point for cultures from around the globe--from Europe, Africa, and the New World. Historically this meeting-ground has been both violent and creative. This course will introduce students to the arts produced in that meeting-ground by America's diverse peoples and heritages. Selectively surveying history from before Columbus to the present day, we will examine the diversity of artistic production in the context of cultural interaction, conflict, and conquest. Of particular interest to us will be how art has represented (and misrepresented) the American experience of cultural interaction.
0620 Art of China
This course is designed as an introduction to the visual arts of China. It is hoped that the lecture, class discussions, reading and written work when taken together will provide a base with which you can begin to understand how the Chinese have viewed themselves and the world through time and how this has been expressed in the visual arts. The chronological principle is used as a framework to organize the course. Within each period the arts are analyzed visually and stylistic and iconographic change are examined in light of social and political context. The purpose in each section of the course is to learn, with increasing skill, to read the works and to interpret them in their historical context. Weeks one - four we will look at analysis in an archaeological context. Weeks five and six concentrate on the religious art of Taoism and Buddhism and their relationship to the state. The weeks seven - twelve focus on the art of painting and its importance to the court and to the individual. The last two weeks are designed to look at modern and contemporary China and the attitudes toward formerly elite forms of art vs. art of the common people.
This course will survey Japan's diverse artistic traditions from its Neolithic origins to the 20th century. The lectures will focus on painting and sculpture, but some attention will be paid to architecture, ceramics, textiles, lacquer, gardens and the art of tea. Major themes for discussion include the relationship between Japan and China, the role of religion in art production, and the social and historical context.
0690 Chinese Landscape Painting
The famous Chinese landscape painter named Kuo Hsi of the Song Dynasty (960-1126) asked 'why the virtuous person takes delight in landscapes.' He reasoned that contemplation of a painting of landscape could refresh the mind and heart in as compelling a fashion as wandering among the mountains themselves. The Chinese landscape painters who in their pictures satisfy this longing depict not merely the outward and visible forms of nature, but the inner life and harmony that pervade them. This course attempts to discover the sources of this symbolic language.
0701 Art of India
This course is intended as an introduction to the Art of India. The course content will encompass the vast panorama of Indian art, including the Buddhist, Hindu, and Mughal traditions, from earliest antiquity to the present day.
0810 Experimental Cinema
This course examines the development of experimental cinema beginning in Europe in the 1920s with Dada and Surrealist films by Marcel Duchamp, Luis Bunuel and others, and continuing in the U.S. and elsewhere after World War II. The films, many of which are non-narrative and some of which are “abstract,” will be examined for the ways in which cinema is used for the filmmakers’ personal expression. Consideration will be given to the artistic and cultural contexts in which the films were made, and comparisons will be made with other media, especially painting and sculpture. The course will conclude with an examination of recent film and video installations, including work in the Carnegie International.
World Film History is an introductory course in film studies which introduces basic techniques of film study and acquaints the student with some of the major works and movements in the international cinema from 1985 to the present. Among the important historical and aesthetic developments to be considered are: turn-of-the-century "primitive" films; the evolution of film narrative and visual style in the 'teens; the rise of the European avant-gardes of the 1920s (including Soviet revolutionary cinema, the French Impressionist film and the German Expressionist cinema); the genres of documentary and experimental film; the classical Hollywood film of the 1930s-40s; post-war Italian neorealism, the French new wave, and other international cinemas. The specific films selected for presentation in this class are from the established masterworks of the cinema.
0900 Special Topics (Architectural Studies) - Approaches to the Built Environment
Approaches to the Built Environment, an introductory course designed for Architectural Studies majors, is meant to complement HAA 0040: Introduction to Architecture. Through a series of units dealing with different architectural issues and building types (Representation; Landscape; Dwelling; Commerce and Industry; Public Institutions; Sacred Spaces), students will be introduced to ideas and problems that affect the way in which the built environment has been and continues to be shaped in a variety of historical and cultural contexts. We will think broadly about how the spaces that people move through and inhabit in their daily lives shape and are shaped by human behavior, cultural identity, political experience, and the currents of historical circumstance. Contemporary buildings and projects will figure prominently as examples of how designers currently approach architectural, structural and urban problems. Local sites will serve as case-studies for the analysis of different aspects of the built environment. This class is taught in a seminar format with students evaluated on their class participation and assigned projects. Readings and projects will introduce students to a variety of techniques for analyzing and representing the built environment, providing the basic tools for subsequent architectural research and studies.
1010 Approaches to Art History - Feminism and Art History
This course will engage on a critical investigation of the various points of intersection between Feminism and Art History from the early 1970s to the present, exploring the work of visual artists, art historians, critics, and theorists. We will examine early feminist challenges to the discipline and the canon, the feminist contribution to scholarship on women artists, as well as feminist visual artists working in this “first generation,” exploring the role of women in society and challenging modernist assumptions about art production and the identity of the artist. The relationship between feminism and theory will enframe our discussion of later developments in the 1980s and 1990s as we investigate the relationship between feminism and poststructuralism, the debate between essentialism and constructionism, the emphasis on spectatorship from a psychoanalytic perspective, and explorations of ‘gender identity’ and subjectivity. We will conclude the semester with an investigation of the applicability of the more recent term “postfeminism.” This course is designed to introduce the student to the diversity of methodologies in the history of art. Each student will be expected to present oral and written critical evaluations of the assigned texts as well as produce a significant research paper
1010 Approaches to Art History - Approaches to Medieval Art and Architecture
This course will consider some major recent exhibitions of medieval art in terms of what was selected, why, and what historical, social, and artistic issues were addressed in the catalogues. The class will study and visit the Burgundian exhibition to be held in Cleveland this Fall as a major part of the course. Each student will prepare oral and written reports on selected objects from these exhibitions and will write a research paper.
1010 Approaches to Art History - Gendered Space in the Greek City
Although we are all conscious of the relationship between gender and the (comfortable) use of space within our own cultures, being aware of and understanding the interplay of gender and space in a culture not our own is much more difficult. The difficulty is magnified if the culture is an ancient one that cannot be visited or experienced directly. The course will explore the evidence available and the methods used to reconstruct the relationship between gender and space in the Greek city—literature, ethnography, archaeology, and art historical analysis.
1010 Approaches to Art History - Rembrandt and his Interpretors
This undergraduate seminar is intended for majors who have taken Baroque Art 0350 but other art history majors may take it with the instructor's permission. Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) is one of the celebrity artists of 17th C Europe whose work was recognized in his day as both exceptional and provocative, and has rarely been out of favor with the public or collectors since his death. Extensive publication of documents about his life and patrons and an immense literature in English will give students many opportunities to get to know Rembrandt while thinking about the different methods used by art historians, past and present, as they seek to interpret his work.
1010 Approaches to Art History - History of Photography
This is a "capstone" class for art history majors who have had several art history courses. The topic is the history of photography and how it was created as a medium of scientific recording and as an artistic experiment to rival painting. Some knowledge of the history of photography is useful. There will also be some experiments with early photographic techniques like pinhole cameras, daguerreotypes, salted paper prints, and gum bichromate prints. The goal is to explore the scientific and artistic side of photographic history and its links with art history. The main concern is how photography was accepted over the past 150 years as an artistic medium as well as a major type of documentation of family and daily life.
1010 Approaches to Art History - Pittsburgh Architecture and Urbanism
This undergraduate research seminar will overhaul the instructor's book, PITTSBURGH: AN URBAN PORTRAIT with new neighborhood and building updates, new photography and maps, and entirely new urban "issues" like downtown housing, the fight over where to put gambling, conflicts over the Mon-Fayette expressway, and how to reshape the city to attract (or keep) young people. Students will learn much about Pittsburgh, but the real subject is how to conduct research, and encapsulate it in elegant writing. HAA 1010 is offered every fall and spring term, but specific topics change every semester.
1010 Approaches to Art History - Public Monuments
This seminar focuses on the problem of understanding and reinterpreting public monuments as their meaning and purpose change over time. In recent years, scholars and artists alike have brought increasing attention to this problem as political regimes have changed and as groups that had once been silenced in the public realm have now gained some ability to speak to what should be remembered and how. The course will focus on the wealth of historical monuments located in and around the Oakland campus. Small teams of students will choose one monument to study and reinterpret over the course of the semester. After doing general reading on the problem of the public monument and examining case studies of how monuments have been reinterpreted or challenged or even redesigned by scholars and artists, the teams will focus on their own chosen case. Each team will be expected to research the original purpose of the monument, and to sketch the meanings it might have had for its original audience. Then the team will confront the monument's purpose and meaning in today's society. The final project could take one of several possible forms: a suggested reinterpretation of the monument, or a public event such as a walk or a performance. Each individual student will write a research paper that analyzes the monument and the final project. HAA 1010 is offered every fall and spring term, but specific topics change every semester.
1010 Approaches to Art History - Women in Chinese Art
Chinese women have been viewed as subordinate and inferior to men throughout the historical period. However, their roles, status, and position in the family and the society were not static. Instead, changes occurred based on political, social, religious, ideological circumstances in different periods. This seminar offers an interdisciplinary exploration of women artists and the description of women in art in traditional China from the Neolithic Age to the end of the imperial period. Methods in art history, archaeology, history, and literature will be utilized. Topics discussed will include how and if "Goddesses" were revered, matriarchal and patriarchal society, royal women of the Shang, the Daoist, Confucian, and Buddhist attitudes on women, didactic art for women, gendered space in paintings, and ways that images of women help to visualize ideas of both femininity and masculinity, Chinese women and the "Others", and powerful women in literature. We will also discuss the differing roles of women as patrons, collectors, and painters. This seminar is intended to help the students develop their critical thinking and writing skills as well as doing independent research. It will also enrich their knowledge of the roles and status of women in traditional China and the application of Western theories and methods on the study of Chinese art and culture. HAA 1010 is offered every fall and spring term, but specific topics change every semester.
1010 Approaches to Art History - Italian Renaissance Portraiture
This undergraduate seminar is intended as a continuation of HAA 1300 (Italian Renaissance Portraiture) and is appropriate for majors who have taken this course, Renaissance Art (HAA 0302), or a suitable prerequisite. The course will ask students to read theoretical texts (many from outside the field of Italian Renaissance) to consider the Italian Renaissance portraiture from the point of view of diverse methodologies. It will examine Renaissance notions of subjectivity and strategies of self-fashioning while challenging notions of how Italian portraiture has been studied in the past. Art historical methodologies discussed will include reception theory, patronage studies, social history, psychoanalytic theory, "the gaze", formalism, identity politics, and post-structuralism. Each student will prepare a research paper of 10-15 pages as well as short oral and written presentations. HAA 1010 is offered every fall and spring term, but specific topics change every semester.
1010 Approaches to Art History - Caravaggio
This undergraduate seminar is intended for majors who are also taking (or who have taken) Baroque Art 0350 but other art history majors may take it with the instructor’s permission. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio(1571-1610) is one of the most influential artists of 17th C Europe whose work was recognized in his day as both exceptional and provocative. Extensive publication of documents about his life and patrons and an immense literature in English will give students many opportunities to get to know Caravaggio while thinking about the different methods used by art historians, past and present, as they seek to interpret his work. HA&A 1010 is offered every fall and spring term. This particular topic may not be repeated very often.
1010 Approaches to Art History - Abstract Expressionism
This undergraduate seminar offers an advanced discussion of art historical methodology and research techniques. How do art historians deal with and explain art objects, and why? How can we look at art that is completely non-representational and attempt to understand it? In this course, we will address Abstract Expressionism within the context of twentieth century art history. We will consider the influence of European artists who fled the carnage of World War II for the relative safety of New York City, with particular emphasis on the Surrealists. How did these artists influence the American avant-garde? What was uniquely American about Abstract Expressionism? We will focus primarily on artists Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. We will also consider the influential art critics of the time period, particularly Clement Greenberg and Harold Rodenberg. HA&A 1010 is offered every fall and spring term. This particular topic may not be repeated very often.
1010 Approaches to Art History - Photographic Media
This course aims to supply students with a broad introduction to the scholarly methods and historiographical disputes that film and photography have generated. Although part of its purpose is to familiarize students with some of the principal approaches in art history as a whole, the course primarily strives to give students the opportunity to put such approaches into practice by writing a research paper. Under the supervision of the professor, students will select a particular artist, movement, or development within cinematic and photographic history, conduct research upon it, and then produce a paper. Students will learn both about the history of photography, as well as what it means to produce art historical work. HAA 1010 is offered every fall and spring term, but specific topics change every semester.
1010 Approaches to Art History - Berlin: Episodes in Architectural History
A consideration of the significant public and monumental structures and spaces that define Berlin will be considered in this seminar: Unter den Linden, the Reichstag, Museum Insel, Alexanderplatz, Potsdamer Platz, the Kulturforum, the Berlin Wall. We will trace the history of modern Berlin through these spaces, from its origins through the city's emergence as the capital of an Imperialist power, from the turbulent Weimar period through the grandiose plans of the Third Reich, to the Cold War when the city was severed in two. Particular focus will be given to the growth pangs that have reshaped the city in the last two decades since the fall of the wall resulted in an unprecedented opportunity to redefine a city from its core. Major contemporary architects, including Norman Foster, Daniel Libeskind, Peter Eisenman, Piano and Rogers, Helmut Jahn, IM Pei, and Frank Gehry, have flexed their muscles here in monumental corporate, governmental and public projects that have attempted to redefine the city for a new century. A close examination of the controversial work of Libeskind (The Jewish Museum) and Eisenman (The Holocaust Memorial) however, will explore how difficult it is to disentangle the new world capital from its violent past. Approaches to Art History is restricted to History of Art and Architecture Majors, and is an intensive writing and reading seminar limited to 15 students. Each student will be expected to present oral and written critical evaluations of the assigned texts as well as produce a significant research paper. HAA 1010 is offered every fall and spring term, but specific topics change every semester.
1040 History of Architecture Theory
History of Architectural Theory is an upper level reading course that is required for all students wishing to graduate from the University of Pittsburgh with a major in architectural studies. The objective of the course is to acquaint students with architectural writing as a literary genre, to examine the emergence and development of core ideas in the Western architectural tradition, and to understand the relationship between architectural ideas and the cultural, political and social contexts in which they were articulated. Texts examined in the course will include classic architectural treatises, texts on landscape, urbanism and aesthetics, and novels in which architecture is a dominant theme. Drawings, engravings, photography and illustrations will be considered as important components of architectural theory; the format and composition of architectural books will be considered as integral to the ideas they contain. Texts from antiquity to the present will be examined, including the writings of Vitruvius, Alberti, Serlio, Palladio, Perrault, Laugier, Boullee, Pugin, Ruskin, Viollet-le-Duc, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Kahn, Jane Jacobs and Robert Venturi.
1100 Special Topics (Ancient) - Sacred Sites
This course explores the exciting new research concerning sites that have been considered sacred throughout history. It will look more closely at selected sites – beginning with the magnificent cave paintings, expanding to prehistoric monuments such as New Grange and Stonehenge, Mayan sites at Copan and Monte Alban, Egyptian, Greek and Roman temples and the huge temple complex of Angkor Wat. It will investigate how these sacred traditions have carried on at Early Christian churches and at Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals. Students will read about recent discoveries of how important astronomical information was recorded in the art and encoded in the architecture of these sacred spaces. It will also look at how sacred space was aligned to the movements of the heavens and how these sites functioned within the cultures that produced them.
1100 Special Topics (Ancient) - Greek Architecture
Greek architecture has a familiar look to it since the formal vocabulary, and the problems of spatial organization, proportion, and statics that were formulated by Greek architects of the archaic and classical periods had a major impact on the development of later European and American architecture. Rather than focusing on the influence of Greek architecture, however, the course will examine the development of this tradition within its original, ancient setting, looking in particular at the mix of cultural and historical factors that resulted in the "look" that we associate with this formal building tradition today.
1106 Pre-Columbian Art
This course will examine the art and architecture of complex New World civilizations in Mesoamerica (northern Mexico to Honduras) and Andean South America before European conquest. Our main goal will be to understand the relationship of the art to the ideology, cosmology, worldview and culture(s) of its creators. Themes to be explored include the relationship of the art to religion, the organization of power and the interaction between groups. Mesoamerican cultures to be studied include the Olmec, Maya, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, and Aztec. The ancient cultures of Andean South America -- Chavín, Paracas, Nazca, Moche, Wari, Tiwanaku, Chimú and Inca -- will also be examined.
1110 Greek Art
Greek culture was the filter through which the cultural and artistic achievements of the older, urban civilizations of the Near East (Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Levant) were absorbed into the Mediterranean and redefined in terms which we now call “western”. The course will examine the development of Greek cultural and artistic relationships with the East from the Bronze Age (ca. 3000-1000 B.C.) to the Hellenistic Age (which began with the conquests of Alexander the Great, ca. 330 B.C.), with special emphasis on famous Greek archaeological sites like Mycenae, Delphi, Athens, Olympia and some attention paid to the Greek colonies of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and Magna Graecia (modern Italy).
1130 Roman Art
Roman Art is the art of a civilization much like our own -- cosmopolitan and multi-cultural. The course will trace the development of Roman Art from the formation of Rome’s empire in the 2nd c. BC to the empire at its broadest geographical extent, in the 2nd c. AD., examining both the public art (architecture and sculpture) sponsored by the central and local governments, and the decorative art of the Roman consumer.
1160 Roman Architecture
The course will examine the development of Roman architecture from its origins in Etruria and Central Italy to the High Empire (ca. 150 AD). Special attention will be given to 1) the relationship of architectural forms, types and functions to changes in Roman politics and society, 2) the significance of materials and outside influences on the development of local Italian traditions and forms, and 3) the interaction between Roman architectural forms and local traditions in the provinces to create a Roman imperial "koine".
1203 Special Topics: Byzantine Art
Byzantium, the empire of "New Rome," was founded in A.D. 324-330, when the Roman Emperor Constantine I moved his capital from Rome to the Greek port city of Byzantion, on the straits of Bosporos. Renamed Constantinople, the city became the heart of an extensive empire that survived for more than eleven centuries, creating a unique civilization whose monuments are among the greatest works of art. This course traces the development of the art and architecture of this empire from its first centuries through its final demise in 1453. Beginning with the monuments of its first "golden age," it proceeds to examine the Iconoclastic controversy of the 8th and 9th centuries and the ensuing theology of sacred image. The course explores in more depth the period between the 9th and 12th C., Byzantium's second "golden age," and ends by examining some of the new directions of Late Byzantine art in selected monuments of the Greek and the Slav Orthodox world.
1210 Medieval Iconography
This course takes an interdisciplinary look at the Holy Grail as a focus for the study of the architecture, iconography manuscripts and texts of the Middle Ages. Subject matter from the old and new testaments, biblical commentary and exegesis, from the classical tradition, and from the vernacular literature of period is included. Students will prepare weekly assignments for class discussion.
1226 Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture
This course on Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture balances modern scholarship on the origins and development of church-building with a conceptual study of what worship is and how it has been housed. We will look at how the first Christians worshipped in their homes, then at the rich basilicas built for Constantine and Justinian, and at the expansion of the Byzantine tradition to neighboring provinces. Field trips to analyze a church and synagogue service will complement the lectures and readings.
1235 English Medieval Architecture
This Honors Seminar, cross-listed as HAA 2200 for graduate credit, focuses on the portion of Canterbury Cathedral that was built in the early years of the pilgrimage cult of St. Thomas Becket, itself the context for Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Constructed between 1174 and 1184, the Early Gothic choir of Canterbury is held to be the earliest Gothic structure in England and the one there that most nearly resembles the French originators of this style. The history of this choir is informed by the most varied array of primary documents that exists for any medieval structure and the changes in the design that still can be seen in the building demonstrate that the history of its construction was unusually complex. Both the documents and the archaeology of the structure offer an unrivaled opportunity for detective work in the exploration of a building and it dramatic story.
1240 Romanesque Architecture
This course will deal primarily with the churches and secondarily with the castles and houses surviving in Western Europe from the first mature period of post-Antique Europe, 1050-1200. It marks the development of sophisticated building techniques and offers the opportunity to sample a rich variety of regional design types.
1250 Gothic Architecture
This course examines the Gothic cathedral from a number of angles: how it was built; what makes it stand up; what medieval patrons, artists, and facilitators had to say about it; its functional requirements as a liturgical center; and how this mode of architecture developed. Assigned readings will be taken from a text and from a variety of sources. Students will also be expected to write a paper of about ten pages or carry out an equivalent creative project.
1255 Gothic Art
This course focuses on selected monuments of Gothic Art from the mid-12th century to the beginning of the 15th century in Western Europe. It includes painting (wall paintings, stained glass, and manuscripts), monumental and free-standing sculpture, and the minor arts. The focus is on patronage, techniques and production, stylistic development, and iconographic programs, with reference to written source materials. Lectures center upon monuments in Continental Europe; students work independently on monuments in England.
1300 Special Topics (Renaissance) - Italian Art to 1400
After the fall of the Roman Empire and centuries of relative obscurity, Italian art reemerged in spectacular fashion during the Renaissance. This course looks at the origins of the Italian Renaissance in the art of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. For the first time since Classical Antiquity, artists of this period become known to us by their names: so much so, in fact, that in 1550 the great Florentine biographer, Giorgio Vasari, would begin his chronicle of "modern" Italian art with the lives of these artists. At the same time, the status of the artist began its rise from the humble medieval artisan to the level of esteem known to us today. We will explore the artistic environments of figures active in such major centers as Florence, Siena, Rome, and Venice. Artists to be discussed include Nicola and Giovanni Pisano, Arnolfo di Cambio, Cimabue, Giotto, Duccio, Simone Martini, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Andrea Orcagna.
1300 Special Topics (Renaissance) - Florence in the 15th-Century
This advanced course in art history will examine the paintings, sculpture, and architecture created in the Renaissance city of Florence during the fifteenth century; this means we will have the delightful experience of looking at and discussing works by Masaccio, Ghiberti, Donatello, Botticelli, the young Leonardo, and others. We will examine how these works can be related to the social, political, religious, and historical events of the period.
1300 Special Topics (Renaissance) - Early Netherlandish Painting
The 15th century in Northern Europe is one of the great moments in Western art. The painters Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck inaugurated a new, more naturalistic form of painting around 1430 in works like the MÃ'©rode Altarpiece, Ghent Altarpiece, and Arnolfini Wedding Portrait. This course will explore some of the major themes of Early Netherlandish Painting, from Panofskian "disguised symbolism" to the modern use of scientific investigation. We will also address works by such artists as Rogier van der Weyden, Petrus Christus, Dieric Bouts, Hugo van der Goes, Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Hans Memling, Gerard David, and Hieronymus Bosch.
1300 Special Topics (Renaissance) - The Afterlife of the Antique in Italian Renaissance Art
Every culture defines its own present by re-defining its past. In this class, we will explore the reuse of the antique during the Renaissance in Italy, looking, for example, at how Rome rebuilt itself out of its own antique ruins, or how Venice and other cities without abundant ancient remains invented their own methods of reuse. The course asks how and why Renaissance artists re-cast the remains of ancient art and architecture in their own contemporary creations; some of these works include Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, Raphael's School of Athens, and Bramante's design for the Vatican. We will also consider the birth of restoration, collecting, and archaeology.
1300 Special Topics (Renaissance): Biographies of Michelangelo
In this class, students will examine several different biographies of Michelangelo: those written in the sixteenth century by competing authors, the auto-biography that Michelangelo may have left for us in his own artworks or in his poetry, and art-historical narratives about Michelangelo written in the 20th century. In the class, students will learn not only about this artist's career, but also about the construction of a Renaissance artistic personality, the problems that arise when biographical narratives are brought to bear on the history of art, and the cultural role of artistic "genius" in Michelangelo's lifetime and today.
1304 16th-Century Italian Painting
This course will focus on the works of major painters, sculptors and architects in Florence, Rome and Venice from 1480 to 1580. The career of Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Giovanni and Gentile Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Jacopo Sansovino, Veronese and Palladio will be emphasized, with attention to the Mediterranean context and cross-cultural exchange, especially with the Islamic world.
1305 Early Renaissance Architecture
The Early Renaissance (1420-1500) in Italy marked a fundamental change in the way mankind saw and thought about the world and their built environment. This course examines the buildings, cities, projects, and theories of that period through its major designers. It concentrates on the new acceptance of rationality and modular linkage in building, which prefigures the rationality and scientific method characteristic of the modern world.
1306 High Renaissance Architecture
The architecture of the High Renaissance and Mannerism (from about 1500 to about 1580 in Rome and other centers of Italy) changed forever the face of architecture. This course begins with epochal projects by Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo and (on paper) Leonardo da Vinci. It then follows the mutation of High Renaissance ideals into Mannerism and the dispersion of both styles in northern Italy, particularly in town planning and in the villas and churches of Andrea Palladio around Venice. We end with a survey of what the Renaissance style looked like when it was exported to France, Spain, Germany, and England.
1308 Italian 17th Century Painting
During the 17th Century, Rome became the cosmopolitan center of artistic activity in Western Europe, attracting ambitious young artists from the rest of Europe, some of whom settled there, others of whom returned home to spread news of Caravaggio's dramatic innovations, and many later developments. We will study these interactions with focus on developments in Bologna, Rome and Naples. In addition to Caravaggio, we will look at the careers of the Carracci, Reni, Guercino, Cortona, Sacchi, Gaulli, Maratta, Preti and Luca Giordano.
1400 Special Topics (Modern) - Dada, Surrealism, and the Politics of Desire between the War
This course provides an international history of Dada and Surrealism between the two World Wars. Special attention will be devoted to art and politics in these two movements, in specific the oftentimes tense relationship between Dada's and Surrealism's engagement with the Communist Party on the one hand and radical psychoanalytic thought on the other. Through discussion of the work of Marcel Duchamp, George Grosz, Hannah Höch, Max Ernst, Salvador Dali and others, we will examine Dada and Surrealist work in a variety of media, including collage, painting, photography, film, and fashion. Related issues to be addressed in the course include: the response of both movements to the development of mass culture, the status of women and gender issues in their avant-garde projects, and Dada and Surrealist notions of the "revolutionary unconscious."
1400 Special Topics (Modern) - Theories of Photography and Film
From their first appearance in the nineteenth century to today, photographic media have often been taken to stand in an uneasy and disruptive relationship towards older forms of picture-making. This course looks at some of the main strands in the discussion that photographic technologies have generated, and strives to understand how these media have been seen to call into question traditional notions of pictorial coherence, authorship, naturalism, and manufacture. Because photography's commentators and practitioners have also emphasized that the discrepancies between it and older forms of image-making are not merely disruptive, but open up new vistas of representational possibility, the class does not confine itself to a narrow definition of photographic media. It treats certain theorizations of cinema along with still photography, above all those theories of film that claim its photographic nature is the key to understanding it. Some of the many thinkers, artists, and critics on whom the class focuses are Charles Baudelaire, Lady Elizabeth Eastlake, Edward Weston, Alfred Stieglitz, Maya Deren, Andre Bazin, and Walter Benjamin.
1404 Modern Sculpture
This course analyzes the major figures in modern sculpture from Rodin to the present. Special attention will be given to the inter-relationships between modern painting and sculpture, particularly in the Cubist period, Surrealism, and in the post-World War II era.
1405 Art & Architecture of the Eighteenth Century
The discovery of Pompeii, the beginnings of industrial architecture, fierce rationalism in the architectural theory of neoclassicism, far-out romanticism in "instant ruins" that were built in England and France, the luxuriousness of French and German Rococo, the towering strength of buildings by LeDoux and Boulee--what era promised more (and delivered much) in its buildings than the eighteenth century? Like its architecture, the 18th-century was as wildly contradictory and dynamic in its painting and art criticism. Lush eroticism in Fragonard and Boucher meets the stern Republican classicism of David, the nightmarish visions of the Sturm und Drang, the natural elegance of Vigée-Lebrun, the longing of Winckelmann, the penetrating gaze of Joseph Wright of Derby, Goya’s macabre condemnations, and Romanticism’s unrequited search for solace in nature. In this age of Revolution, these were the birth-pangs of the modern era as art, the role of the artist and the function of art in public life were redefined. This course traces these shifts, eruptions, conflicts and developments through the “long” 18th-century, 1700-1825, with special emphasis on its unruliness, and on the interchange of architecture, painting, art theory and criticism.
1410 Realism and Impressionism
These movements in 19th century European art were important in the formation of later modern art currents. The course will consider the major developments in Romanticism, then study Courbet, Manet and Degas, and finally move to the major Impressionist masters, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, and Pissarro. Much attention will be given to the literary, social, political and scientific framework for the art of the period.
1440 Expressionism
This course addresses the contentious relationship between Imperial culture and the Modern movement in the arts and architecture in Germany from the turn of the century up until the end of World War I. Works by noted Expressionist artists, including Kandinsky, Kollwitz, Kirchner, and Klee, will be considered in discussions about the role of the arts in debates of the period. Those debates, which we will explore this term, center on issues of colonialism and "primitivism", the rise of feminism and the image of the New Woman, the confrontation between Americanism, mass culture, and German tradition, and the relationship between modernity, technological progress, imperialism, and war. Written assignments for the course, in addition to exams, will include short visual analyses and take-home essays.
1470 Photographers and Photography Since World War II
Invented in 1839, photography was a form of visual expression that immediately engaged a majority of people. Portraiture, for example, was now available for the masses and not just the aristocracy. Starting around 1900, photography was practiced with two dominant strands. One of these firmly believed in the power of photographs to provide a window on the world. The other strand adamantly affirmed that photographs were first and foremost reflections of the soul. As such, they were art objects, equal to painting, drawing and sculpture. These two schools of thought guided photographers throughout the entire twentieth century. Following World War II, a collision of sorts occurred when human-interest photographs were organized into a landmark exhibition, called The Family of Man, at the museum of Modern Art in New York. This display, which toured museums throughout the nation and provided a best-selling catalogue, angered many prominent photographers such as Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, and others, but gave rise to popularization of photography as fine art. This course explores in depth the tremendous range of photographic expression and examines in particular the contributions of significant post-war image-makers such as W. Eugene Smith, Helen Levitt, Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Harry Callahan, Olivia Parker, William Wegman, Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman, Vik Muniz and others. Along with active student discussion of the assigned reading materials, each class includes a slide lecture which introduces a focused selection of images by each photographer in an attempt to understand their influences, styles and intentions.
1500 Special Topics (American) - The Civil War in American Art
The Civil War destroyed the institution of slavery and transformed the U.S. socially, politically, and economically, all at great cost to human life: more Americans died in this war than in any other in the nation's history. The war's impact on art was almost as profound and long-lasting. Not only did the subject inspire some of the nation's best painters, sculptors, photographers, and illustrators, but it changed the face of town and countryside as monuments to soldiers and statesmen of the Civil War era spread across the landscape. This course will examine the far-reaching impact of the war on American art, both during the conflict and afterward, as it moved from current event into the realm of memory. We will pay close attention not only to the imagery of battle but to the social and political issues which shaped the image of the war and which in many respects continue to shape us today.
1512 American Sculpture
Sculpture has long been a uniquely public medium: it fills our common spaces, commemorates national and local heroes, explains and adorns government buildings. In addition to being integral to the history of American art, it also reflects some of the most important issues in the history of American society. This course will survey American sculpture from the colonial era to the present, from carved tombstones and idealized marble portraits to large-scale programs for public spaces and vast reshapings of the natural environment. We will study its relationships to other arts – especially architecture, with which it is often associated – and to major trends in Western art as a whole.
1530 Early American Architecture
Architecture often serves as a prime document and indicator of America's past and future. The theme of this course is the search for identity in American architecture in the centuries from the colonial settlements to the Civil War. The course studies both the recorded history of American architecture and the unrecorded millennium before that, to show its surprising cohesion in the face of great cultural and territorial diversity. The first part of the course particularly stresses archaeological evidence and historic preservation; throughout the course the instructor and the students will together be "reading" the buildings both for their own visual pleasures and as documents of American society.
1531 Modern American Architecture
By the time the Civil War ended in 1865, traditional American architectural values had broken down under a barrage of ornament and imported European styles. Something new had to take shape to express the new wealth of post-Civil War America and the new social order that went with it. The next 135 years would see a succession of brilliant architects in Furness, Richardson, the early skyscraper builders in Chicago, Sullivan, the firm of McKim, Meade and White, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies, Kahn, Venturi, Moore, Gehry, Predock, Holl, Arquitectonica, and the pluralists of today. At the same time, these successes also masked major problems: spoiling the land; architecture as social welfare; and the concern for national and regional values as expressed in building. These individual successes and collective problems will constitute the underlying theme of the course.
1600 Special Topics (Chinese) - Avant-Garde in Contemporary Chinese Art
This lecture course will offer a general view of the history of contemporary Chinese art. Through lecture, reading, video and discussion, this course will investigate the momentous changes -political, economic, and cultural - which have swept through modern Asian history and have profoundly impacted on the development of contemporary Asian art. The materials presented in the course include the new movements of contemporary Chinese art and architecture, in particular the avant-garde art, which flourished in the 1980s and has rapidly developed in the last two decades. The discussion of the materials will focus on the issues, such as Asian modernity and identity, the impact of globalization and Chinese women's art.
1601 Special Topics (Japanese) - Issues of Authority in Japanese Art and Architecture
This course will examine Japanese buildings, sculpture, and paintings as mediums for creating metaphors of meaning and as vehicles for the expression of authority. The objects that we will study represent a wide range of historical time-periods and include ancient Shinto shrines, Buddhist temples, and decorated palaces, castles, and mausolea.
1601 Special Topics (Japanese) - Japan/The Artist and the City
The course will examine the dichotomy in aesthetic tastes and values visible in the arts of the Edo period (1615-1868), focusing primarily on the imperial city of Kyoto and the urban milieu of Edo. Topics to be covered include paintings, prints, performance arts, architecture and gardens.
1601 Special Topics (Japanese) - Issues of Authority in Japanese Art and Architecture
The course will examine Japanese buildings, sculpture, and paintings as mediums for creating metaphors of meaning and as vehicles for the expression of authority. The objects that we will study represent a wide range of historical time-periods and include ancient Shinto shrines, temples, sculpture and paintings associated with state Buddhism, and the decorated palaces, castles, and mausolea of the warrior governments of the medieval and early modern eras.
1601 Special Topics (Japanese) - Ancient Rituals Through Text and Archaeology
This class focuses on ritual in ancient Japan, from the earliest times to the formation of the ancient Japanese imperial state in the 7th and 8th centuries C.E. We will examine rituals relating to a wide variety of activities such as harvesting, hunting, traveling, divination, archaeological and textual methodologies.
1602 Special Topics (Asian) - Modern/Contemporary Asian Art
This course will discuss the mergence of the modern in the arts of East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea. The specific topics for discussion will be determined by a new faculty member to be hired.
1602 Special Topics (Asian) – Material Culture of Early East Asian Cultures
This course will examine early cultures of East Asia through the study of material culture. It is set in chronological order, beginning with the Paleolithic and including the Neolithic, through the formation of states and empires in China, Korea, and Japan. We will look at materials uncovered by archaeological excavations as well as collections in museums and will consider the artifacts as cultural documents. Students will learn how to explain why they look the way they do based on an understanding of their patron’s input, their function as determined from the context of their discovery, use, and time of manufacture.
1602 Special Topics (Asian) - Ancient East Asian Visual Traditions
This course will examine early cultures of East Asia through the study of material culture. It is set in chronological order, beginning with the Paleolithic and including the Neolithic, through the formation of states and empires in China, Korea, and Japan. We will look at materials uncovered by archaeological excavations as well as collections in museums and will consider the artifacts as cultural documents. Students will learn how to explain why they look the way they do based on an understanding of their patron’s input, their function as determined from the context of their discovery, use and time of manufacture.
1605 Ancient Chinese Art
The course is designed to look carefully at the ancient culture of the Chinese. The first task is to learn more about how and where they lived and to gain an understanding of the changes in culture throughout the period dating from c. 2500 bc-c. 200 a.d. It is hoped that the participants in the class will be able to distinguish various periods in Chinese history through study of the material culture; jade, bone, ivory, and bronze artifacts of all kinds. As each period is discussed significant art historical problems will be noted and examined.
1630 Chinese Architecture
This course is designed to study Chinese architecture and society by considering such topics as: the Chinese idea of space; the beginnings and growth of Chinese cities, including Imperial centers, buildings and building programs, palaces, administrative centers, capital complexes, trade centers, and royal gardens; religious centers and buildings, including Buddhist, Daoist and Confucian buildings; and domestic buildings and the art of fengshui in practice.
1650 Chinese Archaeology
This course is designed to introduce the study of Chinese archaeology through analysis of materials which date from the Paleolithic, the Neolithic, the Early dynastic Period, through the establishment of the empire (up to the 2nd century A.D.) Topics such as method of archaeological recovery and analysis; investigation of social, economic and political organization and of art and ritual practice will frame the course discussions.
1652 Japanese Art of the Heian
This course will examine forms of religious art dating from the 8th through the 14th centuries. Among the central issues covered are materials and techniques of image production, iconography, rituals, and the development of the cult of relics.
1655 The World of Japan
Combined with HIST 1432 JPNSE 1070
This course covers the period between 1570 and 1870, beginning with the unification of Japan under the sixteenth century military war lords and ending with the collapse of the Tokugana Shogunate. Students will read selections from the major scholarly literature on the period.
1659 The Language of Japanese Aesthetics
For over a thousand years, aesthetic values have been seen by the Japanese as central in defining the particular significance of their civilization, and the driving force of these insights into the beauty of truth remains powerful even today. Learning to appreciate the development of traditional Japanese aesthetic sensibilities and their historical manifestations in a variety of art forms, from poetry and painting to theatre and folk art, not only helps one to understand Japanese culture, but provides a non-Western model for thinking about the nature of creativity, beauty, and life. All readings are in English.
1806 American Independent Film
Since the 1920s, film production in the United States has been dominated by a powerful industry, manifested for several decades by a Hollywood "studio system" and subsequently by networks of economic corporate alliances. This course examines a wide variety of films that have been made using independent financing, outside the confines of this industry. The "indies" from Miramax and other studios will not be included. The films to be considered will be primarily a diverse sampling of independently produced narrative films, although a few examples of non-narrative experimental works (by, for instance, Maya Deren, Bruce Conner, Stan Brakhage, and Andy Warhol) and documentaries will be included as well. The course is structured more or less chronologically, beginning with a ca. 1920 classic by the African-American filmmaking pioneer Oscar Michaux. Attention will be given to late 1950s "Beat Generation" films like Pull My Daisy and John Cassavetese' first film, Shadows. Low-budget pioneers such as Roger Corman, Doris Wishman, Russ Meyer, John Waters and others will be considered, as will 1960s classics like Easy Rider and Medium Cool. Also included are key examples of blaxploitation and horror films from the late 1960s and the 1970s, including work by George Romero. Ethnic films such as Joan Micklin Silver's Hester Street (1975) and Wayne Wanga's Chan Is Missing (1982) will also be examined, and the course will conclude with several key directors who emerged from the late 1970s to the late 1980s, such as John Sayles, David Lynch, Susan Seidelman, Jim Jarmusch, and Steven Soderbergh.
1820 Documentary Film
This course examines the historical development of documentary film, and fundamental issues and ideas related to that development. The course begins with the earliest years of the cinema in the late nineteenth century, and includes films from the 1920s (e.g. Nanook of the North, Man With A Movie Camera) government supported film from the United States, Great Britain, and Germany in the 1930s (e.g. The River, Night Mail, Triumph of the Will), World War II documentaries (e.g. The Battle of San Pietro), films from the 1960s and 1970s by Frederick Wiseman and others, as well as more recent films. The three-part premise of the course is that: 1.) documentary films are never “objective”; 2). beyond matters of “topic,” the underlying structure and strategies of any documentary film reveal the culture in which the film was made and the stand of the film-maker within that culture; 3). the most significant documentaries are precisely those that effectively engage the “subjective” interaction between film form and film content.
1880 World Cities
What is a city? The sociologist, the anthropologist, the political scientist, the regional planner, and the geographer all see cities from their different perspectives. But the art historian has an important contribution too: cities have been seen for millennia as works of art. Even cities as seemingly "messy" as Las Vegas or Calcutta have an urban form that the art historian can decipher with special expertise. This course looks at the city, both Western and non-Western, to discover its main patterns of urban form and development. Through lectures and discussions, students derive the basic format by which to analyze these patterns. Pittsburgh itself serves as one of several "test cases" in piecing together that format. (If practicable, students will use camcorders to record their visual impressions of it.) Lectures and readings give students the chronological and typological base from which to sharpen their own analytical skills. The principles derived in the early sessions will be used in the final course segment, in which students work on the form and growth of world cities they have selected to study.
1901 Independent Study
Independent studies are intended to provide the student with an opportunity to learn more about a specific subject or problem which is not covered, or covered only in a general way, by the regular academic curriculum. The student should approach a faculty member in the area they wish to cover to serve as Faculty Advisor for permission to enroll.
1910 Special Topics (Architecture) - Intro to Historic Preservation
Introduction to Historic Preservation will explore the goals, methods, and practice of preserving the historic built environment in the United States. History of the preservation movement, tools and tactics for protecting buildings and landscapes, documentation of historical/architectural significance, and more. This course provides students with a broad background in the field of historic preservation and introduces the skills needed to work as a professional in this field.
1910 Speical Topics (Architecture) - Space for Art: Rethinking the Campus Core
The transformation of Schenley Plaza (scheduled for completion in May 2006) highlights some of the underlying complexities of planning a university campus in an urban environment. This design studio will take as its focus the core of the University of Pittsburgh, defined as the area surrounding Schenley Plaza and the Cathedral of Learning. In the first part of this course, students will undertake case studies of university buildings and campuses in North America, and will work collaboratively on a detailed analysis of the architecture and landscape features of the University of Pittsburgh. This knowledge will then be applied to a final project, in which each student will design a new fine arts center for the university south of Schenley Plaza, adjacent to the Frick building.
1911 Architectural Seminar: Monographic Topics - Florence Cathedral: Text and Context
This special seminar introduces students to the objectives, methods, and results of one of Europe’s most ambitious archaeological excavations. Between 1965 and 1980 these excavations – mainly under the direction of the course instructor – located the remains of Early Christian cathedral of S. Reparata (ca. 500 AD) buried below the successor cathedral of S. Maria del Fiore in Florence, Italy. The total scope of what was found involved sixteen centuries (first century BC through 15th century AD) at the heart of one of Europe’s great cities, from a Roman house through three stages of a church, to the building of the existing cathedral. The seminar will work in four main disciplines: liturgy (church ritual both inside the building and in the streets of medieval Florence); scientific archaeology; art history; and social and political history. The liturgical documents and the archaeological evidence provide the “text” of the course; the art-historical and historical interpretations are the “context.” Text and content together offer findings not only rich to look at but significant enough to modify or revise much of the history of Florence between the eras of Augustus and Dante.
1950 Senior Thesis
This course requires the writing of a research paper. The student should discuss a topic with a faculty member and write the paper under that faculty member’s supervision.