88 courses with the subject ART, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
ART 102Drawing I: Visual Language1
This introductory course engages drawing as both a tool for seeing and a language for thinking. Students cultivate perceptual awareness through observational practice and critical dialogue—working from still life, the human form, and the surrounding environment—while also exploring how drawings can arise from ideas, memory, imagination and inquiry. Through a series of projects that move between direct observation and conceptual investigation, students examine line, value, form, space, and composition as tools for translating experience into image. Emphasis is placed on experimentation, sustained attention, and the development of a personal visual language. Critiques, discussions and a wide range of historical and contemporary examples frame drawing as both a material and intellectual practice, bridging process, perception, and creative thought. Padma Rajendran, Gina Ruggeri, Christina Tenaglia. Open to all classes. Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
ART 105Introduction to the History of Art and Architecture1
Opening with the global present, ART 105 now uses today’s digital universe as a contemporary point of reference to earlier forms of visual communication.Faculty presentations explore the original functions and creative expressions of art and architecture,shaped through varied materials, tools andtechnologies. Within this visual legacy fundamental experiences and aspirations emerge: forms of religious devotion, attitudes toward nature and the human body, and the perpetual need for individual and social definition. Moving through painting, sculpture and architecture of pre-history through great monuments of the Middle East, Egypt, Greece, Rome and Asian Antiquity, we examine the flowering of medieval art and architecture through current research in computer imaging. The print revolution and the Protestant Reformation’s redirection of the role of images then lead us to connections between Renaissance art and science in works by Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer. Weekly discussion sections help students develop essential tools of visual analysis through study of original works in the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. Electing both semesters of ART 105, 106 in chronological sequence is strongly recommended, but each may now be taken individually or in the order that fits a student’s schedule. Petya Andreeva, Yvonne Elet, Elizabeth Lastra, Rachel Wise. NRO available for juniors and seniors. Open to all classes. Enrollment limited by class. Three 50-minute periods and one 50-minute conference period. Course Format: CLS
ART 106Introduction to the History of Art and Architecture1
ART 106 continues exploration of an accelerating global exchange of images and ideas from Michelangelo in the High Renaissance to contemporary architecture and video. Between then and now, we consider the emergence of the public art museum along with industrializing cultures and mass media in the nineteenth century. As we trace the rise of modernity and the increasing authority assumed by artists and architects, we examine new forms of public space, both urban and natural, and the impact of alternative creative and political practices. In considering American developments, Art 106 provides a focus for analyzing the ongoing dynamic between indigenous and newly arriving cultural forms: Native American, African American, Latino, Asian and European. Such diversity has created a richly layered foundation for today’s efforts to interpret, display and safeguard the world’s irreplaceable cultural heritage, old and new. Electing both semesters of ART 105 ,106 in chronological sequence is strongly recommended, but each may now be taken individually or in the order that fits a student’s schedule. Yvonne Elet, Jonah Rowen, Molly Nesbit, Rachel Wise. NRO available for juniors and seniors. Open to all classes. Enrollment limited by class. Three 50-minute periods and one 50-minute conference period. Course Format: CLS
ART 107Studio Art Foundations: Approaches to Making1
This foundation course introduces students to creative problem solving, the world of contemporary art, and multiple modalities for making artwork that will prepare them for upper-level art courses at Vassar. With an emphasis on posing questions and critical thinking, students are asked to reset and expand their expectations of what art is, laying the groundwork for experimentation and expression within the processes of making. Students develop their own systems of working in response to shared prompts, then question or break those devised systems in the pursuit of new ideas. Padma Rajendran, Gina Ruggeri, Christina Tenaglia. Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
To develop students’ understanding of color as a phenomenon and its role in art. Color theories are discussed and students solve problems to investigate color interactions using collage and paint. Padma Rajendran. Open to all classes. Course Format: CLS
(Same as CLCS 120 ) A multidisciplinary exploration of the Vassar College campus. This intensive course is conducted as a succession of local field trips to sites across the college, and walks around campus. With this direct experience of landscape, buildings, and collections, from works of art to natural history specimens, we consider the history of Vassar’s campus, as well as our lived experience of campus spaces. We also approach our own campus in broader contexts, exploring the notion of campus in American culture, the campus as physical space and as idea, and the role of place in higher education. Individual projects allow participants to explore a campus space of their choice in various modes. Students from all majors are encouraged to apply. Yvonne Elet.
Permission of the instructor. First six-week course. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: INT
ART 144Living in the Ancient City0.5
(Same as GRST 144 and URBS 144 ) The great Mediterranean cities of Classical Antiquity, Athens in the 5th c. BC and Rome in the 1st-2nd c. CE (along with some of their satellite cities), are synonymous with the rise of western civilization. The city plans and monumental architecture dominate our view, but this course also focuses on the civic institutions housed in the spectacular buildings and the social worlds shaped by the grand public spaces, as well as the cramped working quarters. Neighborhoods of the rich and the poor, their leisure haunts, and places of congregation and entertainment are explored to reveal the rituals of everyday life and their political consequences. First six-week course. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
(Same as ANST 160 ) Stories and storytelling reside at the heart of human experience; they have the power to shape–and shift–our understandings, actions, and imaginations. How do artists, makers, and other cultural workers draw on the power of storytelling to deepen seeing and knowing and enable emergent stories and realities? Focusing on generative twentieth and twenty-first century creative projects in or in relation to the U.S., this first-year writing seminar–a community of practice and care–explores critical arts and acts of storytelling. Lisa Collins. Open only to first-year students; satisfies the college requirement for a First-Year Writing Seminar. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
(Same as ANST 177 and URBS 177 ) Beginning with visual and written descriptions of Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec Empire (today’s Mexico City), this course explores visual and discursive representations of American cities from the colonial encounter to the present. Interpretations of urban landscapes have shaped the practice of planners, builders, artists, and activists in cities across the Americas. By introducing students to philosopher Henri Lefebvre’s theory of urban space—as materially, socially, and symbolically produced—this seminar invites students to reflect critically on the role of writing, representing, and intervening in public space in giving meaning to the built environment of North and Latin American cities. Second six-week course. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
This course introduces the fundamentals of oil painting, in water-mixable oils. Working primarily from direct observation, students develop perceptual and technical skills toward the articulation of color, form, space, and light. Each student develops through ongoing practice, critical discussion, and written reflection. A wide range of contemporary and art historical examples provides context for our work through slide talks, readings, interviews, and artist research. Gina Ruggeri.
ART 102 , ART 107 and permission of the instructor. Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
ART 203Painting I: Painting in Mixed Media1
This introductory course explores painting approaches informed by drawing, collage, and printmaking strategies, using water-based paints on a variety of surfaces and formats. Students explore painting as a language through perceptual, conceptual, and experimental methods. Each student develops through ongoing practice, critical discussion, and written reflection. A wide range of contemporary and art historical examples provides context for our work through slide talks, readings, interviews, and artist research. Gina Ruggeri.
ART 102 , ART 107 and permission of the instructor. Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Spring
ART 204Sculpture I1
Sculpture 204 is the first half of a year-long course that introduces the fundamental concepts of making sculpture: objects, space, materiality, and bodies. How do we co-exist with objects in space? How do objects hold meaning and affect us? Students will learn to think three-dimensionally in terms of form, scale, weight, spatiality, and materiality. Over the course of the year, we engage in a series of project-based assignments to develop our artistic languages and acquire proficiency in making with wood, plaster, fabric, metal, paper, mold-making, assemblage, and many other materials and techniques, both traditional and non-traditional. Simultaneously, we engage in discussions about the core issues in sculpture, engage with a range of theories of materiality and bodies, and learn from the examples of a diverse group of sculptors, both historical and contemporary. Students are encouraged to take risks, get messy, and bring their interests, passions, identities, and investments to use as materials in their artistic work. The course is punctuated by organized group critiques, in which we develop our capacities to offer and accept critical constructive feedback within a diverse group. No pre-existing experience working with sculpture is required. Gordon Hall.
ART 107 and permission of the instructor. Yearlong course 204- ART 205 . Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
ART 205Sculpture I1
Introduction to the language of three-dimensional form through a sequence of specific problems which involve the use of various materials. We explore the nature of form, object, space, structure, and materiality. As we think about and work within these concepts of three dimensions, we will breach ongoing considerations and methods that come into play: sound, time, light, smell, utility, site, installation, process, permanence, performance, audience, and audience interaction. Issues of context (formal, cultural, historical, present) and placement will be addressed constantly. Does your work have edges? Where and what are they? Does it begin and end? What has come before it? How does your work engage with its immediate and broader surroundings? Gordon Hall.
ART 204 . Yearlong course ART 204 -205. Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Spring
ART 206Drawing II: Experimental Drawing1
This course explores drawing as a process, as a thinking space, as a record, as a response, as a practice, and as a way to investigate and sustain ideas. Students generate independent drawing inquiries that may shift, change and grow while taking an interpretive approach to assignments. Short and long term projects are developed, with an emphasis on working through both perceptual and conceptual concerns alongside material investigations. Working together, we attempt to place drawing into a broader way of thinking and communicating. Expected and unexpected drawing materials and methods are encouraged, definitions of drawing are actively questioned and explored. Laura Newman.
ART 102 or ART 107 and permission of the instructor. Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
ART 207Drawing II: Projects and Explorations1
This course investigates drawing through a series of open-ended projects. Students generate independent drawing inquiries that may shift, change and grow while taking an interpretive approach to assignments. Short and long-term projects are developed, with an emphasis on working through both perceptual and conceptual concerns alongside material investigations. Students work in a range of approaches to drawing including collage, color, narrative, site-specific drawing and work from a model. Laura Newman.
ART 102 - ART 103 or ART 107 - ART 108 and permission of the instructor. Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Spring
ART 208Printmaking: Relief1
An exploration of printing practices and concepts, this course explores the fundamentals of printmaking as techniques as well as conceptual processes - repetition, replication, mirroring, transferring, layering, pressure, orientation, reduction, reuse, opacity, transparency, chance, systems, distribution and collaboration. Focusing primarily on relief techniques including linocut, woodcut, monotype, stencil, stamping and collagraph, we explore the possibilities as well as push up against the constraints of each of these processes. We consider the making of multiples and sequences within inclusive contexts of image making, art making, communicating, messaging and viewing. Studying prints pulled from the Loeb’s collection is an underlying component of this course. Christina Tenaglia.
ART 102 or ART 107 and permission of the instructor. Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
ART 209Printmaking: Intaglio1
This course is designed to explore the fundamentals of printmaking focusing primarily on Intaglio techniques including collagraph, drypoint, etching, and embossing. While drawing and mark making are at the core of these printmaking techniques, pushing up against the constraints of each process is encouraged. We explore various monotype techniques both on their own and as layers for multi plate printing. We play with the making of multiples and sequences and consider how they operate in a broader view of image making, art making, communicating, conceptual thinking and viewing. Repetition, replicability, mirroring, transferring and layering are investigated as printmaking techniques as well as concepts within the making of an image. Christina Tenaglia.
ART 102 or ART 107 and permission of the instructor. Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Spring
ART 211Rome: The Art of Empire1
(Same as GRST 211 and URBS 211 ) From humble beginnings to its conquest of most of the known world, Rome dominated the Mediterranean with the power of its empire. Art and architecture gave monumental expression to its political ideology, especially in the building of cities that spread Roman civilization across most of Europe and parts of the Middle East and Africa. Roman art also featured adornment, luxury, and collecting in both public and private spheres. Given the diversity of the people included in the Roman empire and its artistic forms, what is particularly Roman about Roman art?
ART 105 - ART 106 or GRST 216 or GRST 217 , or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
ART 212Art & Practice in Photography1
This course serves as an introduction to analog photography and provides an opportunity for beginning and experienced photographers to immerse themselves in the tradition of film-based imagery. Students begin to explore the visual language of black and white photography, the historical significance, and its role in the contemporary art world. There is an emphasis on technical skills such as proper camera use, exposing film, developing negatives, and printing in the darkroom. This hands-on course is designed for students to find a balance between technical methods and aesthetic choices. With weekly assignments, discussions, and critiques, students are asked to convey ideas and explore themes in their own work, developing their own photographic language and unique style. All students are required to supply their own 35mm film camera. Abigail Gunnels.
ART 102 or ART 107 and permission of the instructor. One 4-hour period. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
ART 213Contemporary Analog Photo1
ART 213 provides an opportunity for beginning and experienced photographers to explore the tradition of analog photography. During this course, students learn camera techniques and darkroom printing as they refine their technical and creative skills. We address the historical and contemporary role of still imagery, specifically film photography and its functions in the current digital landscape. Assignments investigate topics such as creative uses of light, motion, subject matter, and composition while engaging critically with conceptual ideas, in a contemporary context. We also explore simple alternative processes in the darkroom and methods for scanning negatives for digital output. The goal for each student is to balance technical skills with aesthetic decisions to create their own unique photographic language and style. All students are required to supply their own 35mm film camera. Students can enroll in Photography II without having taken Photography I. Abigail Gunnels.
ART 102 or ART 107 and permission of the instructor. Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Spring
ART 214Digital and Experimental Photography1
This course provides an introduction to the creative and technological possibilities of digital photography. Students learn the basics of DSLR camera operation while leveraging digital technologies to push photographic aesthetics and expand conceptual boundaries. The curriculum covers fundamental photographic theory alongside practical topics such as manual camera operations, shutter speed, aperture, RAW file formats, white balance, composition, and effective workflow. Students dive into digital editing, using tools like Adobe Bridge, Camera RAW, Photoshop, and InDesign to manage files, enhance images, and print with ink-jet technology. The course explores different digital output methods, such as viewing images on screens, projecting them, printing, and other potential formats for displaying photography. During the semester, students gain a strong understanding of both photographic principles and digital tools, enabling them to make deliberate and innovative creative choices. A digital camera (DSLR) is provided, if needed. Abigail Gunnels.
ART 102 or ART 107 and permission of the instructor. Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
ART 215The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Egypt1
(Same as GRST 215 ) Ancient Egypt has long fascinated the public with its pyramids, mummies, and golden divine rulers. This course provides a survey of the archaeology, art, and architecture of ancient Egypt from the prehistoric cultures of the Nile Valley through the period of Cleopatra’s rule and Roman domination. Topics to be studied include the art of the funerary cult and the afterlife, technology and social organization, and court rituals of the pharaohs, along with aspects of everyday life.
ART 105 or ART 106 or one unit of Greek and Roman Studies, or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Spring
ART 220Medieval Art and Architecture1
This course surveys the art and architecture of Europe and Byzantium during the Middle Ages, a thousand-year period from ca. 400 to 1400. Exploring medieval art and visual culture chronologically, we consider a number of topics central to medieval society including monasticism, icons and iconoclasm, saints and their relics, pilgrimage, and court culture. The course covers the wide range of medieval artistic production, from various forms of painting and sculpture to wood and ivory carving, mosaic, metalwork, textiles, and architecture. Elizabeth Lastra.
ART 105 or ART 106 , coursework in Medieval Studies, or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods.
Offered
Fall
ART 221Islamic Art and Architecture1
This course surveys Islamic art and architecture from the beginnings of Islam in the 7th century through the early modern period. We cover Umayyad Jerusalem and Damascus, Abbasid Baghdad, Fatimid Cairo, the period of the Crusades, the impact of the Mongols, and the Gunpowder Empires, as well as a range of media from architecture and monumental decoration to textiles and calligraphy. Throughout the course, we explore the interactions between Islamic art and neighboring peoples and cultures. Elizabeth Lastra.
ART 105 or ART 106 , coursework in Medieval Studies, or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
ART 222Video/Expanded Media 11
(Same as MEDS 222 ) This studio-based course serves as a comprehensive introduction to video in the expanded field. Through a series of projects, students are introduced to camera operation, sound recording, lighting, video and sound editing, and projection mapping. Student work takes the form of experimental videos, multi-media installations, public projections, and sound installations. Through class discussions, visiting artist lectures, screenings of historical and contemporary works, and visits to galleries/museums in NYC, students refine their critical vocabulary and gain a broad understanding of key issues in the field. These include the relationship between images and sounds, digital images and physical objects, projected images and architectural space. Through these activities, our aim is the formulation of each student’s unique artistic language. No prior familiarity with video or digital media is required. John Hulsey.
ART 107 and permission of the instructor. Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall and Spring
ART 223Action1
In this interdisciplinary studio course, we explore action as a category of art practice. What does it mean to take action, either individually or collectively? What does it mean to refuse to take action? Through a series of projects, students explore various modalities: performance, video, site-specific intervention, and collaborative practice. Student work is informed by an examination of contemporary and historic examples. Through readings and discussions, we explore Dada, Productivism, Feminist film and performance, Happenings, institutional critique, Indigenous performance, and work connected to political and social movements (the Black Panther Party, United Farm Workers, ACT-UP). Training in camera operation, sound recording, video editing, and multimedia installation provide a technical foundation for our work, and trips to exhibitions and visits by contemporary artists provide a conceptual scaffolding. John Hulsey.
ART 107 and permission of the instructor. Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
ART 230Art in the Age of Van Eyck, Durer and Bruegel1
The Northern Renaissance. Early Netherlandish and German art from Campin, van Eyck and van der Weyden to Bosch, Bruegel, Dürer and Holbein. This transformative period, which saw the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century and the explosive turmoil of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, generated a profound reassessment of the role of images in the form of new responses toward human representation in devotional and narrative painting and printmaking as well as developments in secular subjects such as portraiture and landscape. Rachel Wise.
ART 105 or ART 106 or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
ART 231The Golden Age of Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer1
An exploration of painting and printmaking during the Golden Age of the Netherlands. Lectures focus on Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer and their contemporary colleagues who specialized in landscape, still life, architectural and marine painting. While examining the effect of differing religions systems in Flanders and the Dutch Republic, we consider how economic triumph, scientific research and global trade stimulated the formation and flowering of Netherlandish art in the Age of Observation. Rachel Wise.
ART 105 or ART 106 or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Spring
ART 235The Rise of the Artist, from Giotto to Leonardo da Vinci1
A survey of Italian art c. 1300 - c.1500, when major cultural shifts led to a redefinition of art, and the artist emerged as a new creative and intellectual power. The course considers painting, sculpture and decorative arts by artists including Giotto, Donatello, Botticelli, and Leonardo. Our study of artworks and primary texts reveals how a predominantly Christian society embraced the revival of ancient pagan culture, elements of atheist philosophy, and Islamic science. We also discuss art in the context of nascent multiculturalism and consumerism in the new city-states; the importance of new communications systems, such as print; and artistic exchange with northern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean centers of Baghdad and Constantinople. Other topics include art theory and criticism; techniques and materials of painting and sculpture; experiments with multimedia and mass production; developments in perspective and illusionism; ritual and ceremonial; and art that called into question notions of sexuality and gender roles. Yvonne Elet.
ART 105 or ART 106 , or permission of the instructor; open to students without
ART 236Art in the Age of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo1
(Same as ITAL 236 ) An exploration of the works of these three masters and their contemporaries in Renaissance Italy, c. 1485 - c. 1565. The primary focus is on painting and sculpture, but the course also considers drawings, prints, landscape, gardens, and decorative arts, emphasizing artists’ increasing tendency to work in multiple media. We trace changing ideas about the role of the artist and the nature of artistic creativity; and consider how these Renaissance masters laid foundations for art, and its history, theory and criticism for centuries to come. Other topics include artists’ workshops; interactions between artists and patrons; the role of the spectator; ritual and ceremonial; and Renaissance ideas about beauty, sexuality and gender. Yvonne Elet.
ART 105 or ART 106 , or permission of the instructor; open to students without
Offered
Spring
ART 239Art of the Global Dutch Republic1
This course is an examination of the visual and material cultures of the Dutch Republic in the context of early modern transcultural exchange. In the long seventeenth century, the Dutch Republic, a new Protestant nation, grew into a colonial empire with vast overseas territories—in, for example, modern-day Indonesia, Brazil, and South Africa—that were acquired through trade and military expedition. This course attends to the visual evidence—paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, and decorative arts—of the Dutch colonial history and investigates how an increasingly interconnected early modern world was created and documented. In particular, we ask what roles art played in the establishment of colonial ideology. The objective of this course is to reassess the Dutch ”Golden Age” and map the visual contour of the republic’s transformation into a centripetal global power.
Permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
ART 251Introduction to American Art1
(Same as ANST 251 ) Americanist Art History Revisited. How did certain objects come to be recognized as “American art”? This course examines the visual and material cultures, artistic productions, and institutions that repeatedly grappled with this question from early contact & settler conquest through early 20th century transnational modernism. We examine the substance and limits of “American Art” through ideas of territory vs. Landscape, enfiguring race/gender/class and national belonging, museum and exposition practices, constructions of history and nostalgia, and the many impacts of global exchange. We study objects from our inherited American Art canon, and objects that challenge this inheritance. With special emphasis on local collections and resources, we develop familiarity with the methods and questions guiding Americanist art history today. Serena Qiu.
ART 105 or ART 106 or a 100-level American Studies course, or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
ART 256The Arts of China1
(Same as ASIA 256 ) This course covers the history of Chinese art from the Neolithic to the early 20 th century. We examine a wide array of traditional art forms such as jade, silk, porcelain, ritual bronzes, ink painting, Daoist architecture, Confucian murals, and Peking opera. We also trace the transfer of foreign elements into Chinese art and aesthetics in the wake of China’s interactions with various entities across Asia. Following in the footsteps of monks, merchants, ambassadors, and warriors, we explore the artistic innovations they helped disseminate across the Chinese empire. Why do we find Persian textiles and Roman glass in ancient Chinese tombs? How do we account for discoveries of Chinese ceramics as far as Madagascar? What was the impact of Sino-Japanese exchanges on painting and garden design? How did the arrival of Buddhism transform Chinese material culture? What changes did Chinese painting undergo under Mongol patronage? Through such inquiries, we view and discuss Chinese art in the context of an increasingly global Afro-Eurasia. Students also delve into Chinese aesthetic concepts through select readings of primary sources such as poems, decrees, diaries, legal documents, and hymns. Petya Andreeva.
ART 105 or ART 106 , one Asian Studies course, or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
ART 260Buddhist Art and Visual Culture1
(Same as ASIA 260 ) This course explores the birth, evolution, and transmission of Buddhist images across Asia from the 3rd century BCE to the 19th century. We delve into the rich visual and material cultures of Buddhist communities in the Indian subcontinent, China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Siberia, and Southeast Asia. With a strong emphasis on cross-cultural exchange, the course examines Buddhist art in the context of other religions and against the backdrop of war, trade, and migration. We learn to read Buddhist images and decipher their meaning and function across various media and modes of making, including murals, monasteries, cave complexes, dance rituals, gardens, and personal adornment. How do we account for the rise of Greco-Buddhist art in India? When and how did Buddhist art and patronage take root in China? What was the role of Zen architecture in the Japanese shogunate? Why do we find Buddhist architecture in imperial Russia? How did the female image in Buddhism change over time and across different cultural spheres? These are just some of the questions we pursue as we analyze the role of Buddhist art in the formation of trans-Asia networks of exchange. Petya Andreeva.
ART 105 - ART 106 or a 100-level Asian Studies course, or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
ART 262Art and Revolution in Europe, 1789-18481
(Same as GNCS 262 ) A survey of major movements and figures in European art, 1789-1848, focusing on such issues as the contemporaneity of antiquity in revolutionary history painting, the eclipse of mythological and religious art by an art of social observation and political commentary, the romantic cult of genius, imagination, and creative self-definition, and the emergence of landscape painting in an industrializing culture. Brian Lukacher.
ART 105 or ART 106 , or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
ART 263Painters of Modern Life: Realism, Impressionism, Symbolism1
(Same as GNCS 263 ) A survey of major movements and figures in European art, 1848-1900, examining the realist, impressionist, and symbolist challenges to the dominant art institutions, aesthetic assumptions, and social values of the period; also addressing how a critique of modernity and a sociology of aesthetics can be seen developing through these phases of artistic experimentation. Brian Lukacher.
ART 105 or ART 106 , or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
ART 264The Metropolitan Avant-Gardes1
(Same as URBS 264 ) Radical prototypes of creativity and self-organization were forged by the new groups of artists, writers, filmmakers and architects that emerged in the first decades of the twentieth century. They based themselves in the new metropolitan centers. The course studies the avant-gardes’ different and often competing efforts to meet the economic transformation that industrialization was bringing to city and country alike. Afterward, the role of art itself would be seen completely differently. Molly Nesbit.
ART 105 or ART 106 , or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods and one weekly film screening. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
ART 265Modern Art and the Mass Media: the New Public Sphere1
(Same as URBS 265 ) When the public sphere was reset during the twentieth century by a new order of mass media, the place of art and artists in the new order needed to be claimed. The course studies the negotiations between modern art and the mass media (advertising, cinema, TV), in theory and in practice, during the years between the Great Depression and the liberation movements of the late 1960s–the foundation stones of our own contemporary culture. As a consequence, the physical spaces of culture would be reimagined and designed. Molly Nesbit.
ART 105 or ART 106 . Two 75-minute periods and one film screening. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
ART 266Art, Urgency, and Everyday Life in the United States1
(Same as AFRS 266 and ANST 266 ) What is this thing called socially-engaged, social practice, activist, and/or community-centered art? Where does it come from, who makes it, who is it for, how does it work, and what can it do? What are some of the ways this interdisciplinary practice–often woven within struggles for justice and healing–is defined and deployed? And how might its success be assessed? Dwelling together on these questions by way of dynamic case studies, we consider how a range of U.S. based creators are grappling with urgent issues of our time. Lisa Collins.
ART 105 or ART 106 or coursework in Africana Studies, American and Native American Studies, Women, Feminist, and Queer Studies, or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
ART 268After 1968: Sustainable Aesthetics1
(Same as MEDS 268 and URBS 268 ) This course studies the emancipation of the visual arts after 1968, here and abroad, together with the political and philosophical discussions that guided them. Theory and practice would form new combinations. The traditional fine arts as well as the new media, performance, film, architecture and installation art are treated as part of the wider global evolution creating new theaters of action, critique, community and hope. Molly Nesbit.
ART 105 or ART 106 . Two 75-minute periods and one film screening. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Spring
ART 269Arts of India1
(Same as ASIA 269 ) For thousands of years, the Indian subcontinent has been home to numerous empires and a hotspot for trade and cross-cultural exchange. This course explores the artistic traditions and aesthetic systems that emerged in the Indian subcontinent from the middle of the first millennium BCE to the end of British colonial rule in the mid-20 th century. We cover a range of art forms, including Buddhist rock-cut architecture and murals, Hindu and Jain sculpture, Indo-Islamic court architecture and miniature, photography and prints as means of dissent and propaganda under British rule, to name but a few. We study how art in India reflected and shaped political and social movements, and how it generated debates and ideologies throughout Indian history. Starting with the premise that Indian art never existed in a cultural or conceptual vacuum, the course also emphasizes the place of India and the Indian Ocean in land and maritime trade networks in Afro-Eurasia. At times, we examine objects and monuments that defy the canon’s often narrow definitions of Indian art, tracing in it cultural elements from China, Persia, and other Asian empires. Petya Andreeva.
ART 105 or ART 106 or any 100-level Asian Studies course. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
ART 272Topics in Architectural History1
(Same as URBS 272 ) Architectural history, considered through the material factors required for buildings’ construction. Topics covered include industrialization and urbanization, shifting colonial and national formations, and geographic division of labor. We also track the consolidation of liberal capitalism and the effects of environmental extractivism in and through built spaces and landscapes. Temporal scope varies by semester, but generally covers the period of modernity, from the 1750s until today.
ART 273A Mirror Image: The Search for Self, Place & Home in Contemporary Architecture in the World, 1980s+1
(Same as URBS 273 ) One could imagine that in the 1970s, the architectural movement known as the International Style looked back at the twentieth century with glee, surveying its spoils. It was after all, a style of architecture that held the century in thrall for almost 50 years; determining the built forms for much of the world in steel, glass and concrete. Le Corbusier for instance, likened architecture to a machine with parts that could be erected and function anywhere. Yet voices arose to articulate local architectural responses to such a paradigm, where the interrelationship between self, place, identity and home needed to be articulated in built form. The phrase that became the rallying cry for such a movement was “Critical Regionalism” and this course analyzes how many architectural projects in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas embodied an approach to a more humane architecture.
ART 105 or ART 106 or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
ART 274Buildings and Cities in Early Modern Italy1
(Same as URBS 274 ) A history of architecture and urban design on the Italian peninsula, c. 1300-1700. We focus on the influential centers of Florence, Rome, and Venice, with reference to parallel developments elsewhere in Europe and the Mediterranean. Buildings and urban spaces are considered in social and political contexts, looking at the social structures as well as the patrons for which they were designed: governments, trade guilds, popes, nobles, and merchants. We study architectural and urban forms in relation to their functions, considering quotidian and ceremonial uses, the public and private spheres, and gendered spaces. Visual and textual evidence of performance, navigation, ritual, and sound reveal the varied ways that interior and exterior spaces could be experienced. Other topics include the changing role of the architect; individual versus collaborative design methods; the relation between theory and practice; new media; the transmission of memory; patterns of urban information exchange; manifestations of the ideal city; and the relation of urban, suburban, and rural topography. We investigate the designs and built work of such figures as Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Palladio, Bernini, and Borromini. We also consider multimedia ensembles that blur traditional boundaries among art, architecture, urbanism, and landscape. Yvonne Elet. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27.
(Same as URBS 275 ) A studio-based class introduction to architectural design through a series of short projects. Employing a combination of drawing, modeling and collage techniques (both by hand and using digital technology) students begin to record, analyze and create architectural space and form. Tobias Armborst.
ART 102 or ART 107 . Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Spring
ART 276Architectural Design II1
(Same as URBS 276 ) A studio-based course aimed at further developing architectural drawing and design skills. Employing a variety of digital and non-digital techniques students record, analyze and create architectural space and form in a series of design exercises. Tobias Armborst.
ART 102 or ART 107 ) Two 2-hour periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
ART 277Visual Psychedelia0.5
The youth oriented counter-culture of the 1960s and early 1970s was defined in part by the ”altered states” induced through hallucinogenic drugs. This phenomenon resulted in a complicated array of new forms of visual culture. We will examine these developments in the art movements (op-art and others), poster art/graphic design, album covers, and cinema associated with the drug culture of LSD. The popular revival and recovery of the work of earlier artists (Bosch, Blake) and artistic trends (art nouveau) that were deemed “visionary” will also be considered. The creative theories of the mind and higher consciousness associated with hallucinogens are examined, from Coleridge, Baudelaire, and Huxley, to Leary, Bateson, and Casteñeda. Brian Lukacher.
ART 106 or permission of the instructor. First six-week course. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
ART 278Arts of Japan1
(Same as ASIA 278 ) This course surveys Japanese art from prehistory to the end of the Meiji era (1868-1912). We examine various artworks and media, such as funerary objects, murals, scroll paintings, jewelry, textiles, gardens, and theatrical arts. Detailed visual analysis and critical readings of primary texts lead us to a range of topics, including the rise of Zen aesthetics, Sino-Japanese cultural exchange, urban fashion and print culture in the Japanese shogunate, the role of illustration in Japanese literary culture, and the place of women as patrons, pioneers and centerpieces of propaganda and consumption in premodern Japan. Petya Andreeva.
ART 105 or ART 106 or any 100-level Asan Studies class. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Spring
ART 279Landscape History and Conservation at Matthew Vassar’s Springside0.5
(Same as ENST 279 ) Springside, Matthew Vassar’s summer home in Poughkeepsie, was originally a 47-acre, park-like estate comprising a network of buildings in a verdant landscape, with an orchard and farm. Winding carriage paths gave artfully planned vistas of flora, fauna, and garden elements: fountains, sculpture, duck ponds, meadows with grazing sheep, and wooded knolls. Designed in 1850 by the pioneering American landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing, assisted by his partner Calvert Vaux (who later partnered with Frederick Law Olmsted to produce Central and Prospect Parks), Springside is Downing’s only extant landscape, created a National Historic Landmark in 1969. Downing translated the forms of European villas and English landscape gardens to American needs and democratic ideals, designing for people of varied means, reflected in his motto: “a home to every man and a garden to every home”. Matthew Vassar embraced Downing’s belief that well designed homes and gardens were a force for public good, opening Springside to visitors, which prefigured the public park. Today, the estate is much reduced in scale and scope, although it now boasts many large, mature trees of varied species. We consider the important history of Downing’s work, and the goals and challenges of historic landscape stewardship. Through a field trip to Springside, visits to Special Collections and the Loeb, and discussions with landscape preservation specialists, we consider the significance of this historic site, and confront the question: how can it survive in an altered form, and exist for a very changed time? Other topics include nineteenth-century responses to indigenous landscape, the rural cemetery movement, poetry and music dedicated to Springside, Downing’s and Vaux’s writings and architectural designs, intermedial designs for architecture and landscape, the emerging role of the landscape architect, and the legacy of Downing’s ideas in the Vassar campus. Yvonne Elet.
Permission of the instructor. Students in Art, Environmental Studies, Urban Studies, Geography, History, and English are especially encouraged to apply. Second six-week course. One 2-hour period. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: INT
ART 290Community-Engaged Learning
0.5 to 1 unit(s) Projects undertaken in cooperation with approved galleries, archives, collections, or other agencies concerned with the visual arts, including architecture. The Department.
ART 105 - ART 106 and one 200-level course. Open by permission of a supervising instructor. May be taken either semester or in the summer. Course Format: INT
Offered
Fall or Spring
ART 292Collecting Antiquities at Vassar: Lost and Found in the Loeb1
(Same as GRST 292 ) This intensive is designed as a directed independent study conducted in the Loeb Antiquities storeroom for close study of ancient art and artifacts. The intensive aims to impart skills involved in identifying fakes and establishing authenticity, to consider the ethics and politics of collecting, and to explore the changing role of ancient art in the museum and its display in galleries.
Permission of the instructor. One 2-hour period. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: INT
ART 293Asian Art in 100 Objects0.5
(Same as ASIA 293 ) This intensive offers students an opportunity to study Asian art with real objects. Together, we critically analyze potteries, bronzes, ceramics, stone carvings, and other art forms from China, Japan, and Korea. This shared experience provides an in-depth examination of objects that are often studied for their visual qualities alone. Second six-week course. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: INT
Throughout history, artists have protested war and injustice, critiqued the privileged and powerful, and struggled for peace and progress. Many have turned to printmaking as a reproducible and cost-effective means of delivering social messages to the broadest audience possible. Spanning the 18th century to the present, this course considers printmaking as a form of activism, drawing on the collection of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. We consider how artists such as William Hogarth, Francisco Goya, Käthe Kollwitz, Elizabeth Catlett, and the Guerrilla Girls have used printmaking as a medium to protest and provoke, to encourage empathy and action, and to promote positive social change. John Murphy.
ART 105 or ART 106 . Second six-week course. One 2-hour period. Course Format: INT
Offered
Fall
ART 296Art and an Archive0.5
(Same as ANST 296 ) The Archives of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution is the most widely used research center dedicated to collecting, preserving, and providing access to primary sources that document the history of the visual arts in the United States. Diaries, scrapbooks, letters, manuscripts, financial records, sketches, photographs, films, and recordings can all be found in its vast holdings. It also holds the largest collection of oral histories anywhere on the subject of art. In this collaborative exploratory workshop we immerse ourselves in the Archives’ online resources, paying particularly close attention to the in-depth oral histories, life stories, and other firsthand accounts by visual artists and other cultural workers. Together we critically and creatively analyze sources, freshly interpret artwork, piece together stories, and engage key questions of interpretation, evidence, and the limits and possibilities–including potential future histories–of a key archive. Lisa Collins.
Permission of the instructor. Second six-week course. One 2-hour period. Course Format: INT
Offered
Spring
ART 298Independent Work
0.5 to 1 unit(s) Open by permission of the instructor with the concurrence of the adviser in the field of concentration. Does not fulfill Major or Correlate requirements.
Permission of the Chair of the Art Department. Optional. Regular meetings with a faculty member to prepare an annotated bibliography and thesis statement for the senior essay. Course must be scheduled in the semester prior to the writing of the senior essay. Credit given only upon completion of the senior essay. Ungraded. Course Format: INT
Offered
Fall or Spring
ART 301Senior Project1
Supervised independent research culminating in a written essay or a supervised independent project in studio art. Brian Lukacher , Molly Nesbit, Jonah Rowen, John Hulsey, Gina Ruggeri , Laura Newman , Gordon Hall, Christina Tenaglia. Course Format: INT
This course investigates painting through a series of assigned open-ended projects. Because it is intended to help students develop a context in which to make independent choices, it explores a wide range of conceptual and formal approaches to painting and models through which painting can be considered, such as painting as a window, self-portrait, a map, or an object. There is an emphasis on individual responses to projects. Laura Newman.
ART 102 or ART 107 and any two 200-level Studio Art courses, and permission of the instructor. Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
ART 303Painting II: Explorations within Studio Practice1
This course investigates painting through a series of assigned open-ended projects and explores the material, conceptual and historical concerns of painting within individual studio practice. It examines the idea of painting as an ongoing development of thought; its projects are organized around the question, “How do you make the next painting?” There is an emphasis on individual responses to projects. Laura Newman.
Juniors and Seniors Only, permission of the instructor. Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Spring
ART 306Studio Critiques0.5
Students produce independent artwork and participate in bi-monthly critiques where students and studio faculty discuss the student work as well as other art issues. May be repeated for credit. Gordon Hall, John Hulsey, Laura Newman, Gina Ruggeri. Gordon Hall, John Hulsey, Laura Newman, Gina Ruggeri, Christina Tenaglia.
ART 107 and at least two 200-level Studio Art courses, and permission of the Studio Art Faculty. Two hours every other week. Course Format: INT
Offered
Fall and Spring
ART 307Printmaking II: Expanded Print1
Thinking of printmaking as a methodology and a series of actions, this course expands the potential of printmaking beyond the press. Students engage with ideas of ‘print’ through printed images as well as through acts of collecting, acts of transmission, acts of copying, acts of multiplication, acts of communication, acts of pressure, and so on, placing printmaking into broader contemporary practices including installation, site-specific responses, books, multiples, 2D and 3D digital outputs, and performance. How can printmaking enter three dimensions? How does printmaking allow for manipulation? Does a print need to be physical? Can it be temporary? Together, we look for new considerations of what we consider print and how it communicates ideas. Christina Tenaglia.
ART 107 . Juniors and Seniors only and permission of the instructor. Two 2-hour periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
ART 308Print/Publish/Circulate1
In contrast to our daily experience of mass-produced multiplications, this course explores the act of publishing on a smaller scale, as a way to circulate information and to engage audience/recipients through messaging, sharing, gifting, and acts of exchange with others. Using a range of processes from hand printing and risography to copy machines and laser etching, students create artworks that are meant to enter public spaces and find their way into people’s hands as artist books, zines, signs, objects, handouts, and more. Historical and contemporary artists and publications are explored while students consider their own acts of publication and distribution. Together, we examine the implications and potential of being able to directly engage with these printed objects. Christina Tenaglia.
ART 107 . Juniors and Seniors only and permission of the instructor. Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Spring
ART 312Critical Readings in Art History0.5
This half-unit course investigates the history of art history, its changing methods, and its evolving theories. Interdisciplinary by nature, art history has roots and tributaries in many fields of knowledge and practice: philosophy, museology, social history, architectural theory, and others. Each year the course explores a different set of transformative episodes in the history of the discipline. Readings, focus, and instructors will change from year to year.
Permission of the instructor. One 2-hour period. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
ART 317Museums in a Time of Change1
(Same as ANST 317 ) The current environment creates challenges to ways museums carry out their missions, sometimes forcing institutions to affirm or reimagine how to build better versions of themselves. Through a critical historical survey of the evolution of art museums, we examine their purpose in times of crises. How can we better connect audiences and objects? How do we describe the impact we want to make? If we can’t be all things to all people, how do we determine which of our museum’s “products” to retain, embellish, or drop? From difficult times come opportunities and new habits and ways of thinking. T. Barton Thurber.
Permission of the instructor. One 2-hour period. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
ART 318Building the Museum: Collecting and Displaying Art from the Renaissance to the Present1
From the time that the first public museums were established centuries ago, they have often been intended to be seen as works of art in themselves. In many instances, the function and purpose of these buildings have evolved, leading to renovation, reinvention, and even demolition. Through a set of case studies dating from the Renaissance to the present, the course examines different architectural settings and design strategies for museum buildings and displays. At the same time, we be explore the cultural, social, intellectual, pedagogical, economic, and inspirational value of museums from different periods of time and across the globe. Throughout all of our investigations, the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center provides a concrete example of how long-established values and practices related to collections, audiences, and resources are currently being debated and reconsidered. T. Barton Thurber.
Permission of the instructor. One 2-hour period. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
ART 322Video/Expanded Media II1
(Same as MEDS 322 ) This advanced studio course expands on the work in ART 222 / MEDS 222 and ART 223 . The course provides the conceptual and practical foundation for students to make ambitious work across a range of media, including video, installation, multi-media performance, collaborative projects, and site- and context-specific works. Particular attention is paid to the methods, materials, and issues in contemporary artistic practice. Class discussions, screenings, readings, and visits to galleries/museums supplement our work. John Hulsey.
ART 222 / MEDS 222 or ART 223 and permission of the instructor. Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Spring
ART 323Visualizing Abolition1
(Same as AFRS 323 ) What allows for some former plantations, prisons, and jails to achieve the distinguished status of heritage site while other similar places are simply razed and forgotten? This interdisciplinary cultural analysis course comparatively explores issues of power, race, difference, and knowledge through case studies of prison museums and other carceral heritage sites. Students analyze how writers, curators, and social theorists, respond to competing historical narratives concerning the topic of incarceration. Course readings feature essays by prominent critics of the prison-industrial complex in tandem with photo-essays that commemorate various prisons across the globe, exhibition and curatorial work premised on anti-colonial and anti-carceral museum interventions, and transnational debates on the topic of memory and history. By the end of the course, students better understand the various motivations for preserving carceral sites as well as the differing relationships spectators and visitors have with these vexed places. One 2-hour period. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
Permission of the instructor. One 2-hour period. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
ART 333Gardens and Landscape in Early Modern Italy1
(Same as ENST 333 ) Changing attitudes toward the relationship between art and nature played out in the gardens and landscape of Italian villas, c. 1450-1650. These large-scale estates created by renowned architects and patrons established models for the Western landscape tradition. Their designs for buildings, hardscaping, plantings, waterworks, and decorations blurred distinctions among art, architecture, landscape, and urban form, as well as between indoors and outdoors; city and country; and nature and artifice. We examine sites from Tuscany and Rome to the Veneto, considering the inheritance of ancient Roman, medieval, and Islamic landscape traditions, and the later reception of Italian landscape in France and England. We also explore the impact of new flora and fauna taken to Europe via global trade and new contact with the Americas, as well as changing patterns of collecting and display. Readings explore notions of villa ideology, city/country life, the garden as utopia, nature as monstrous, and paradigms of human cooperation with, or dominion over, nature. Through excursions to local landscapes, we experience the agency of the ambulatory spectator in constructing place and narrative, and consider the reception of the Italian garden in America. Yvonne Elet.
Permission of the instructor. One 2-hour period. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
ART 359Art of the Silk Roads: Making, Meaning, and Mobility from China to Europe1
(Same as ASIA 359 ) Focusing on intercultural exchange, this seminar explores the movements of artworks and artisans across premodern Afro-Eurasian trade networks known collectively as the “Silk Roads.” The course embraces a wide temporal and geographical scope: from the Iron Age to the 16th century, major Silk Road settlements flourished across modern-day China, India, Afghanistan, Mongolia, the Russian Far East, Central Asia, the Iranian plateau, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe, and Northeast Africa. We trace and analyze the dissemination of objects and images, as well as the transmission of ideas, aesthetic concepts, religions, ideologies, and governance models across the land and maritime routes linking these cultural spheres. In so doing, we explore how trade, war, diplomacy, climate change, and migration were continuously shaping the artistic, sociopolitical, and economic landscapes of Silk Road empires and communities. The course material also leads us to critiques of colonial frameworks and Euro-centric terminologies in the historiography of the Silk Roads, largely shaped by accounts of European travelers and invaders. Throughout the course, we study the premodern patterns of globalization in Afro-Eurasia and the role of art in this growing interconnectedness. Petya Andreeva.
Permission of the instructor. One 2-hour period. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Spring
ART 369Thinking Doing: Research & Creative Practice1
(Same as ANST 369 ) Thinking Doing: Research and Creative Practice is a multidisciplinary laboratory for research-based creative production. Crosslisted between Studio Art and American Studies, this course welcomes advanced studio art students and upper level students from across the disciplines at Vassar who are engaged in creative work as a major component of their studies. The course fosters the creation of research-based work in forms other than academic writing. We ask ourselves the following questions: How can research be embodied and materialized? What is the full range of diverse forms that knowledge production can take? How does research fuel creative practice? How can we acknowledge our influences and nurture our creativity through engagement with those who came before us? Students in this course are challenged to expand your making practice, producing several ambitious creative projects over the course of the semester. Weekly course materials are determined in relation to each student’s interests, and each class-member is responsible for engaging your peers in discussion about the questions, themes, and histories relevant to your individual work. As a class, we look to writing by artists to better understand the ways that artists articulate the questions motivating their creative process and the artworks that result from it. The course is punctuated by rigorous group critique, with the aim of strengthening your work and gaining fluency in the skill of giving and receiving critical feedback within a diverse community. The heart of this class is to support each participant in developing as a creative practitioner and a scholar by identifying and exploring your unique guiding questions through research, conversation, and hands-on making. This course is ideal for seniors from Studio Art, American and Native American Studies, and other departments and multidisciplinary programs, though juniors can also enroll with permission. Gordon Hall.
Juniors and Seniors only and permission of the instructor. Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
ART 370Seminar in Architectural History1
(Same as URBS 370 ) Topic for 2026/27a: Building sites are inherently sites of class confrontation. Financier-capitalists hire architects and managers to supervise workers, who sell their labor for subsistence wages. Once completed, constructed buildings sustain stratification by spatially segregating people by class, race, and gender, on scales ranging from rooms to urban neighborhoods to entire regions. From the moment that architects begin to draw, they formulate means of exclusion: lines represent walls and doors, instruments that restrict who is allowed to be where. Architecture’s very appearance can serve as a marker of class distinction, affirming the aesthetics of a ?cultured? stratum of society, and often reinforcing conservative tastes of the working class. Thus while taste may be related to class, the relationship between these phenomena is frequently complex. This course studies modern architectural history (from the eighteenth century to today) through the lens of class conflict. Where have buildings exacerbated preexisting divisions between people? What precise spatial, organizational, and material devices contribute to segregation? How do we see ramifications of class stratification in domestic settings and the enforcement of gender norms? Readings include selections from John Ruskin, Harriet Martineau, Karl Marx, Catharine Beecher, Thorstein Veblen, Henri Lefebvre, Pierre Bourdieu, Fredric Jameson, Manfredo Tafuri, Dolores Hayden, David Harvey, and others. Through a combination of focused architectural analysis and an intensive program of reading in political economy and architecture, we develop methods of interpreting urban, suburban, and rural landscapes by considering how they were built, who built them, and who they were built for. Jonah Rowen.
Permission of the instructor. One 2-hour period. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
ART 372Asian Art in European Museums: Colonial Legacies and New Avenues1
This course examines the evolving curatorial strategies and collecting practices in Asian art across European museums, galleries, and auction houses. At the heart of our inquiries are the biographies and itineraries of understudied objects found at hotspots for exchange on the premodern trans-Asian networks. How have museums and the antiquities trade reshaped the social lives of precious portable objects left behind by mobile communities? How have cultural institutions and private collectors (re)framed art-historical concepts and terminologies, and contributed to the erasure of certain historical voices? In this Intensive, we link and unlink the museum and archeological records, and examine the often-divergent visions of museum curators, archeologists, and art historians. Technical and science-driven approaches to museum work also play a role, as we examine how contemporary methods of dating and analyzing materials help dispel colonial myths about understudied Asian objects and cultures. As part of the course, students spend a week at the major Asian art museums in Paris and London, and visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art upon their return. Petya Andreeva.
Permission of the instructor. One 2-hour period. Course Format: INT
Offered
Spring
ART 375Architectural Design III1
(Same as URBS 375 ) An examination of a number of visual constructs, analyzing the ways architects and urbanists have employed maps, models and projections to construct particular, partial views of the physical world. Using a series of mapping, drawing and diagramming exercises, students analyze these constructs and then appropriate, expand upon, or hybridize established visualization techniques. Tobias Armborst.
Permission of the instructor. One 2-hour period. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
ART 394Architecture, “Originality,” Reproduction: First-Edition Modern Architecture Publications1
(Same as URBS 394 ) Vassar College has received a donation of a trove of first-edition architecture books and magazines from the Jeffries family. The collection features Frank Lloyd Wright’s Wasmuth Portfolio (1910), Le Corbusier’s Vers une architecture (1923), a range of significant nineteenth-century books, and several more by other protagonists of architectural modernism. As a mass medium, mechanical printing rendered architecture obsolete (or so the consensus has been since Victor Hugo’s lament, ventriloquized through the villain of Notre-Dame de Paris , in a chapter titled “This Will Kill That”). Supposedly unmediated experience of architecture demands a physical visit to a completed building: the presumptive “original.” Yet such ostensible authenticity is complicated by forms of presentation and representation such as drawings and text, essential to architectural practice, which are eminently reproducible. Thus we frame our research by asking, What roles do printed matter play in the production of architecture? How did architects use print as a complement to their work in other media and materials, from drawings and photographs to physical building materials? How can we “read” architecture? How can we “inhabit” books? This Intensive meets in Special Collections to study the publications included in the collection. Deconstructing the concept of originality, we practice direct encounter with original copies of reproduced printed materials that reproduce original built objects, themselves reproduced from architects’ original drawings, printed and reproduced. Jonah Rowen.
ART 395Meeting of Worlds: Art and Exchange in Medieval Sicily0.5
At the heart of the Mediterranean, Sicily lay at the crossroads of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Just miles from the Italian Peninsula, across the Sicilian Strait from Tunisia, closely connected to Fatimid Egypt, trading with Byzantium, and in the twelfth century conquered by the Normans—French descendants of Vikings—medieval Sicily represented a rich tapestry of cultures, religions, and artistic styles. Across the island’s monuments appear glittering Byzantine mosaics, Islamicate painting evoking subjects ranging from textiles to the cosmos, and Romanesque sculpture in which harpies and centaurs intermingle with biblical figures. This course examines Sicily’s dynamic medieval history and the ways in which its monuments communicated with their various patrons and audiences: from powerful queens and kings to cloistered monks to transitory pilgrims and merchants. A highlight of the course is a required fully-funded trip to Sicily with the Loeb over fall break. Elizabeth Lastra.
At least one 200-level course in Art History. First six-week course. One 2-hour period. Course Format: INT
Offered
Fall
ART 399Senior Independent Work
0.5 to 1 unit(s) Open by permission of the instructor with the concurrence of the department adviser in the field of concentration. Not included in the minimum for the major. Course Format: OTH
