3000 Level Art History, Theory, and Criticism Course Descriptions

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ARTHI 3004
Undergraduate Research and Writing in Art History
This seminar analyzes various problems, issues, and approaches to art history. It is also a practicum for the writing of different kinds of studies and criticism, with special attention given to the sources and methods of art historical research and analysis. Not available for Liberal Arts credit. Also not available for Graduate credit.

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ARTHI 3114
Art of Ancient Greece
The monuments throughout ancient Greece present a visual odyssey of the myths, legends, philosophy, values, and beliefs that cradled the land from the Palace of Knossos at Crete from about the fifteenth-century B.C. to the Venus de Milo of the mid-second-century B.C. This course examines the many art forms that remain both as originals and as Roman “copies.” These include: temples, sanctuaries, treasuries, and other examples of sacred and secular architecture; statues, pediments, friezes, and other examples of colossal; and small, free-standing and relief sculpture, pottery, painting, coins, and gems. The course also explores the mythic, aesthetic, and other cultural patterns that have endured to inspire and inform the works of artists and thinkers of the Western world over the ages. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3140
Romanesque Art and Architecture
Romanesque art—Western European art from around 1025 to 1150—is visually fascinating: flat and angular in form, fantastical and bizarre in subject matter. What are we to make of this rich body of visual material? Or, in the words of one twelfth-century writer, “what profit is there in those ridiculous monster, in that marvelous and deformed beauty, in that beautiful deformity?” (St. Bernard of Clairvaux) Throughout the course we ask questions about the relationship between historical, social, stylistic, and artistic change within the Romanesque period. How do we best account for these changes? How do we handle change as historians, as artists, and as individuals? Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3145
Gothic Art and Architecture
This course surveys the art and architecture of the High Middle Ages in Europe beginning with the emergence of the Gothic style in the Ile de France during the twelfth century and ending with the early Flemish masters of the fifteenth century. The Gothic cathedral and its furnishings form the nucleus of the course. Sculpture, stained glass, textiles, metalwork, panel painting, and manuscript illumination are studied. Individual works of art are examined in the context of such contemporary intellectual, social, and religious developments as the cult of the Virgin, relic worship, urbanization and the formation of guilds, the rise of the vernacular, and the courtly love ideal. Problems of regional variation in architectural styles, word and image relationships in the illuminated manuscript, and the role of the artist in medieval society are also considered. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3168
Sixteenth Century: High Renaissance and Mannerism
This course surveys stylistic developments in sixteenth-century Italy, beginning in the High Renaissance with a discussion of the concept of classicism and its evolution in the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titan, and Giorgione. The main thrust of the course will be an investigation of Mannerism as a natural unwinding of the High Renaissance and as a sometimes knowing and sophisticated distortion of the intentions of that style. The incipient mannerism in the first maniera of the 1520s in Florence, Rome, and Emilia will be distinguished from the high maniera in Florence and Rome, and the counter-maniera/counter Reformation style of the 1570s. Interwoven into the stylistic complexities of this period are the isolated manifestations of the Baroque (Correggio). The course concludes with the sense of crisis which generated a call for reform and how it was met by the Carracci. Because this period was so self-conscious about style, it is particularly conductive to an analysis of style, its evolution, and sense of crisis. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

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ARTHI 3206
Modern Latin American Art
The artistic and cultural developments of Latin America from the nineteenth century to the present will be discussed in relation to the socioeconomic, political, and intellectual milieu. The course is organized both chronologically and thematically. Among the topics to be discussed are the concern with defining a national identity; the role of gender in art; art and immigration; West African syncretisms; indigenism; the tropical controversy; social and political realism; nonfigurative traditions; the diffusion of surrealism; and artistic relationships with the United States and Europe. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3221
Nineteenth-Century European Art
This course surveys the painting and sculpture of Western Europe and related socioeconomic, intellectual, and cultural trends of the time. Special emphasis is placed on Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, and Post-impressionism. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3265
Chicago in Art and Architecture
Chicago’s cultural history provides an intriguing microcosm for many of the issues that have comprised art over the last two centuries. This course will use our local history in art and architecture to test ideas about place, about the development of an independent regional style, and about that style’s relationship to art produced elsewhere. Chicago’s extraordinary history in architecture will be a focus of this class, as will its equally exemplary accomplishments in the visual arts since 1945. The class will attempt to define just what might be meant by suggesting there is a “Chicago Style,” and to investigate its parameters. The physical fabric of the city and its cultural milieu will provide us with many opportunities to apply and extend our observations. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

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ARTHI 3303
Art Since 1945
This course surveys the development of painting and sculpture in American and European art from the end of World War II to the present. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3307
Art of the 1950s
The Cold War, heightened consumerism, and the rapidly growing influence of the mass media offered a powerfully charged background for art-making in 1950s America. This course examines the principal artists, artistic movements, and radical changes that helped shape this dynamic era. The first half of the course considers the importance of Jackson Pollock and the New York School, Joan Mitchell and the second generation of Abstract Expressionists, and the artists clustered around Fairfield Porter. The second half of the course surveys the vanguard of artists (for example, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, John Cage) and movements such as the Beat scene, Happenings, and Underground Films, that challenged the aesthetic canon established only a generation before. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3312
Early Modern Art in Europe
This class investigates European art history from the early 19th century through the mid-20th century, and explores early modern and modern European art in its widest sense: from the Black Sea to Britain, and from Portugal to Petersburg. This class takes the varied responses to the Modern era as its guide, and studies evolving artistic movements simultaneously, in the context of Europe’s changing political topography. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3335
Painting The Past: Representations of History in American Art
Considered in the eighteenth century to be the most noble form of painting, history painting has had an uneven, yet enduring history in American art. This course explores how and why American artists have depicted historical events and people in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Examples include a range of work, such as Matthew Brady’s “authentic” Civil War photos, Thomas Hart Benton’s regionalist murals, and David Salle’s canvases layered with art historical references. We also examine war memorials, history museums (many local ones), historical novels, and film as popular vehicles for historical representation. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3342
American Art Since 1945
This course surveys the development of art in the United States from the end of World War II to the present. Course material is related to artistic developments in Europe, as well as to the socioeconomic and intellectual currents of the time. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3343
History of Twentieth-Century German Art
This course focuses on German art of the twentieth century, from its beginnings in Jugendstil design and architecture around 1900 to the most recent work produced by both West and East German artists as they try to come to terms with the notion of a reunified nation. Lectures include, but are not limited to, discussions of Jugendstil, Expressionism, Dada, New Objectivity, the Bauhaus, National Socialist art, the Zero group, Fluxus, Josef Beuys, conceptual/environmental art, and Neo-Expressionism. The approach is heavily contextual; that is, the cultural products are related throughout to their sociopolitical environment. In addition to painting, sculpture, photography, design, and architecture, the course presents filmmakers and films of the period, including such classics as Robert Wiene’s Caligari, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, and Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will.. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3344
Reverie and Revolt in Brazilian Visual Culture
Focusing on a mixture of elite and vernacular sources, this course explores the aesthetics and politics of four major 20th century avant-garde movements: Anthropology, Neoconcretism, Cinema Novo, and Tropicalism. Three geocultural regions—São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Bahia—provide the backdrop and help contextualize the dynamics of these ideas. In studying expressions of poetry, music, film, visual arts and architecture, this class closely examines carnivalesque strategies and body-centered metaphors of cannibalism and hunger, as well as the eroticism of samba, which can foster revolutionary artistic practices, as well as notions of identity that are elastic and ambiguous. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3360
Contemporary Art
When does contemporary art begin? 1945? 1960? 1980? 2000? Today? This course attempts to define what we mean by the term “contemporary art,” and how it is distinct from “modern art,” and suggests that, from our current vantage point, contemporary art begins in the early 1980s, a time when several issues that still absorb artistic attention started to surface. These include the resurgence of Europe as a major art center (and the attendant de-emphasis of New York, with the rise of regional art centers such as Chicago); the explosion of growth in the art market; the emergence of the young male superstar; new strategies in feminism; art controversies; and a pointed interaction between modernism and postmodernism. The course examines all of these, and carries the story to the 1990s and beyond by examining the post-colonial environment, Japan as art center, interdisciplinary attitudes, and the collapse of traditional hierarchies in art. The class will take advantage of the many opportunities Chicago museums and galleries offer to test and expand the concept of the contemporary. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3385
Contemporary Electronic Art in Europe
This course maps the development of the electronic arts in Europe through lectures that present both the history and the theory of the field. Lectures address the works on individual artists and groups of artists. Major artists, such as Nicholas Schoffer of Piotr Kowalksi, have pioneered the field in France and Europe. Currently artists are exploring hypermedia, Web, interactive art and virtual reality, animation, telecommunications, language, fireworks and dance. The course shows how current creation is rooted in a strong historical background of concepts and bodies of work. The focus is on the specificity of European electronic art in comparison to the rest of the world.
Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

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ARTHI 3424
Afro-Caribbean Art and Ritual
This course primarily explores the visual arts and associated rituals to be found in Haitian Vodou traditions. Vodou is a rich blend of African, Native American, and European sources and beliefs. Comparative material is drawn from the Santeria religion in Cuba and the United States and from Candomble, Umbanda, and Macumba art and ritual of Brazil. The course concludes with a survey of the contemporary visual arts of Haiti, Cuba, and Brazil and their extensions in the United States. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3426
African Art at the AIC
Taught by the Art Institute’s curator of African art, this introduction to African art history presents key works in the museum’s collection in depth. The historical and contextual background of the artworks will be explored through lectures, readings, and video, followed by visits to the museum to look at and discuss the works firsthand. Among the questions that we attempt to answer are: Who made the work? When? Where? Why? What is its symbolism? What characterizes its style? How was it used? How did it come to the museum? Issues central to the cross-cultural study of art will also be raised, and approaches to the collection and display specifically of African art debated. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3431
Pre-Columbian Art
An introductory comparative survey of the major centers of Amerindian civilization existent in North, Central, and South America before European colonization. Thematic, as well as stylistic considerations are discussed in relation to the environmental and cultural milieu. Particular emphasis is placed on the Anasazi, Mississipian, Northwestern Olmec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Maya, Toltec, Aztec, Chavin, Paracas, Moche, Nazca, Tiahuanaco, and Inca civilizations. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3436
Mexican and Caribbean Art and Culture
This course will be a conceptual discussion of the contexts of Mexican and Caribbean art and culture from pre-Columbian times to the present. Themes include the cosmos and the landscape; the life/death cycle; and gender and sexuality. Among the issues discussed are indigenism, mestizaje, African American identity, colonialism, popular and elite culture, exoticism, nationalism and regionalism, political and economic concerns, Chicano, Hispanic and Latino identities. Examples are drawn from architecture, dance, decorative arts, film, literature, painting, performance, sculpture, and video. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3450
Art: East and West
This course explores Asian and Western approaches to what we might call “themes” of art. Students will consider the differing approaches to nature, storytelling, the sacred or spiritual, and the poetic or aesthetic among the histories and cultures of East Asia, in particular, China, Japan, and Korea; Europe; and America. Some of the interactions and exchanges among these cultures may be explored (for example, the nineteenth-century French interest in Japan, or the appropriation of modern western ideas by contemporary Asian artists). Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3461
Survey Of Chinese Art
This course offers a general introduction to the major traditions of Chinese art, including ancient Chinese bronze art, oracle bone divination, funerary art, Buddhist art, and Chinese figural and nature painting. Also considered is the relationship between the traditional and modern in recent Chinese art. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3462
Japanese Art
This course offers an introduction to Japanese art, from ancient times to the present. The course will introduce students to the major works of Japanese art, considering them within the broader contexts of culture, history, and aesthetics. Topics considered will include Buddhist art in its great diversity; religious and secular architecture; Shinto art and practice; narrative scroll painting; images of nature; and art and poetry. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3463
Chinese Painting
This course is a survey of the conventions and qualities of Chinese painting. Emphasis is placed on stylistic analysis and how the art reflects the broad cultural attitudes of China during various periods of its history. Museum visits to view original works of art are included. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3464
Decorative Arts in China
This course covers a broad range of decorative objects, such as bronze ceremonial vessels and implements, pottery and porcelain, stone carvings and brick reliefs, mural paintings, jade and furniture, etc. Students will learn through the study of real objects of Chinese decorative art, in the Art Institute and in private collections, and through lectures and readings. The course offers a brief historical introduction to the various kinds of objects, for example, the history of stone carvings and brick reliefs of the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) or the history of blue and white porcelains of the Ming dynasty (1386-1644). Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3465
East Asian Ritual and Art
Many works of East Asian art now on display in museums around the world were originally intended to be used in a much different context. In particular, religious works of art were often made primarily for use in rituals, either as symbolic tools to aid in the performance of a ritual or meditation, or as teaching materials to communicate various religious principles. These works were intended primarily as functional objects and only secondarily as aesthetic ones. While the religious nature of a work of art is sometimes obvious, items of daily use not originally intended for religious ceremonies could also serve a ritualistic role. This class examines ways in which ritual has shaped East Asian society, and tries to reconstruct the (sometimes surprising) original context of objects now appreciated more for their visual aesthetic than their ritual significance. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3466
Introduction to Korean Arts
This course is a survey of Korean material culture from the Three Kingdoms period to the present day. What is “Korean” about Korean art? How does it relate to or is different from the art of China and Japan? What is its relationship to Western art? The class will look at examples in painting, sculpture, and architecture alongside developments in ceramics, textiles, and the paper arts. The last portion of the course will include recent productions in cinema and performance art. Throughout the course, the question of how useful the distinctions between national identities, high and low art, East and West, and in more recent times, North and South will be considered. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3471
Art and Architecture of India
This course surveys the art of south Asia from its ancient origins to the British colonial period. Emphasis is placed on stylistic analysis of monuments and artworks in all media and how the art reflects the culture. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3472
Southeast Asian Art
This course is a survey of the arts of Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam related to the religious, socioeconomic, and cultural trends of the time. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3490
Chinese Aesthetics
In this course students study philosophical and aesthetic issues in Chinese art, most specifically, in Chinese painting, calligraphy, and Buddhist sculpture. The class will study some of the basic philosophical texts and writings on the arts, as well as consider whether such writings offer new and different ways to think about current theoretical problems. To supplement close readings of art objects, the class will read and discuss translated selections of important Chinese philosophical writings and writings about art. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

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ARTHI 3500
Origins of Modern Architecture
This course examines significant developments in European architecture, with regard to structure, function, and style, from the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century through the outbreak of World War I. Major architects and their works are dealt with in the context of pertinent practical, theoretical, and social issues, to assess the overall prominence of architecture in the period of emergent modernism in Europe. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3507
Nature In Nineteenthth-Century Architecture
The nineteenth century was a period of tension between a rapidly industrializing economy and a society that embraced nature in its many forms of cultural expression. This course is an investigation of the many symbolic meanings of nature, its impact on European and American art and architectural theory and criticism, and its many interpretations in the plans, designs, and decorative programs of the increasingly diversified number of building types constructed during this period. The introduction of ferrous metals and products, and the impact of new transportation technologies will all be considered in our examination of this topic. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3511
History of Art and Technology
This course examines the impact of new technologies on the aesthetics of the 20th century. Issues explored in the course include the structure of synthetic pictorial spaces, creating art on a global scale, responding to the images of pure light, the aesthetics of motion, behavior in virtual environments, and the experiences of interactive artworks. Main lecture topics are: avant-garde typography, Moholy-Nagy’s work, early radio and the impact of auditory images, kinetic art, robotic art and robotic dance, telecommunication art, computer art, electronic photography, space art, virtual reality, tele-presence, and holographic art. By focusing on the theoretical and historical implications of the aforementioned media and movements, and on the work of several artists, the course places technological trends in modern and contemporary art within context. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3540
History of Modern Design
The course aims to acquaint students with the major currents in the sociology and philosophy of design, from the Industrial Revolution to the present. The controversy over the handmade versus the machine-made object, and the attempts to improve the quality of applied art and to raise its status will be considered, along with the effects of mass marketing and the professionalization of design. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3543
Design Between Wars: 1920–1940
This course surveys decorative and industrial arts and design in Europe and America from 1920 to 1949, in cities including Paris, London, Berlin, Munich, Prague, Budapest, Milan, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Styles ranging from Art Deco to Art Moderne are covered, with special focus on the impact of the Bauhaus and Cranbrook, as well as on the contributions of Mies van der Rohe, Gropius, Saarinen, Wright, and Loewy, et al. Textiles, furniture, ceramics, glass, interiors, and automobiles are among the topics discussed. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3545
Women and Design
This course examines the impact of feminine gender issues on graphics, marketing, advertising, interior design, and product design, using historical and contemporary U.S. examples. Along with these gender issues, students will explore the influence of design on American society and culture. Case studies include the design of the telephone (as discussed in design curator Ellen Lupton’s Mechanical Brides) and marketing for girls (as in play at American Girl Place). We also explore the contemporary impact of the practices of women designers such as Lorraine Wild, Marlene McCarty, and Sheila Levrant de Bretteville. Course readings include texts by architectural historian Dolores Hayden, design historian Penny Sparke, historian Victoria de Grazia, and others. Students will investigate the role of the emotional, the “rational,” the factual, and the fictive when expressing social issues. Through combining image and text students experiment with narratives based on traditional linear structure, non-traditional linear structures, as well as experimental and non-linear structures. The course will interweave reading and discussion with studio practice. Studio sessions will focus on how designers develop a deep understanding of communicating to an audience/viewer. Using the context of gender as a model, students will explore how individual concerns, when based in gender, race, sexual orientation, class, or other social issues, can be combined with knowledge of visual communication strategies to create effective personal expression in design. No previous studio experience is required. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3546
Design & New Technology
This course examines the interrelation of design and technological development. Within a historical context, changes in technology will be examined as well as their impact on the design of objects and their effects on changes in design practice. Case studies from 1850 to the present will be used as examples, analyzing how new technologies influenced production, manufacture, aesthetics, and consumption of designed objects, printed matter, buildings, and spaces. This course will focus on a study of the impact of technology on recent design practices, namely the growth of computer-related design in all fields, and how it has completely altered design practice and the role of the designer today. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3554
History and Technique of The Old Masters’ Drawings
This course surveys the development of drawings as the foundation not only of the workshop process, but also of the theory and practice of pre-modern art. Special attention is given to Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo and their innovations, evolution of personal style, and use of sketches to develop a composition. There are extensive visits to the prints and drawings department at the Art Institute to discuss techniques, types of drawings, regional and personal styles, and connoisseurship. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3555
History of Western Drawing to WWI
This course offers a survey of drawing as a fine art in the Western world from the introduction of paper around the fifteenth century to the beginnings of modernism. Topics addressed will include the materials, functions, and critical appraisal of drawing form the Renaissance to the early years of the twentieth century. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3560
The Shape of Fashion in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries
Beginning with the history of artistic dress and couture and proceeding through high technology in international ready-to-wear, this class recognizes dress as a potent form of communication, informing us of the cultural, economic, and social history of society. Through lectures and critical readings, students will explore the accomplishments of unique stylistic innovations of garment. Costume and textile artifacts are studied in museum collections. Emphasis is placed on research in SAIC Fashion Resource Center, which contains a collection of garments, contemporary and archival documentation, and other visual data. Presentation of individual research and an essay for final project are required. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3564
Visions in Clothing
This course explores the relationship of costume, clothing and fashion design to several key movements in the development of European modernism from 1880–1940. We look at French Impressionism, Art Nouveau, German Expressionism, Orphism, de Stijl, Italian Futurism, Russian Constructivism, Dada, and Surrealism to see the important role played by transformations of the body in the search for a new visual language of form. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3581
Avant-Garde Cinema and Modern Art
This course traces the history of the most imaginative achievements of filmmaking from the origins of cinema to the present. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3590
History of Film Animation
This course considers the history of American animation beginning with caricature, moving through the French and English social/political cartoon to the evolution of the comical as they pertain to the development of the animated image. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

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ARTHI 3620
N ineteenth-Century Photography
This course discusses the development of photography as both an art and a tool, including its invention, the initial social reaction to the photograph, the careers of major photographers, movements, and commercial publishers. The interrelationships between photography, art, science, and society are emphasized. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3621
T wentieth-Century Photography
This course studies the major artists and the development of modernism in photography. Commercial and private publishing of photo books and essays, the rise of global media systems, and the dialogue between art and photography are the background for an exploration of the major trends since 1900. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3622
Contemporary Photography
This course examines American and European fine art photography of the last three decades. Since the 1960s, photography has redefined, renewed, and reinvented itself. Photographic vision and photographic materials are now part of the expressive vocabulary of all artists in all mediums. The work and ideas of significant late-modern and postmodern artists are explored. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3638
Photo Fictions and Inventions
Nineteenth- and twentieth-century artists, institutions, and art movements manipulated photographic processes to create new visions of reality. Through multiple exposure, collage, montage, altered negatives, or computer regeneration, artists have used photographically-based imagery to redefine photographic possibility and undermine photographic truth. The photographic works of Kiefer, Nasa, the Starns, Marey, Heineken, Man Ray, Dibbets, Ernst, Callahan, and others are examined. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3642
Prints Since 1950
This course is an overview of the ways in which print media have been exploited by contemporary artist to produce works ranging from Robert Ryman’s white-on-white aquatints for Crown Point Press to Richard Hamilton’s White Album for the Beatles. This course follows, chronologically, the Postwar slide into desuetude of the grand European printshops, and the simultaneous rise of small and eccentric American shops; the rise and fall of the specialist-printmaker and peintre-graveur ideals; the revitalizing influence of American and British Pop, with their embrace of commercial surfaces; and the destabilizing influence of Dieter Roth and Fluxus, with their embrace of commercial production standards. As well as studying the products of professional “blue-chip” printers, and how they facilitated the realization of Minimalist, Conceptual, Arte Povera, and Postmodernist works of art, we also look at the role of community access printshops in promoting a “democratic art.” Throughout, we examine in detail how the mechanics of print production—the separation, layering, reversal, and permutational recombination of images—have been used to create visual and conceptual meaning. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3645
Japanese Woodblock Prints
This course traces the development of the Japanese woodblock print from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries, focusing on the contributions of the major artists of the period, as well as on the cultural and social milieu of the times. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3651
Modern Sculpture: 1945 to the Present
This course surveys the manifold directions sculpture has taken over the last four decades. American and European movements and styles, such as junk art, Arte Povera, Minimalism, process art, Nouveau Realisme, Pop art, earth art, and today’s common object sculptors are considered. Visits to area museums and galleries and presentations by one or more sculptors are included. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

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ARTHI 3700
Introduction to Contemporary Theory
Through close reading of pertinent texts and viewing of visual material, this course traces art theory from Greenbergian Formalism to the extreme of Baudrillardian postmodernism. Emphasis of the class discussion is on painting, photography, and video and on interrelating practice and theory. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3701
Readings in Post-Modernism
This course consists of close readings and class discussion of primary postmodernist writings (by J. F. Loytard, J. Habermas, I. Hassan, D. Crimp, J. Baudrillard, A. Bonito Oliva, P. Portoghesi, Meagham Morris, Nancy Fraser and Linda Nicholson, Nelly Richard, et al.) dealing with the problems of the foundation of knowledge, cultural practices, the avant-garde, politics, feminism, and multiculturalism. Discussion of readings will be integrated with the viewing of visual material (painting, photography, and video) pertinent to the texts under critical examination. Students will be encouraged to relate theoretical issues to their artistic or scholarly practice by sharing their creative or academic endeavors within the context of the course. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

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ARTHI 3701
Political Issues In Time Arts
This course focuses on twentieth-century artists whose works in time arts-performance, video, film, music, theatre, and dance-are concerned with political issues. Form, technique, and content are analyzed, and manifestoes and theories are also read and discussed. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3803
The Social Production of Art
This course examines the dichotomy between the notion of aesthetic autonomy and that of an engaged cultural politics. Social structure and artistic creativity, art as ideology, and the “death” of the author are among the topics examined through close readings of texts, class discussion, and the viewing of videotape interviews and slides. Students research and write a paper on the topic. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3808
Art and The Celebrity
This course looks at artists who depict celebrities in their work. Concentrating on artworks that have been created between the 1940s and the 1990s, we will examine the artist’s relationship to the celebrity, as well as the artwork’s relationship to the films, television programs, music groups, and theatrical and dance productions of the time period. Through, slides, videos, theoretical readings, and class discussions, we will investigate the role of the celebrity in American culture. The students will also look at celebrity artists and how they have been represented by the media. Artists examined will include Andy Warhol, Red Grooms, Joan Braderman, and Joseph Cornell among others. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3815
Cultural Dislocations
This course is concerned with feelings of not belonging and cultural alienation; the problems of adaptation and acclimation to new cultural surroundings and expectations. Focusing to some extent upon the cultures directly experienced by students in the class, the course explores differences in visual cultures, and ways in which they can be effectively expressed for different kinds of audiences. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3825
The Artist on Film
In this class, we juxtapose depictions of artists in Hollywood and independent, narrative films with historical essays, biographies, autobiographies, and diaries on/by the same artists. We focus on a variety of issues including: the specific artists films have been made about in relation to when they were made; what aspects of the artists’ lives the filmmakers have chosen to focus on; how and if the artists’ works have been incorporated in the films, and the impact of the films on gallery and museum exhibitions. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3829
Representing the Artist
How does the modern artist see him/herself and how do others see her/him? In the modern era artistic identity along with artistic expression is in flux. Drawing on portraits and self-portraits of artists in a variety of media—from journals to paintings, photographs, and films—this course examines modern artists’ ongoing invention of themselves. It also investigates the evolving popular image of the artist represented in
the mass media. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3850
Buddhist Art
From essentially non-theistic origins through numerous permutations of religious and aesthetic practice, this course concentrates in turn upon traditions of visual narrative, icon making, and sacred architecture in India, Southeast Asia, China, Japan, and Tibet. Individual explorations of responses to Buddhism by Western artists are encouraged. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3853
Islamic Art
This course is an introduction to the architecture, book illumination, ceramics, metalwork, and carpets from Spain, North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. Stress is placed on the Islamic world’s strategic role in the cultural exchange between East and West. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3875
The Grotesque In Western Art
This course approaches two aspects of the long-lived tradition of the grotesque, from the medieval to the modern period. It explores certain basic themes which have spanned that time (such as the Dance of Death, The Seven Deadly Sins, and the Underworld) with analysis of the development of this imagery over the ages. In addition, the aesthetic theory and methodology of the grotesque (in forms as chronologically diverse as medieval woodcuts and Monty Python’s Flying Circus) are discussed and evaluated. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3876
Art and Humor: Theories of Laughter
This course examines the philosophy of humor while relating readings to painting, photography, video, performance, and other media. The three main theories to be discussed are: superiority (Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Albert Rapp), incongruity (conceptual-perceptual mismatch: Kant, Schopenhauer, D. James Beattie), and relief theory (venting nervous energy: Shaftesbury, Herbert Spencer, Sigmund Freud). Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3881
Interiors: From Van Eyck to Hodgkin
This class surveys painters of interiors, starting with the highly detailed interiors of Van Eyck, traveling through the portrayals of the seventeenth-century Dutch homes, to the Nabis artists Bonnard and Vuillard to Matisse, and ending with the abstracted remembrances of Howard Hodgkin. Ultimately, this class provides students with a large vocabulary of approaches towards the subject of interiors. Besides placing these interiors in an art historical frame of reference, techniques are also discussed, and studio students (particularly painters) are encouraged to enroll. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI
Still-Life from Antiquity to Graves
Since antiquity the still-life has remained among the popular genres of art. This popularity, with artists and public alike, is chiefly due to its unique position poised between reality and illusion. This class will begin with the earliest still-lives, such as Roman frescoes, and with categories of still-lives, such as the scientific, "vanitas," trompe l'oeil, and still-lives in the context of genre scenes or portraits. The course will also distinguish between the organic (flowers, fruits. and meats) and the non-organic (still-lives of man-made objects). The second half of the class will explore the still-life in the twentieth century from Cubism through Expressionism, to Magic Realism and Pop, when artists shifted their focus from WHAT was depicted to HOW it was depicted. The class will conclude with a survey of currently practicing still-life painters. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

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ARTHI 3910
History of the Idea of Copying
This couse deals with the history of copying in different cultures and periods, and also about the theory of copying (the pastiche, the forgery, the mechanical reproduction), but it is primarily a course about actual copying. Students will copy a painting in the Art Institute, during open hours, for the entire fifteen weeks. Absolutely no skill is required, but students should be aware that they will be working in museum galleries that can become crowded. Students will need to provide their own painting materials. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3911
Formation and Deformation of the Human Body
If you take this course, you’ll be able to answer this question: Which of the following actually exist?

A. Mermaids
B. Centaurs
C. Cyclopes
D. Satyrs
E. Unicorns

ARTHI 3982
Asian Identity in Film
This course looks at America’s perceptions of Asians through their portrayal in American mainstream media in contrast to those made in Asia by Asian filmmakers. By comparing films made by Asians and those produced by the American mainstream, we find major differences in their perspectives and approaches. In doing this, we investigate issues of representation and misrepresentation in mass culture stereotypes of Asians to show how they have been rooted in confusions surrounding cultural differences between Asians and Asian Americans.
The course presents Hollywood films, mainstream Asian films, as well as independent works from both the Asian and Asian American communities. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3983
Immigrant and Refugee in Film
This class examines Hollywood films as well as independent films and videos that concentrate on immigrants and refugees, issues of adjustment and acculturation, and struggles with racism, ethnocentrism, ethnic cleansing, etc. Students will study films and videos addressing refugees’ and immigrants’ desires to maintain their cultural traditions while embracing the culture of the country in which they resettle. Films and videos screened may include works of independent artists Janice Tanaka and Meredith Monk (Ellis Island); feature films such as Anastasia (1956), Blazing Saddles, Blue Kite, (China); Mississippi Masala, Stranger than Paradise (Jim Jarmusch) and Cry the Beloved Country (1951 version, with Sidney Poitier). Theorists read will include James Clifford, Trin T. Minh-ha, and Michael Taussig. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.

ARTHI 3984
Representation and White Cinema
This course aims to examine some of the ways in which the concept of white identity is variously affirmed, denied, challenged, or contested through the mediums of film, video, television, comics, etc. Through screenings, presentations, writings, discussions and readings we attempt to ascertain the significance of historical and contemporary notions of whiteness in popular (and other) media. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.