27 courses with the subject AH, 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.
AH 111Western Art: Renaissance to Modern1098
This course is a chronological survey of art from the Renaissance to the Modern world, spanning a period from 1300 to the present day. Selected works in architecture, sculpture and painting are studied as examples of the way in which the natural and social environment, together with ethical and religious beliefs, determine the forms and images of a culture’s art.
This course is a chronological survey of art from the prehistoric to the medieval periods, spanning a period from 3000 BCE to 1300 CE. Selected works in architecture, sculpture and painting are studied as examples of the way in which the natural and social environment, together with ethical and religious beliefs, determine the forms and images of a culture’s art.
This course explores major examples of medieval art within the context of cultural history. Lectures and classroom discussions will introduce students to important frescoes, sculptures, manuscript illuminations, metalwork, ivories, tapestries and stained glass of the era. The construction and symbolism of key architectural monuments from Christian basilica, Islamic mosque and crusader castle to the Gothic cathedral will be investigated. A variety of cultural themes such as the art of courtly love, life in the castle, chivalry and the rules of the tournament, the impact of the music and poetry of the troubadours and trouveres and the culinary practices of the knightly class, will be explored in relationship to key works of art. The semester will culminate with a medieval banquet in the Grey Towers Castle.
This course explores Renaissance art in Western Europe from the 14th to 16th centuries, with a, focus on the revival of the classical past, changes in artistic status, gender roles, and the advent of the Protestant Reformation. Artists may include Giotto, Masaccio, Donatello, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo. Fieldtrips to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to study the Renaissance collections are included. Offered in even years.
This course focuses on art and architecture of the 17th century in the European artistic centers of Rome, Paris, Madrid, and Amsterdam. Themes include the impact of the Counter Reformation, relationships between art and power, and the development of portraiture, genre and landscape painting. Artists may include Caravaggio, Bernini, Poussin, Velázquez, Rembrandt, and Vermeer. Field trips to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to study the Baroque collection are included. Offered in odd years.
This course charts the development of art from Rococo to Post-Impressionism. It examines the relationship between this stylistic transformation and the century’s rapid political, economic, and social changes. Students will gain insight into the integral relationship between modern art and modernity by studying works of art in the context of revolution, industrialization, imperialism, emancipation, and other dramatic socio-political events that shaped the century. Our focus will shift between art produced in Western Europe and elsewhere, especially in former and current colonies in North America, the Middle East, and South Asia. Study includes visits to the area’s premiere collections of nineteenth-century art.
Photography has a unique status in our visual culture. Unlike other technologies of visualization, photography saturates everyday life, mass media, science, and fine art. Paradoxically, the medium’s pervasiveness can render it invisible – too commonplace to be noticed. The goal of this course is to enable you to truly see photography by exploring the medium’s technological, aesthetic, and sociopolitical histories. Thematic units investigate questions that have persistently plagued the medium since its invention circa 1830, including: Do photographs always tell the truth, or can they lie? What are the ethics of making and viewing photographs, especially when they capture violence and vulnerability? What are the implications of using photography to craft identities for ourselves and others? By tackling these questions and many more, you will gain a new perspective on your role as a maker, subject, and consumer of photographs.
AH 111 , AH 112 , FA 102 , FA 103 , or permission from instructor.
AH 227History of Modern Craft and Design: 1915-Present1098
This class explores the movements and styles that developed during the 20th centuries in American and European decorative arts, craft and design. Some of these are Bauhaus, Art Deco, Streamline, International Style, and Contemporary Craft. The social, political and artistic causes as well as the innovators and practitioners of these styles are studied as well. The impact of technological developments and social change on the art are studied.
This course focuses on the painting, sculpture, and architecture of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti and their contemporaries in sixteenth-century Italy. Emphasis will be upon the form and content of each work, with particular attention given to the role of creativity and the notion of artistic genius. We will also consider the revival of antiquity and its relationship to vernacular culture, as well as the changing role of the artist over time.
This course is an introduction to ancient Greek and Roman art, covering material from the Aegean Bronze Age to the Hellenistic period and from the Etruscan culture to the Late Antique period, roughly spanning from the 3rd millennium B.C. to the 4th century C.E. Students will be exposed to a variety of artwork including pottery, marble statues, bronze sculptures, and wall paintings, and discuss how classical antiquity influenced the very foundations of western thought and culture.
This course asks not only “what was modernism?”, but also “where and when was modernism?”. Following recent scholarship, it expands the scope of modern art to include works made beyond the borders of Europe and the United States in the first half of the twentieth century. The class explores how these new international parameters test traditional definitions of modern art. Thematic organization of select case-studies encourages students to compare how artists approached similar problems within distinct cultures and under disparate historical circumstances, and to trace how the ideas and styles associated with modernism traveled internationally. The course challenges each student to develop their own definition of modernism, one that considers its global nature.
This course traces themes in visual art from World War II to the present. These seventy-five years have seen dramatic shifts in the form, site, and function of art. Many artists have abandoned traditional fine art media (such as painting and sculpture) or modified them beyond recognition through the use of vernacular materials and new technologies. Their experiments have pushed artworks out of the gallery into non-art venues (such as the street, the wilderness, and the internet) where they demand new modes of viewer engagement. We will examine not only how art has changed in this period but also why it has done so. What political, social, and cultural developments have artists responded to our hopes to affect? Our investigation will focus mainly on the United States and Europe, with excursions to other countries and continents.
This course explores the arts of Latin America from the European conquest to the modern period. A brief survey of the ancient cultures of Mesoamerica (Mexico and Central America) and the Andes (Peru and Bolivia) provides the background for understanding artistic developments in these areas after Spanish and Portuguese colonization. We investigate the post-conquest culture of the Americas through an analysis of works in various media, including codices, paintings, featherwork, sculpture, architecture, murals, and prints. Particular emphasis will be given to the diffusion of European visual culture in the Americas, with a focus on points of cross-cultural contact. Considerations of colonialization, religious conversion, race, and hybridity will deepen our understanding of Latin American visual culture.
This course will investigate a breadth of artwork and creative expression by African American artists from the 18th Century to the present. We will consider artists according to chronology, approaches to image-making, and ways in which aspects of cultural continuity can be experienced through artists’ uses of material and concept. Themes of “double-consciousness”, creating a visual past, and beauty and visibility will enable us to distinguish the unique contributions and perspectives of African American artists. This course will contextualize black artists within the framework of American art as a whole. Students will develop an awareness and appreciation of aesthetics of African American art that is informed but not entirely defined by racial identity.
Exploration of an art-historical topic presented in lectures and discussions by art history faculty. Topics may range in chronologies, cultures, and geographies. Topics vary from semester-to-semester. May be repeated for credit.
This seminar provides students with a broad overview of mid-to-late 20 th century and contemporary art through the lens of exhibition making. Organized around a comprehensive proposal for a thematic group exhibition, topics include evolution of gallery and exhibition contexts, installation design, the rhetorical impact of artworks on each other, the role of the given physical site and layout on the works displayed, and the exhibition as mode of interpretation and research. Students are introduced to a wide variety of contemporary artists and how their work is contextualized by the exhibition format. Projects include an oral presentation on a postwar artist (or movement), curating a hypothetical group exhibition, and six 2-to-3-page papers. Field trips to regional exhibition spaces and guest speakers reinforce the course material.
AH 324Seminar: Art and the Italian Renaissance Court1098
This course provides an in-depth examination of painting, buildings, sculpture, and manuscripts produced in the Italian Renaissance courts of the fourteenth through early sixteenth centuries. It was at this time that princely figures relied on art and architecture to bolster their claim to power and to display their wealth, piety, and learning. A focus on the courtly centers of Mantua, Urbino, Ferrara, and Milan will not only reveal how these princes used the arts to legitimate their own right to rule, but also how artists and objects circulated between the courts as part of a complex network of patronage and political alliances
AH 325Leonardo da Vinci: Art, Myth, and Innovation1098
This seminar explores the life and work of Leonardo da Vinci—perhaps one of the best known, but most mysterious artists in the Western tradition. In this course, we examine Leonardo’s many paintings, drawings, and writings in order to situate him within a broader cultural context. Special attention is given to his voluminous notebooks with their studies of weaponry, machinery, human anatomy, and hydraulics.
This advanced seminar on Fauvism, Cubism, Dadaism, Futurism, Surrealism, Expressionism and other movements of the first half of the century focuses on their developments in the ‘40s and ‘50s in Europe and America. It requires individual research and discussion on a selected period.
AH 111 or AH 112 and one of the following: AH 222 , AH 224 or AH 225 . Open to juniors and seniors.
AH 327Seminar: Make an Exhibition1098
This course combines the focused, in-depth study of a seminar with the applied learning of a practicum. Over the semester, students work together to create an exhibition in one of the campus galleries. In the first half of the course, students learn about the art they are tasked with exhibiting through assigned readings, independent research, field trips, and guest speakers. They are also introduced to best practices in the curation, collections management, educational programming, marketing, and installation of visual art exhibitions. Students then use the knowledge and skills they have acquired to collaboratively create an art exhibition on campus.
100-level Art History course or instructor’s permission. 200-level Art History course or work experience with the Arcadia University Gallery program (especially, Contemporary Curatorial Practice and/or The Artist and the Exhibition: Gallery Practicum) recommended.
AH 328Seminar: Contemporary Art1098
This advanced seminar on current art and its background in the ‘60s and ‘70s includes methods and problems in modern art criticism. It requires papers on various concepts for discussion and critiques of art shows in Philadelphia and New York.
AH 111 or AH 112 and one of the following: AH 222 , AH 224 or AH 225 . Open to juniors and seniors.
AH 329Art Now: Special Topics in Contemporary Art1098
This seminar examines art since 2000 with an emphasis on the present. Topics covered vary with each iteration of the course to correspond with the most pressing current issues in contemporary art. Guest speakers and field trips supplement in-class discussion of recent artworks, exhibitions, institutions, criticism, and theory. The goal is to produce more informed, critical, and engaged viewers of the art of today. While there are no prerequisites for this course, it is an advanced seminar. Students without prior art or art history training who wish to learn about contemporary art are encouraged to take AH235 Contemporary Art: 1945 to the Present instead.
(2 or 4 credits) Student apprentices gain practical working experience in the major art historical area or related curatorial field. Working with an apprenticeship mentor, students combine apprentice work with their academic studies to gain hands-on-experience to advance their individual educational and career objectives. Possibilities include placements with art historians, curators, or with individuals involved in galleries, museums, art institutions, art collectives, and art publications. It is the student’s responsibility to arrange for the apprenticeship and faculty support. Requires 100 hours for 2 credits, 200 hours for 4 credits. A maximum of 8 credits permitted.
Permission of the major adviser and applicable apprenticeship coordinator, and course work for the particular field of study must be completed prior to signing up for apprenticeship.
AH 383Capstone Research2
This is the preliminary course in the Capstone research project in Art History. Students explore a range of methodologies, as well as consult primary and secondary sources, in order to select the Capstone thesis topic. Once the topic is chosen, students complete research and outline papers through discussion with the seminar professor and peers.
Senior standing in Art History; or permission of the instructor.
AH 385Studies in the History of Art1098
Small discussion-based seminar taught by art history faculty. The topics are chosen by instructor and vary from semester-to-semester. Seminars may include visits to area museums and galleries. May be repeated for credit.
AH 387Special Topics in History of Art Museums1098
This course is intended for students who want to learn the fundamentals about museums, their history and changing philosophies, and the economic, social and political context within which they exist. Field trips are to a variety of museums (anthropology, art, natural history and science).
Students complete a semi-independent study in a problem of art history chosen in consultation with the faculty adviser and thesis committee. It includes individual and group conferences to examine research methods and procedures. Required of all Art History majors.
