Art History 102, Fall 2011: Course Syllabus
Wednesdays 1:40-4:30/ or /5:30-8:20pm
Klapper Hall, Room 403
Instructor: Jarrett Earnest (jarrett.earnest@qc.cuny.edu)
Office Hours: Wednesdays, 12:15-1:15 or by appointment
Office: Klapper Hall, Office 161
Class Blog: http://languageoflooking.blogspot.com
Course Description:
ARTH 102 is a survey of the history of Western art from the Renaissance to the contemporary period. The course is the second part of a two-semester sequence designed to survey the historical development of art & architecture in Western civilization.
Course Objectives:
The goal is to understand the physical reality of an artwork as the product of intellectual choices made by the artist. Each of these choices has a history that connects it to the artistic, social, and political climate of its own period, and accumulates content with the continued engagement of generations of viewers, writers and thinkers.
The naturalness with which we “see” disguises the fact that we understand every image through a highly organized code, an inherited “language of representation,” which we use without necessarily recognizing or understanding it. In this class we will be engaging the formal aspects of artworks – composition, color, line, medium – to explore how they structure our viewing like grammar structures writing. Through formal analysis and contextual readings we will work to pull artworks apart to decipher the complex code of seeing and knowing, or as the art historian E.M. Gombrich put it - making and meaning.
In following painting and sculpture from the early renaissance to the end of the 20th century we will not only have a better understanding of the historical and chronological “History of Art” but be more equipped to engage with any work of art, and images of all kinds.
Course Structure & Requirements:
Course requirements and their grade values are as follows:
Midterm Exam (30%)
Final Exam (35%):
Metropolitan Museum trip & assignment (20%)
Class participation & effort, including at least 1 substantial blog post (15%)
Required Textbook:
Marilyn Stokstad, Art History: Portable Edition, Fourth Edition, Volumes 4 & 6. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2006 (4th edition). [A special packet with Volumes 4 & 6 is available at the Queens College Bookstore.] The page numbers in the syllabus reflect this edition, although you can easily follow the assignments with earlier editions.
The textbook comes with access to www.myartkit.com, which has the entire book online for remote reading, additional visual resources and a very useful sections for reviewing, studying, writing tutorials and links to other helpful online resources for art & writing. You can also choose to buy only the e-book for half the price, by following the link, and under “Register or Buy Access”, choosing “Student” then “Buy Access” to MyArtsLab with Ebook
Additional texts/resources will be posted on the class blog –
The Language of Looking (http://languageoflooking.blogspot.com)
The class blog is an essential tool of this course. There I will post the syllabus, assignments, key images, resources, and relevant information, so check it often. You MUST make at least one posting to the class blog as part of your class participation during the course. Your post can be a further exploration of, or reflection on, an artwork or issue covered in class or in the textbook. For instance, a post on the connection of an artist or artwork to a key work or figure in a field other than art, like Giotto to Dante, or Picasso and Stravinsky, would be excellent . This is a place you can be creative, so feel free to post images, video, or music, bearing in mind that it must make a substantial contribution to the class discussion. What you post here will be addressed within class discussions as well.
Course Policies:
Discussion is an important part of this course, so you are asked to come to class each week with notes & questions from the reading, ready to review. Our course meets only once a week, so attendance at each class is important for your learning, and regular absences, late arrivals or early departures will affect your ability to participate fully. There is no eating in class and all cell-phones and electronic devices must be turned off before we start.
Exams: the midterm and final exams will involve material from the reading and from class, and consist of a combination of slide identification, short written comparisons of works, fill-in and essay questions.
The tests are not cumulative. We will discuss the details of each test the week prior, and you will be given a thorough study guide.
There are no make-up exams. In the event you miss either exam or the class trip to the Metropolitan Museum the only make-up is to write a 10-15 page research paper.
Attendance is mandatory and will be taken in every class. Missing two classes will result in an automatic 10 point drop on your final grade.
CUNY Policy on Academic Integrity
Queens College follows CUNY’s policy regarding academic integrity, and requires that faculty members investigate suspected violations of the policy and, if confirmed, report them. Each student is responsible for being aware of the school policy, what constitutes cheating and plagiarism and for avoiding both. The entire policy is available at http://www.cuny.edu/academics/info-central/policies.html
The following list, drawn from that document, includes common examples of plagiarism, but it is by no means exhaustive:
- Copying another person’s actual words without the use of quotation marks and footnotes attributing the words to their source.
- Presenting another person’s ideas or theories in your own words without acknowledging the source.
- Using information that is not common knowledge without acknowledging the source.
- Submitting downloaded term papers or parts of term papers, paraphrasing or copying information from the internet without citing the source.
- “Cutting and pasting” from various sources without proper attribution.
Cheating is the use or attempted use of unauthorized material, information, notes, study aids, devices or communication during an academic exercise. The following list, also drawn from the Policy on Academic Integrity, includes examples of cheating, but it is by no means exhaustive:
- Copying from another student during an examination or allowing another to copy your work.
- Using notes or unauthorized electrical devices during a closed book examination.
- Changing a graded exam and returning it for more credit.
- Submitting someone else’s work as your own, including paid or favor.
Course Schedule
Reading & assignments are due on the day under which they appear.
Week 1 – August 31
Introduction = “Fresh Looks – 14th Century Europe”
Case Study: Giotto di Bondone (1266 - 1337)
Screening: Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975) - The Decameron (1971) excerpt.
Week 2 – September 7
Stillness and Solemnity - 15th Century Italian Art
Case Study: Piero della Francesca (1415 - 1492)
Reading due: review AH chapter 17 p. 529-559; read AH chapter 19 p. 593-630.
Week 3 – September 14
The Conquest of Reality - 15th Century Northern Europe
Case Study: Jan van Eyck (c.1395 - c.1441)
Reading due: AH chapter 18 p. 561-592.
Week 4 – September 21
16th Century Italy – Re-Birth
Case Study: Michelangelo (1475 - 1564)
Reading due: AH chapter 20 p. 631 - 676.
NO CLASS – September 28
Week 5 – October 5
A Crisis of Art - 16th Century Northern European Art
Case Study: Albrecht Dürer (1471 - 1528)
Reading due: AH chapter 21 p. 677 - 709.
Week 6 – October 12
Vision and Visions: 17th Century Art
Case Study: Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598 - 1680)
Reading due: AH chapter 22 p. 711 - 735 & p.755 - 769 (skipping “Flanders and the Netherlands).
Week 7 – October 19
Midterm Exam
Followed by screening and lecture/discussion of Caravaggio (1986) by Derek Jarman (1942-1994).
Week 8 – October 26
The Mirror & Nature: Holland and Northern Europe in the late 17th Century
Case Study: Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 -1669)
Screening: Peter Greenaway (b. 1942): A Zed and Two Noughts (1986) excerpt; Nightwatching (2007) excerpt.
Reading due: AH chapter 22 p. 735 -755.
Week 9 – November 2
The Age or Reason and Delight - The 18th Century
Case Study: Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732 - 1806)
Reading: AH chapter 29 p. 903 -943.
Week 10 – November 9 (or weekend)
MUSEUM CLASS – Class meets at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York*
Participation is graded - sign ups for the morning of November 9, afternoon of November 9 or weekend will be made in class closer to date.
Week 11 – November 16
The 19th Century: Neo-Classicism, Romanticism, and the Permanent Revolution
Case Study: Gustave Courbet (c.1819/31 - 1877)
Screening: Jean-Luc Godard (b. 1930) Passion (1982) excerpt.
Reading due: AH chapter 29 p. 943- 959 & chapter 30: p. 961-1001 (up to “Symbolism”).
Week 12 – November 23
Fracture,Fission, and Movement: Europe 1900 - 1960
Case Study: Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973)
Screening: Fernand Léger, Dudley Murphy and George Antheil Ballet Mécanique (1924);
Oskar Fischinger Wax Experiments (1923 -1927); Jean Cocteau The Blood of the Poet (1930). excerpt.
Reading due: AH chapter 30: p 1003-1013 (from Symbolism through Modern Architecture) & chapter 31 p. 1017-1039 (Early Modern Art in Europe) & p.1050-1060 (“Socialist Realism” up to “Modern Art in the Americas Between the Wars”).
Week 13 – November 30
Abstract Expressionism and Its Discontents: America 1900 - 1960
Case Study: Philip Guston (1913 - 1980)
Screening: Martha Graham (1894 - 1991) & Aaron Copland (1900-1990) Appalachian Spring (1946) excerpt; Maya Deren (1917 - 1961) At Land (1944).
Reading due: AH chapter 31 p.1040-1048 (“Modernist Tendencies in America” to “Art Between the Wars in Europe”; p.1061-1081(“Modern Art in the Americas between the Wars” through “Sculpture of the New York School”).
Week 14 – December 7
The Rise of Performance, Conceptual Art, and the “Post-Modern”: 1960 to 2000
Case Study: Andy Warhol (1928 - 1987)
Screening: Andy Warhol Kiss (1963) excerpt; Carolee Schneemann (b. 1939) Fuses (1967) excerpt; Joan Jonas (b.1936) Organic Honey’s Vertical Roll (1972) excerpt; Dara Birnbaum (b.1946) Technology Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978).
Reading due: AH chapter 32 p. 1083 - 1135.
Final Exam December 21
**This syllabus is subject to change at the discretion of the instructor**
