70 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 103Intro to Visual Culture3
Visual Culture can be understood as the practice of scrutinizing visual items in both elite and popular culture; of determining how and what they mean to a variety of audiences; and of examining how those meanings might slip, change, or be changed according to both context and audience. Students examine a broad range of visual materials–from paintings to films–through the term of study.
This introduction to handbuilding and wheel-throwing fosters creative expression through skill development, historical study, critical thinking, and discussion. Projects focus on three-dimensional design and sculpture as well as functional ceramic wares. Students will learn to develop surface effects and test interactions of ceramic materials using glazes and underglazes. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
This course introduces the student to basic principles of painting and two- dimensional thinking and expression. Drawing skills, color theory, stretcher construction, and a general understanding of visual art concepts accompany each assignment. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
Through various drawing media, this studio course explores the basic principles of creating a work of visual art, including figure studies from the model, studies from nature, and techniques of composition. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
This course is an introduction to the techniques and aesthetics of graphic media, including dry point, engraving, mezzotint, etching, and aquatint. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
ART 131History of World Art I: Prehistory to 14003
This introductory survey focuses on art of the ancient world and the Middle Ages in the West and selected non-Western cultures to 1400 including India, China, and Mesoamerica. It emphasizes the role of art in the formation of a culture, the shifting function of art in different societies and time periods, and the approaches students can use to understand art.
This introductory survey focuses on Western art from the Renaissance to today and the art of selected non-Western cultures (including Japan, Africa, and Islamic countries) after 1400. It concentrates on the stylistic, technical, and expressive evolution of painting, architecture, and sculpture within specific historical contexts, yet also explores the cross-influences and interaction of non-Western and Western art as defining characteristics of the modern world.
This course introduces students to computer graphic systems and related media practices. Students explore digital foundations, media-related histories, theoretical frameworks, and critical examination of production elements as they discover how digital practices are continuously changing the way imagemakers create and present their work. CHATHAM UNIVERSITY CATALOG: 2026-2027 221
This course introduces students to black and white darkroom photography. Students build camera skills while investigating 35mm film fundamentals and wet lab methods. A range of photographic materials and analog techniques are covered. Students study the photograph as a medium for documentation, representation, and expression. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
ART 152SPhotography II - Introduction to Digital Photography3
This course introduces students to the basic aesthetic grammar of digital photography and provides a historical and critical context for looking at and making photographs. Students use cameras with manually adjustable focus and exposure control. Digital darkroom techniques will be explored in Lightroom and Photoshop. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
This course introduces students to the themes and issues addressed in the Art Museum Studies program, including an overview of the history and function of art museums, their role in society, the interpretation of objects for museum audiences, and other issues central to the museum profession such as censorship and repatriation.
This course will examine the relationships between photographs and audiences from the early nineteenth century to the present. A variety of themes will be discussed, including fashion photography, war, fine arts, advertising, portraits, landscapes, and social documentary. Within this structure, we will consider fundamental questions about photography, vision, and meaning, such as finding truth in images and discovering the relationship between image-making and power.
This studio course advances the student in all technical aspects of ceramics and explores conceptual, critical approaches both to the medium and to specific contemporary issues. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
This course is an introduction to the visual grammar of dynamic composition and form. In this studio course the student will study design with an emphasis on gaining an understanding of organizing principles that contribute to visual engaging and visual arrangements.
This advanced course in painting gives the student a broad understanding of technical issues in the context of contemporary conceptual and critical approaches CHATHAM UNIVERSITY CATALOG: 2026-2027 222
This advanced studio course continues figure studies from the model, as well as landscape drawing and architectural drawing. Conceptual and critical approaches to the medium are emphasized. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
This class is an introduction to the concrete and conceptual aspects of typography as a visual medium. Technique and the abstract compositional uses for typography will be examined. Historic and contemporary forms of alphabetic communications will be explored, along with image-based communication through applied projects. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
Women’s and Gender Studies The women’s and gender studies major offers students the opportunity for the interdisciplinary study of women, transgender, and gender diverse individuals’ contributions to society and women’s experience in diverse cultures, polities, and historical periods. Students seek to understand the new scholarship on women, transgender, and gender diverse individuals, and the new intellectual frameworks, methodologies, and feminist and queer theories that examine gender as a social construct and a hierarchical system of power. They analyze critically the representations and voices of women, transgender, and gender diverse individuals in literature, arts, and religious and philosophical traditions, in social and political theory and practice, and in the sciences, and they are encouraged to enunciate their own approaches to reshaping society. BA in Women’s and Gender Studies
Women and Art addresses the work of women artists from the Renaissance to the present and images of women in Western art. Feminist approaches to the history of art are examined critically to determine their contribution to the history of art. This is a writing intensive course.
ART 231Italian Renaissance Art: Creating the Modern West3
This course examines the most dynamic period in Western art, beginning with the first stirrings of humanism around 1300 and placing equal emphasis on the achievements of the artists of the Early Renaissance (Ghiberti, Donatello, Masaccio, Botticelli) and those of the High Renaissance (Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian) to 1550.
This course explores the roles art played in the 17th-century rise of nation states and religious change. It uses the lives and works of leading artists (Bernini, Velazquez, Rubens, Rembrandt) as case studies to examine not only how they advanced art but also shaped the nations’ political and religious mores. CHATHAM UNIVERSITY CATALOG: 2026-2027 223
This course gives a basic grounding in lighting techniques for both studio and location work and covers the use of available light and various lighting instruments. Students create lighting plans; learn to create dramatic high-key effects of subtly sensitive illumination, and master color balance and metering. Additional Fee(s): Lab/Materials fee.
This course introduces the concepts of visual perception and the relevance of symbols and archetypes in expanding cognitive and perceptual skills. The course will broaden and deepen student’s visual and verbal skills in critical thinking, the creative process and problem solving through applied branding identities. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
ART 247SPhotography III - Advanced Digital Imaging3
This course introduces students to the creation, enhancement, and manipulation of high-quality digital imagery. Adobe Photoshop is the primary tool, and students learn fundamentals of the interface, resolution, masking, layering, compositing, color correction and retouching. Emphasis is on artistry as well as developing technical skills. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
Investigating the major movements in France, England, Germany, and other European countries (Romanticism, Realism, the Pre-Raphaelites, Impressionism), this course traces revolutionary changes from the dominance of the academies to the birth of modernism, focusing on art, architecture, photography, and printmaking as impacted by war, urbanization, industrialization, race, and gender issues.
In this course the student will be introduced to the major movements in European and American art since 1900. The first half will focus on 1900 to 1950 and the concept of modernism, who and what shaped it, and the shifting definitions of the artist. The second half will focus on recent trends in world art, focusing on new media and movements, including installation art, earth art, video art, postmodernism, and the new theoretical and conceptual approaches to art and art history.
This course introduces students to web design software and basic code and programming languages. Students will develop technical, aesthetic, and conceptual skills by participating in lectures, demonstrations, computer labs, and critiques, as well as participating in critical analysis of various sites and Internet strategies.
This course surveys the art of India, China, Southeast Asia, Korea, and Japan from the earliest civilizations to the modern period. Since much Asian artistic production was inspired by religious belief, students also will be introduced to the major currents of Asian religion and philosophy, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Islam, Confucianism, Daoism, and Shintoism. CHATHAM UNIVERSITY CATALOG: 2026-2027 224
This advanced studio course gives the student the opportunity to study a particular process or combination of processes in more depth. Contemporary approaches such as installation and performance art, and environmental and conceptual art are introduced. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
ART 309WArt + Land: Artists Engage the Environment3
This course explores interactions between visual artists and the natural environment. It examines 15th- to 17th-century landscape painting and the role of landscape and national identity in the 19th century. It also explores the Earth Art movement that began in the 1960s and current investigations of art and sustainability.
This studio course advances the student in all technical aspects of ceramics and explores conceptual and critical approaches both to the medium and to specific contemporary issues. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
This advanced course in painting gives the student a broad understanding of technical issues in the context of contemporary conceptual and critical approaches to the medium. Students will have an opportunity to work on independent projects. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
This advanced studio course continues figure studies from the model, as well as landscape drawing and architectural drawing. Conceptual and critical approaches to the medium are emphasized. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
This course further explores the conceptual and technical potential of printmaking through a variety of processes and projects, including, but not limited to: aquatint, etching, mezzotint, monoprint, woodcut and experimental practice. Historical and contemporary practices are introduced, discussed, and critiqued. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee. CHATHAM UNIVERSITY CATALOG: 2026-2027 225
This course teaches practical methods for building and maintaining an artistic practice, explores art careers, and develops research, documentation, and self- promotion skills. Students will enhance communication abilities, create professional materials, and engage with contemporary and historical art practices, while examining the role of art in society.
This course explores visual communication design systems in the context of political, cultural, and social influences that shape the production of typography, posters, publications, advertising, brand identities, and interactive design. Students are asked to consider how the work of past designers is relevant to contemporary design practices.
This course traces the development of the American art museum’s educational mission from the early nineteenth century to the present. A range of programming types, including docent touring, computer-based learning, museum-school partnerships, and hands-on experiences are observed and analyzed. Students will also design programs for exhibitions in the Chatham University Art Gallery.
This course will concentrate on the concept and originality of ideas in digital illustration and will also explore vector and raster-based applications to be used as tools to create digital illustrations. Illustrations created in this course will be applied to design formats and page layouts.
This course explores the rich diversity of art across sub-Sahara Africa from the Paleolithic era to today. It focuses on cultures from West Africa, Central Africa, CHATHAM UNIVERSITY CATALOG: 2026-2027 226
This course explores the roles and duties of the art museum curator. Topics addressed include collection care and management, exhibition planning and design, object handling, and exhibition critiques. Curators from local museums will serve as guest speakers. Students will collaboratively curate at least one exhibition.
The landscape is fascinating from a natural and contrived point of view. This course explores the art of taking landscape shots digitally with emphasis on composition, focal points, color, light, movement, time of day, framing, and weather conditions. You will explore a range of image capturing from macro flower shots to vast panoramic points of view from urban and rural subject matter. Several new digital image editing processes will be taught using Photoshop. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
This advanced studio course gives the student the opportunity to study a particular process or combination of processes in more depth. Contemporary approaches such as installation and performance art, and environmental and conceptual art are introduced. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
This studio course advances the student in all technical aspects of ceramics and explores conceptual, critical approaches both to the medium and to specific contemporary issues. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
This advanced course in painting gives the student a broad understanding of technical issues in the context of contemporary conceptual and critical approaches to the medium. Students will have an opportunity to work on independent projects. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
This advanced studio course continues figure studies from the model, as well as landscape drawing and architectural drawing. Conceptual and critical approaches to the medium are emphasized. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
This course further explores the conceptual and technical potential of printmaking through a variety of processes and projects, including, but not limited to: aquatint, etching, mezzotint, monoprint, woodcut and experimental practice. Historical and contemporary practices are introduced, discussed, and critiqued. Additional Fee(s): Applied art fee.
In this practicum, students gain experience in studio-based and field photography. Students develop a portfolio of portrait and event photography with the potential to be used for the Communique, college publications, and other outlets, with name credits on all published work. Additional Fee(s): Lab/Materials fee.
The designed environment influences and is influenced by human activity patterns and behavior. This course is an introduction to significant theories concerning the interaction of people and interior architecture. Emphasis is placed on shared human needs and differences based on age, culture, gender, and occupation.
This course develops graphic literacy as a language and philosophy for observation, analysis, expression, and presentation of interior architecture. Students are introduced to a number of techniques and methods of drawing used by interior designers, including freehand drawing, use of colored pencils, markers, and mechanical drafting CHATHAM UNIVERSITY CATALOG: 2026-2027 228
