Please consult the online course catalog for cross-listed courses and full course information.
Spring 2019
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/453313
An introduction to the art and architecture of the Islamic world from its formative period in the seventh century to contemporary practices in the Middle East, North Africa, South and South East Asia. This course will be taught as a series of lecture-based discussions, mapping out the historical development of the Islamic world and the role of historical events upon culture and society. Topics will include Qur’anic calligraphy, the role of female patrons in commissioning architecture, and Persian illustrated manuscripts.
CRN#: 64986
Meetings: Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:40AM – 11:00AM
Place: ARTS 335
In this course we’ll survey the visual arts of Europe and America from 1600 through the present. We’ll consider the religious and political roles of art, the rise of secular imagery, the increased role of women in the arts, the impact of popular culture and photography, and study other new media in the visual arts.
CRN#: 50008
Meetings: Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:40AM – 11:00PM
Place: WAT 1000
With a culture still primitive enough to be awed by the supernatural, but advanced enough to give accomplished expression to that awe, Romanesque art is perhaps the most expressive of all Western medieval art. In studying the re-emergence of monumental painting, sculpture, architecture, and illuminated manuscripts, this course will take up some of the questions crucial to the art of the Middle Ages–such as the political and religious uses of art, the resistance to art and the justification of art, the role of the pilgrimage, the appeal to terror and to sensuosity in art, and finally the transition from the predominantly monastic art of the Romanesque period to the essentially urban art of the Gothic.
CRN#: 62069
Meetings: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 12:10PM – 1:00PM
Place: ARTS 335
Long suppressed by histories of modernism focusing on abstraction, Surrealism is now acknowledged as one of the most important movements of the first decades of the 20th century. Drawing on psychoanalytic theories that had only just appeared, the Surrealists sought to change not merely art, but life itself, through a radical exploration of the unconscious. We’ll be analyzing a wide range of Surrealist art production, with a focus on lesser known, alternative art strategies: automatic drawing, manipulated and documentary photography, collage, photomontage and assemblage – all practices designed to disrupt conventional art practice.
CRN#: 60057
Meetings: Wednesdays 2:10PM – 5:00PM
Place: ARTS 333
Spring 2019 GRADUATE LEVEL
https://clevelandart.org/art/1989.50
The emergence of Islam in the Arabian peninsula and the transformation of this religious community into a dynastic empire—the Umayyads— was followed by the rapid geographic spread of the empire, both towards the east and the west. During this period Muslim communities settled across Europe, Asia, and Africa, often occupying significant positions of power and prestige. The extraordinary diversity of architecture and art of the Islamicate world reflects the richly varied cultural contexts in which they lived. Using a series of case studies that span this vast geography, we will explore these interactions and consider the role played by circulation, regional aesthetics, and artistic practice in the production of visual and material culture.
The seminar is complementary to AHS 267/ The Arts of the Silk Road: Asia Intertwined.
CRN#: 65007
Meetings: Mondays 2:10PM – 5:00PM
Place: ARTS 333
The so-called “Silk Road” was not a single road but a network of trade routes that connected Eurasia and shaped stylistic and cultural identities in the pre-global world. The seminar will examine the intertwining of people, religions, and arts, and the long-lasting legacy of the Silk Road even after its decline in the 15th century. It will explore material and visual cultures developed and evolved in Central and East Asia, and the mutual influences with the West from 300 BCE to the modern period. The seminar aims to use the Silk Road as a conceptual idea of interculturality. Thematic sessions will analyze and discuss notions of diversity, gender, religious pluralism and theism, “otherness,” migration, consumption, adaptation, acculturation through objects of art, their collection during the “Great Game” in the 19th century and their display in museums worldwide today.
The seminar is complementary to AHS 263/The Arts of Mobility: Encountering the World(s) around Islam.
CRN#: 50040
Meetings: Wednesdays 9:10AM – 12:00PM
Place: ARTS 333
SUMMER 2019 SESSION A
Over the course of the twentieth century, moving images became the dominant cultural form in the West if not globally. As moving images morph once more on account of the nexus of the Internet, mobile technology, and “big data,” what will be the effect on visual art and vice versa? This course explores changes in visual art that coincide and intersect with the history of new media — specifically how combinations of images produce meaning in cinema, intermedia, and social media. Although material is largely historical, one of the primary goals of the course is for students to develop the skills and intellectual curiosity to be critical viewers of contemporary art and media.
*This course is cross-listed with MCS 023
CRN#: 70002
Meetings: Mondays and Wednesdays 1:10PM – 4:00PM
Place: ARTS 335
This course traces the history of the modern movement from Impressionism to the end of World War II. We will focus on the arts in their interrelationships to the political events and social conditions of the period, and the sometimes hostile reception to modernism.
CRN#: 73195
Meetings: Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:10AM – 12:00PM
Place: ARTS 335
SUMMER 2019 SESSION B
This course will examine the relationship between art and war, from the French Revolution and going up to present conflicts. Global in its scope, wartime ideologies, practices, values and symbols will be introduced through the artwork of propaganda, documentation, response/resistance and memorial.
CRN#: 72706
Meetings: Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:10AM – 12:00PM
Place: ARTS 335
What does mean to make art in an age of spectacle? How do we read media art in a totally mediated environment? This course serves as an introduction to experimental and intermedia art practices and critical concepts from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Though primarily examining American art from 1950s, 60s, and 70s with a particular emphasis on interdisciplinary art forms and experimental film and video, we will look at their contem- porary counterparts as well. We will explore how these practices can function as critique and, in some cases, resist dominant culture and even art historical discourse.
CRN#: 70005
Meetings: Mondays and Wednesdays 1:10PM – 4:00PM
Place: ARTS 335