Art matters. Because images, buildings, and environments shape our ways of understanding our world and ourselves, learning how to look closely and analyze what you see is a fundamental life skill. Within a global frame, this course provides an introduction to art and its histories through a series of case studies from the ancient world to the present day. Through the case studies, we will explore concepts of gender and race, cultural appropriation, political propaganda, materials and media, questions of cultural ownership and repatriation, and other historical issues relevant to our current art world. Site visits and assignments will engage with the rich art and architectural resources of Wellesley's campus.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Liu, Oles (Fall); Bedell, Greene, Brey (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: This course is open to all students; it is required for all Art History, Architecture, and Studio Majors.
This first-year seminar examines the Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarroti (1474-1564). Although he is best known as a sculptor and painter, Michelangelo was also a poet, architect, civil engineer, and diplomat driven by complex artistic, religious, political, and economic motivations. His long career provides a framework for understanding the Italian Renaissance, and the mythology surrounding that career provides insight into changing perceptions of the artist and the individual during that time. We will focus on works of art and contemporary texts, as well as real or virtual visits to Wellesley’s Special Collections, Papermaking Studio, and Book Arts Lab, as well as Harvard's Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 13
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Musacchio
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Jewelry is art made to adorn the human body, and designs from the ancient Mediterranean have inspired artists for thousands of years. This introductory course analyzes the creation and use of jewelry from 2,600 BCE to 800 CE. Case studies drawn from the connected Mediterranean world will compare the traditions of neighboring peoples such as the Egyptians, Assyrians, Romans, and Celts. Readings will introduce these communities and the meanings they gave to symbols, metals, and gemstones. Lectures will consider how adornment expressed gender, asserted freedom, and attracted magical protection. Class discussions will critique the history of excavating, collecting, and exhibiting this portable art now held by museums around the world. Assignments will develop the skill of conducting research in museum databases.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken ARTH 323.
Instructor: Cassibry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An introduction to the study of architecture and the built environment. This course is limited to majors or prospective majors in architecture, art history, studio art, or urban studies, or to those students with a serious interest in theoretical and methodological approaches to those fields.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course explores the rich libraries, splendid palaces, and innovative public monuments that emerged in ancient Iraq between 3,300 BCE and 500 BCE. The royal jewels from the cemetery at Ur, the Law Code of Hammurabi, and the palatial sculptures from Nineveh feature among the case studies. The course also critiques international claims to these and other Iraqi antiquities, with a focus on their excavation by European empires and American universities; their acquisition by “encyclopedic” museums; and the digital colonialism of current replication schemes. We conclude by looking at the work of Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz, who has recreated many antiquities to protest their varied display and ongoing destruction. Students leave the course understanding how Iraq's ancient art and architecture have been used to negotiate power from antiquity to the present day.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Prior coursework in Art History, Classical Civilization, or Middle Eastern Studies recommended.
Instructor: Cassibry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course will explore artistic expression in America from the time of European contact to the mid-twentieth century. Proceeding both thematically and chronologically, the course will highlight the range of diverse practices and media Americans deployed to define, shape, enact, and represent their changing experience. We will explore mapping and the platting of towns during the 17th and 18th centuries; the role of portraiture in colonial society; gender and domestic interiors; landscape painting and national identity; print culture, photography and the industrialized image; utopian societies and reform; World's Fairs, city planning, and urban culture; moving images, advertising, and mass consumption. As much as possible, the class will include site visits to area museums and historic landscapes.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 recommended.
Instructor: McNamara
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The majestic and powerful Black African empires of Ancient Nubia, located on the Nile to the south of Egypt in present-day Sudan, have either been ignored by mainstream scholarship or subsumed under Egyptian culture. Yet, Ancient Nubia produced more pyramids than Egypt, colossal sculpture, magnificent gold jewelry and monumental architecture that, to date, remains unparalleled. This course will begin with the Nubian Neolithic Period (ca. 6,000 BCE) with its sensational abstract ceramics and human sculpture and end with art of the great cosmopolitan city of Meroe in ca. 350 CE. It will touch on aspects of colonialism, feminism and museology. Conditions permitting, one session will meet at the Museum of Fine Arts, home to the finest collection of Nubian Art outside Sudan.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 or ANTH 103/CLCV 103 recommended.
Instructor: Freed
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Beginning in the nineteenth century, the practices of artists, craftsmen, and architects throughout Muslim-majority regions were transformed by industrialization, colonialism, and the emergence of the museum as an institution. Through the study of a variety of visual, spatial, and time-based media, students in this course investigate the local, national, and transnational concepts that shaped the production and reception of modern and contemporary visual cultures throughout the Islamic world. While the Middle East, North Africa, and Iran constitute the geographic focus of the course, case studies may also consider images, objects, and monuments produced in West Africa, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia. Key topics include visual responses to colonialism, engagements with global centers of modernism, popular visual cultures, articulations of national and secular identities, and the reuse of prototypes drawn from real or imagined Islamic pasts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 recommended.
Instructor: Brey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course considers architecture, urbanism, and landscapes in a global context throughout the long eighteenth century. We will consider European architecture’s relation to enlightenment thought, developments in the natural sciences, and political transformations. We will also consider these claims upon enlightenment relationally to the infrastructures of European colonialism. We will examine the plantations of the West Indies and the Southern United states; French and English estates and gardens of a rising colonial bourgeoisie; and the slave factories of western Africa. Taken together these works map the global circulation of people, capital, commodities, and revolutionary ideas. We thus consider eighteenth century architecture as a transnational culture of global modernity.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ARTH 100 or WRIT 107 recommended but not required.
Instructor: Minosh
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course will explore the theory and practice of historic preservation. Beginning with a focus on the history of preservation in the United States, we will trace the development of legal, economic, public policy, and cultural frameworks that have shaped attitudes and approaches toward preservation of the built environment. To ground these theoretical discussions, we will use the greater Boston area as a laboratory for understanding the benefits and challenges of historic preservation. Students will engage in both individual and group projects that will emphasize field study of buildings and landscapes, archival research, planning, and advocacy. The course is designed for Architecture and Art History majors, but could also be of interest to students in History, American Studies, Environmental Studies, and Political Science.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: 200-level course in Architectural History preferred. Not open to students who have completed ARTH 317.
Instructor: McNamara
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as ARTH 317.
In the past decade, historians of art have increasingly turned to network analysis as a tool to investigate the production and reception of visual and material culture. Combining analytical readings with hands-on tutorials, this course introduces students to the conceptual and technical frameworks of network analysis as they apply to artifacts, works of art, and popular visual culture, as well as the people who made and experienced these images, objects, and monuments. Students will learn to model and analyze networks through the lens of art historical and material culture case studies. Topics may include social networks, geospatial networks, similarity networks, and dynamic networks. Case studies will range from arts of the Ancient Americas to manuscript workshops in Mughal India and Medieval France.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: MAS 222
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. ARTH 100 recommended.
Instructor: Brey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An examination of modern art from the 1880s to World War II, including the major movements of the historical avant-garde (such as cubism, expressionism, Dada, and surrealism) as well as alternate practices. Painting, sculpture, photography, cinema, and the functional arts will be discussed. Framing the course are critical issues, including merging technologies, colonialism, global exchange, the art market and gender, national, and cultural identities.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 recommended.
Instructor: Berman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An analysis of art since World War II, examining painting, sculpture, photography, performance, video, film, conceptual practices, social and intermedial practices, and the mass media. Critical issues to be examined include the art market, feminist art practices, the politics of identity, and artistic freedom and censorship.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 recommended.
Instructor: Berman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Photography is so much a part of our private and public lives, and it plays such an influential role in our environment, that we often forget to examine its aesthetics, meanings, and histories. This course provides an introduction to these analyses by examining the history of photography from the 1830s to the present. Considering fine arts and mass media practices, the class will examine the works of individual practitioners as well as the emergence of technologies, aesthetic directions, markets, and meanings.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 20 7
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 strongly recommended.
Instructor: Berman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course introduces students to the visual cultures of the Mediterranean in the centuries of the Crusades. It approaches the distinct local, religious, and imperial visual cultures of the Mediterranean as interlocking units within a larger regional system. Focusing on the mobile networks of patrons, merchants, objects, and artisans that connected centers of artistic and architectural production, it covers a geographical territory that includes Spain, North Africa, the Middle East, Anatolia, and the Italian Peninsula. Readings emphasize the theoretical frameworks of hybridity, appropriation, hegemony, and exoticism through which Medieval Mediterranean art and architecture have been understood. Discussions will highlight the significant connections that existed among the Western Medieval, Byzantine, and Islamic worlds.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 or WRIT 107 recommended.
Instructor: Brey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course explores modern architecture from the turn of the 20th-century to the present. What makes architecture “modern”? We will consider fluid definitions of modernism and modernity when studying the built environment across cultures and geographic boundaries. Rather than following a linear narrative, we will approach modern architecture thematically by looking at topics that include urban planning, tall buildings, domesticity, race, gender, environmentalism and sustainability. A diverse range of architects, designers, and practitioners will be explored in the context of these themes.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 recommended.
Instructor: O'Rourke
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course introduces students to the central role that the book has played (and continues to play) in the Islamic world. We will study the history of the Islamic book, from manuscripts of the Qur’an, which often feature refined calligraphy but almost never include illustrations, to historical, astrological, and poetic works – like the famous Shahnama (Book of Kings) – that contain images of various types and sizes. Students will learn about the production, collection, and circulation of these books, and ask how and according to which criteria they were conceived, used, and evaluated. In addition to traditional art-historical methods of close-looking and socio-historical analysis, students will learn to use digital approaches to produce new knowledge about the field. Visits to view manuscripts and related materials in local collections will supplement classroom discussion and assigned readings.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 or WRIT 107 recommended.
Instructor: Brey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will present a survey of American architecture and urbanism from prehistory to the late twentieth century. Lectures and discussions will focus particularly on placing the American-built environment in its diverse political, economic, and cultural contexts. We will also explore various themes relating to Americans' shaping of their physical surroundings, including the evolution of domestic architecture, the organization and planning of cities and towns, the relationships among urban, suburban and rural environments, the impact of technology, and Americans' ever-changing relationship with nature.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 recommended.
Instructor: McNamara
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This introductory survey explores Latin American and Latinx art of the 20th and 21st centuries. Through a series of case studies we will investigate how these painters, photographers, muralists and others engaged international currents (from symbolism to conceptual art) while also addressing local themes, such as national and racial identity, class difference, gender inequality, political struggle, and state violence. We will also cover the history of collecting and exhibiting Latin American and Latinx art. This course has no prerequisites; students without an art history background are welcome. Advanced students who enroll in 334 will have additional assignments, including a research essay.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken ARTH 334.
Instructor: Oles
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as ARTH 334.
This course will provide an introduction to the arts of the Ancient Americas from before the Spanish Conquest. Rather than a survey, we will concentrate on courtly ceremonial life in major cities from the Teotihuacan, Maya, Moche, Aztec, and Inca civilizations. We will explore specific artistic forms viewed across time and space, including palace architecture; stone sculpture; luxury arts of gold and feathers; textiles and costume; and manuscript painting. The course will also examine the history of collecting, with attention to legal and ethical concerns. We will consider the roles of archaeologists, curators, collectors, and fakers in creating our image of the Ancient American past. In-class discussion will be combined with the study of original objects and forms of display at the Davis and area museums.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken ARTH 338.
Instructor: Oles
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as ARTH 338.
Frida Kahlo is one of the most famous artists in the world, the subject of a vast bibliography, both academic and popular, accurate and inaccurate. This seminar will explore how Kahlo moved from the margins to the center of art history. We will explore her life and work in detail using a wide variety of methodologies, readings, and assignments, in order to better understand the results of her complex self-invention. We will place her paintings in their historical context, but we will also study how she has been interpreted by feminists, filmmakers, and fakers. We will also use Kahlo as a jumping off point to consider broader topics, from self-portraiture to Chicano/a practice. Finally, whether you are new to art history or an advanced student, the class will help you develop the skills necessary to research, evaluate, and present visual and written information effectively and professionally.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 or WRIT 107 recommended.
Instructor: Oles
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300 level as ARTH 339.
This course is a survey of the art and architecture of China from the Neolithic period to the turn of the twentieth century in two simultaneous approaches: chronologically through time and thematically with art in the tomb, at court, in the temple, in the life of the élite, and in the marketplace. It is designed to introduce students to the major monuments and issues of Chinese art and architecture by exploring the interactions of art, religion, culture, society, and creativity, especially how different artistic styles were tied to different intellectual thoughts, historical events, and geographical locations.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Liu
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course covers the visual culture of India from ancient Indus Valley civilization through Independence. It follows the stylistic, technological, and iconographical developments of painting, sculpture, architecture, and textiles as they were created for the subcontinent's major religions - Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Islam. We will examine the relationship between works of art and the political, economic, and social conditions that shaped their production. It will emphasize such themes as religious and cultural diversity, mythology and tradition, and royal and popular art forms. Attention will also be paid to colonialism and the close relationship between collecting, patronage, and empire.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: SAS 239
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 or WRIT 107 recommended.
Instructor: Oliver
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course is a survey of the major artistic traditions of Asia including India, Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan from Neolithic times to the turn of the twentieth century. It introduces students to Asian art and architecture by exploring the interactions of art, religion, culture, and society, especially how different artistic styles were tied to different intellectual thoughts, political events, and geographical locations. Students are expected to acquire visual skills in recognizing artistic styles, analytical skills in connecting art with its historical contexts, and writing skills in expressing ideas about art. Field trips to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Harvard's Art Museums, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and/or the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, depending on available exhibitions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Liu
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The greater Nile Valley has yielded some of the world's most ancient and compelling monuments. In this course we will first survey the art and architecture of ancient Egypt and then ancient Nubia, Egypt's rival to the south. Two class sessions will meet in the Museum of Fine Arts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 or WRIT 107 recommended.
Instructor: Freed
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Romans designed the best houses, full of mosaics and frescoes, fountains and pools, sunlight and air. This course will teach you how to live in an ancient Roman home: where to put the dining room, what to plant in your garden, and how to hold a meeting in your office. We will analyze apartments at Italian Ostia, townhouses at Pompeii, villas around the Bay of Naples, and palaces in Rome. We will consider what mosaics can tell us about the empire’s networks of cultural exchange, we will compare house plans in the flourishing provinces, and we will survey the palaces that emperors built in their hometowns.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Prior college-level coursework in Art History, Architecture, or Classical Studies recommended
Instructor: Cassibry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: ARTH 242 focuses on domestic architecture, ARTH 243 focuses on public architecture.
This is a course about the Roman Empire’s buildings; the art that once adorned them; and how these ensembles have been preserved over time. Key themes include the ancient experience of architecture, Mediterranean traditions of design, and the place of this complex heritage in modern politics and cityscapes. Case studies will focus not just on Rome, but also on cities across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, all lands that were once within the empire’s borders. Students will leave the course knowing how to use the Roman Empire’s roads, temples, and amphitheaters and understanding why preserving them matters.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Prior college-level coursework in Art History, Architecture, or Classical Civilization recommended.
Instructor: Cassibry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: ARTH 242 focuses on domestic architecture, ARTH 243 focuses on public architecture.
This course will examine the so-called High Renaissance and Mannerist periods in Italy. We will focus in particular on papal Rome, ducal Florence, and republican Venice, and the work of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, and their followers in relation to the social and cultural currents of the time. Issues such as private patronage, female artists, contemporary sexuality, and the connections between monumental and decorative art will be examined in light of recent scholarship in the field.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Musacchio
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Domestic architecture is perceived as both a setting for private life and a means of public self-expression. This course will explore the duality of "house and home" by paying close attention to the changing nature of domestic environments in North America from 1600 to 1900. Topics will include the gendering of domestic space; the role of architects, designers, and prescriptive literature in shaping domestic environments; technological change; the marketing and mass production of domestic furnishings; the relationship of houses to their natural environments; and visions for alternative, reform, or utopian housing arrangements. Site visits and walking tours are a central component of the course.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 or WRIT 107 recommended. Not open to students who have taken ARTH 345.
Instructor: McNamara
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as ARTH 345.
This course surveys a selection of the arts in Italy from circa 1575 to circa 1750. The works of artists such as the Carracci, Caravaggio, Bernini, Gentileschi, and Longhi will be examined within their political, social, religious, and economic settings. Particular emphasis will be placed on Rome and the impact of the papacy on the arts, but Bologna, Florence, and Venice will also play a part, especially in regard to the growing interest in scientific enquiry and the production of arts in the courts and for the Grand Tour. We will focus on works of art and contemporary texts, as well as real or virtual visits to Wellesley’s Special Collections, Papermaking Studio, Book Arts Lab, and Botanic Gardens, Harvard's Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Musacchio
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
What, if anything, makes a work of art or architecture Islamic? Islam has formed an important context for the production and reception of visual and material culture. This course enables students to develop a critical vocabulary in analyzing the arts of the Islamic world. Through the study of a broad range of objects and monuments including mosques, manuscripts, textiles, tiles, and amulets, students learn to hone their formal analysis of both figural and non-figural works of art, as well as their close reading of historical sources that reveal how objects and monuments were made and experienced. As students progress through a chronological and multi-regional overview of works produced from the emergence of Islam in the seventh century to the Early Modern empires, they also gain familiarity with methods for the study of Islamic art and ongoing debates within the field. Throughout the course, emphasis is placed on the ways in which cultural frameworks including politics, religion, ethnicity, science, and gender shaped the production and reception of images, objects, and monuments within the Islamic world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 recommended.
Instructor: Brey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines Chinese painting from early times to the turn of the twentieth century. It serves as an introduction to theories, masters, and principles in the practice of Chinese painting. Issues of investigation include major themes, techniques, connoisseurship, and functions of Chinese painting. Special attention is given to (1) imperial patronage, (2) the triangle relationship between painting, calligraphy, and poetry, (3) the tension between representation and expression, (4) between professional and literati, (5) between tradition and creativity, and (6) the impact of the West. Trips to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and other museums.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Liu
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course is a survey of the rich visual arts of Japan from the Neolithic period to the turn of the twentieth century with emphasis on architecture, sculpture, painting, ceramics, and ukiyoe. It examines Japan's close ties to India, China, and Korea and explores the development of a distinct Japanese artistic style and national identity. Special attention is given to the sociopolitical forces, cultural exchanges, religious thoughts, intellectual discourses, and commercial activities that shaped the representation and expression of these arts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Liu
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 100 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
This course surveys a selection of the arts in Italy during the period we now call the Renaissance, dating from circa 1260 to 1500. We will examine the rise of the mendicant orders, the devastation of the Black Death, the growth of civic and private patronage, and the connection with art and artists in northern Europe, all of which had a profound impact on the visual arts. The work of major artists and workshops will be examined and contextualized within their political, social, and economic settings by readings and discussions of contemporary texts and recent scholarship.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Musacchio
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines Chinese art in the socially and politically tumultuous twentieth century,which witnessed the end of imperial China, the founding of the Republic, the rise of the People's Republic, the calamity of Mao's cultural revolution, the impact of the West, and the ongoing social and economic reforms. Critical issues of examination include the encounters of East and West, the tensions of tradition and revolution, the burdens of cultural memory and historical trauma, the interpretations of modernity and modernism, the flowering of avant-garde and experimental art, and the problems of globalization and art markets. The course is designed to develop an understanding of the diverse threads of art and society in twentieth-century China.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Liu
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In 2015, the British Museum exhibit “Celts: Art and Identity” shocked the public by suggesting that Celtic heritage was a modern invention based on ancient stereotypes. Our course follows the exhibit’s lead by first asking “Who were the Celts?” and exploring competing definitions of this term. We then turn to analyzing the exquisite artifacts that museums and textbooks typically label “Celtic.” Focusing on the period between 600 BCE and 800 CE, our case studies examine princely tombs from Germany, golden necklaces and coins from France, mesmerizing mirrors and shields from England, intricate stone monuments from Scotland, and manuscripts from Ireland. We will use this material to counter ethnic stereotypes developed by the vengeful Greeks and Romans and to assess how modern notions of Celtic identity map onto the reality of the past.
To learn more about these issues, read this response to the exhibition “Celts: Art and Identity”
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Prior coursework in Art History or Classical Civilization recommended.
Instructor: Cassibry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A survey of Korean arts and architecture from the Neolithic period to the mid-20th century. The first part of the course discusses the religious and cultural transformation of the peninsula and examines selected examples of tomb murals, ceramics, and Buddhist art and architecture from early kingdoms. The latter part of the course will focus on the secular art and material culture of the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) and the colonial period (1910-1945). Topics include Neo-Confucianism as a new state ideology and its influence on the aesthetics and tastes of the scholarly elite; the development of vernacular themes and styles of painting; the rise of popular taste; and, the shifting concepts of art and artistic identity during the periods of political transition.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will present a thematic survey of 18th-century European art and architecture from the reign of Louis XIV to the French Revolution (1660-1789). We will examine works of art in relation to the social, political, and cultural debates of the period, and how artistic practice engaged with new approaches to empiricism, secularism, and political philosophy spurred by the Enlightenment. Topics include French art in the service of absolutism, debates between classicism and the Rococo, public and private spaces of social reform, the Grand Tour and the rediscovery of antiquity, collecting, global trade, and imperialism. We will also consider Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment trends in Spain, Austria, and Great Britain.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 or WRIT 107 recommended.
Instructor: Oliver
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will study art made by African Americans from early colonial America to the present. We will also examine images of African Americans by artists of diverse cultural backgrounds. Throughout the course we will analyze construction(s) of subjectivity of African-American identity (black, Negro, colored) as it relates to visual worlds. Although the course is outlined chronologically, the readings and class discussions will revolve around specific themes each week. The course is interdisciplinary, incorporating a variety of social and historical issues, media, and disciplines, including music, film, and literary sources.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: AFR 262
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken this course as a topic of ARTH 316.
Instructor: Greene
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
As an introduction to the arts and architecture of Africa, this course explores the meaning and the contexts of production within a variety of religious and political systems found throughout the continent, from Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mali, to name a few. We will consider important topics such as the ancient art outside the Nile Valley sphere, symbols of the power of royalty, and the aesthetic and spiritual differences in masquerade traditions. We will pay special attention to traditional visual representations in relation to contemporary African artists and art institutions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: AFR 264
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Greene
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Exploring the relationship between art and the environment, this course will focus on the land of the United States as it has been shaped into forms ranging from landscape paintings to suburban lawns, national parks, and our own Wellesley College campus. Among the questions we will consider are: What is “nature”? What do we value in a landscape and why? How are artists, architects, and landscape designers responding to environmentalist concerns?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: ES 267
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Bedell
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course surveys European art from the French Revolution of 1789 to the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1900. Focusing on such major movements as Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, and Art Nouveau, we will examine the relationship of art to tradition, revolution, empire, social change, technology, and identity. Emphasis is placed on the representation and experience of modern life, in paintings by David, Goya, Turner, Manet, Seurat, and others, and in venues ranging from political festivals to avant-garde art galleries to London's Crystal Palace. Topics include the expanded audience for art, Orientalism, gender and representation, and the aesthetics of leisure.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 or WRIT 107 recommended.
Instructor: Oliver
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Frozen in time by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 C.E., Pompeii's grand public baths, theatres, and amphitheater, its seedy bars and businesses, its temples for Roman and foreign gods, and its lavishly decorated townhomes and villas preserve extremely rich evidence for daily life in the Roman Empire. Lecture topics include urbanism in ancient Italy; the structure and rituals of the Roman home; the styles and themes of Pompeian wall paintings and mosaics; and the expression of non-elite identities. We conclude by analyzing Pompeii's rediscovery in the eighteenth century and the city's current popularity in novels, television episodes, and traveling exhibits.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Cassibry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
We will investigate the transmission and transformation of African art and culture and their ongoing significant impact on the continent, in Europe, and in the Americas. This course explores the arts of primarily western and central Africa, including the communities of the Bakongo, Yoruba, and Mande, among many others. The influences of early European contact, the Middle Passage, colonialism, and postcolonialism have affected art production and modes of representation in Africa and the African Diaspora for centuries. Documentary and commercial films will assist in framing these representations. The study of contemporary art and artists throughout the African Diaspora will allow for a particularly intriguing examination of postmodern constructions of African identity.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: AFR 292
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 recommended.
Instructor: Greene
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A survey of the evolution of the book, both as a vessel for the transmission of text and image and as evidence of material culture. Through close examination of rare books in Clapp Library's Special Collections, we will explore the social and political forces that influenced the dissemination and reception of printed texts. Lectures will cover the principle techniques and materials of book production from the ancient scroll to the modern codex, including calligraphy, illumination, format and composition, typography, illustration, papermaking, and bookbinding. Weekly reading, discussion, and analysis of specimens will provide the skills needed to develop a critical vocabulary and an investigative model for individual research. Additional sessions on the hand press in the Book Arts Lab and in the Pendleton paper studio.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Rogers (Curator of Special Collections)
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
One of the thorniest issues facing artists, art historians, curators, critics, theorists, city planners, and others who have to negotiate art in public places is the question of competing perceptions and meanings. As soon as a work of art is proposed for or installed in a site in which numerous publics intersect, or a work is destroyed, the question arises of “whose public” is being addressed. This seminar will bring to the table historical and contemporary case studies in public art, in part selected by students, as the subjects of several genres of public writing, among them reviews and Op. Ed. pieces. Students in all areas of art history will have already confronted, and will confront in the future, the question of who has the right to make the art, install the art, or destroy the art, in any geography at any time.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Any 200 or 300 level course in Art History. Open to Senior Art History majors only.
Instructor: Berman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Using collegiate and corporate campuses as case studies, this seminar examines the intersections of architecture, urban planning, landscape design, and institutionalism in private and public contexts in the modern period. We will consider the ways architects and clients used campuses to define institutional character, often in response to political and social concerns that extended far beyond the campus edge. While the course will emphasize examples in the Americas, case studies from outside the region will be included, and special attention will be devoted to the Wellesley campus.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: ARTH 228, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: O'Rourke
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Through analysis of buildings and texts created in North and South America, this course explores major themes, works, and problems in American architecture, and approaches to understanding architectural history in this region. Topics will include architects’ and clients’ understandings of land and landscape; nationalism and internationalism; social change; institutionalism; and architectural theory. Through changing case studies, the course will examine the status and meanings of architectural modernism when understood comparatively within the western hemisphere, and from the vantage of places distinguished by persistent engagements with racial and class difference, colonialism, and pluralism.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 228 or permission of the instructor. This course is repeatable one time for additional credit.
Instructor: O'Rourke
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course focuses on case studies representing highlights in the history of 20th and 21st-century interior and furniture design. A variety of building types and uses -- domestic, institutional, entertainment, and mixed-use -- will be considered, with an emphasis on the interpretation of style, new and traditional materials, social and cultural values, historical precedents, and the history of collecting.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 228 or ARTH 231, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Friedman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
What were the possibilities and limits of representing foreign lands, cultures, and peoples in the long nineteenth century? How did discourses of empire, race, and power inform or complicate these representations? This course examines Europe's imperial and colonial engagements with India, the Pacific, North Africa, and the West Indies from 1750-1900 and representations of these engagements in the visual realm. Thematically and methodologically driven, a comparative approach will be taken to theories of travel, colonialism, and cross-cultural interactions. Such theories include, but are not limited to, Orientalism, postcolonialism, transnationlism, and their attendant critiques.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 100 or WRIT 107, or permission of the instructor. Not open to First-Years.
Instructor: Oliver
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
In the first course to explore the biography and legacy of a living Wellesley College alumna, students build and analyze a dynamic monographic study of one of the most important contemporary artist of our time–in real time–Lorraine O’Grady. Coinciding with the Davis Museum opening of Lorraine O’Grady’s retrospective exhibition, Lorraine O’Grady: Both/And, students learn directly from the exhibition and work in the College Archives with O’Grady’s physical and digital archives. Critical topics covered include: art criticism, feminist art, Black art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, performance art, conceptual art, museum studies, among others. Students contribute directly to O’Grady’s ongoing scholarship through interviews of scholars and artists influenced by her writings, artworks, and archival collections. The course is Speaking Intensive.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: At least one 200 level ARTH, or 300 level humanities course.
Instructor: Greene
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
This course considers a history of performance art, a genre that features time-based media, technologies, and the archive. The curriculum covers performance art through a global lens and emphasizes queer artists and artists of African, Latinx, Asian, and Indigenous descent. This seminar prepares students to answer critical questions necessary for defining the field: What are the ethical, physical, and psychological quandaries that artists face from theory to practice in performance art? How does using the body as a medium challenge the “object-ness” of performance, and how does that impact its reception? What roles do artists, museums, cultural institutions, and their audiences play? What are the institutions' responsibilities for fundraising, staff support, and conservation of performance art? Students explore these questions along with key topics on ephemerality, experimentation, documentation, and audience reception to develop performance projects of their own.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Not open to First-Years.
Instructor: Greene
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course charts past and present artistic mediations of racial, ethnic, and gendered experiences throughout the world, using the rubric of the body. In the struggle to understand the relation between self and other, artists have critically engaged with the images that define our common sense of belonging, ranging from a rejection of stereotypes to their appropriations, from the discovery of alternative histories to the rewriting of dominant narratives, from the concepts of difference to theories of diversity. The ultimate goal of the course is to find ways of adequately imagining and imaging various identities today. We will discuss socio-political discourses, including essentialism, structuralism, postmodernism, and post-colonialism and we will question the validity of such concepts as diaspora, nationalism, transnationalism, and identity in an era of global politics that celebrates the hybrid self.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: AFR 316
Prerequisites: ARTH 100 or a 200-level ARTH course or a 200-level AFR course or a visual culture course.
Instructor: Greene
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
This course will explore the theory and practice of historic preservation. Beginning with a focus on the history of preservation in the United States, we will trace the development of legal, economic, public policy, and cultural frameworks that have shaped attitudes and approaches toward the preservation of our built environment. Students will engage in both individual and group projects that will emphasize field study of buildings and landscapes, archival research, planning, and advocacy. The course is designed for Architecture and Art History majors, but could also be of interest to students in History, American Studies, Environmental Studies and Political Science.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Prior 200-level coursework in Architecture or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have completed ARTH 217.
Instructor: McNamara
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is sometimes offered at the 200-level as ARTH 217.
This seminar will introduce students to the visual and material culture of New England from the period of European contact to the end of the twentieth century, with particular emphasis on Boston and environs. Course readings, lectures, and discussion will address the broad range of artistic expression from decorative arts to cultural landscapes, placing them in their social, political, and economic contexts as well as in the larger context of American art and architecture. A major theme of the course will be the question of New England's development as a distinct cultural region and the validity of regionalism as a category of analysis. The course will include a number of required field trips to New England museums and cultural institutions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 100 or WRIT 107, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: McNamara
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar will examine the buildings and theories of Frank Lloyd Wright, with a particular focus on two themes: Wright's designs for progressive and feminist clients across the long span of his career; and his relationship to the Modern Movement in Europe and the Americas.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 100 and one 200-level course in Art History or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Friedman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Focusing on case studies drawn from European and American history and contemporary practice, this discussion seminar will look at the ways in which normative notions of gender and sexuality have shaped the conventions of domestic architecture for specific cultures and time periods. The course will also focus on outliers, anomalies and queer spaces, examining the roles played by unconventional architects, clients, and users of houses in changing notions of public and private space and creating new ways of living. Readings will be drawn from feminist theory, queer studies, and architectural history. Weekly oral reports on key concepts, texts and/or buildings and in-class discussion are required in addition to written research papers.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 228 or a 300-level course in architectural history or urban studies or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Friedman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar considers Staatliches Bauhaus, the school of architecture, art, and design that was founded in Weimar Germany at the end of World War I, closed under National Socialism in the mid-30s, reestablished in Chicago in 1937, and whose practices were transmitted through institutions globally. The class considers the historical position of the Bauhaus; examines the school's community, philosophy, and practices; studies contemporaneous developments and contacts in the international art and design world; and examines the legacies of the Bauhaus in the Americas and Asia. We will also consider how Bauhaus products and pedagogies came to be synonymous with mid-century modernity and continue to resonate in contemporary design. The seminar provides an integrative examination of visual arts disciplines, and it brings together interdisciplinary approaches to the historical movement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Preference will be given to senior Art History and Architecture majors and minors.
Instructor: Berman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The scale of the meat industry and its adverse environmental and climate impacts alongside burgeoning scientific understandings of non-human intelligence require urgent reevaluation of our relationship to animals as food: How has visual culture (historical and contemporary), both in advertising and in popular culture, separated meat as a food from the process of animal slaughter that produces it? How do we negotiate between our food traditions and ethical obligation to move away from practices rooted in violence? Why do we value some animals as companions while commodifying others as food? What is speciesism and in what ways can it shape our understanding of animal oppression? We engage these questions and more using visual culture and ethical frameworks to critique the prevailing political and cultural norms that desensitize us to the implications of meat consumption.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Crosslisted Courses: PHIL 324
Prerequisites: One course in either Philosophy or Art History.
Instructor: Oliver and Walsh
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall; Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This seminar will analyze women in Italy from circa 1300 to 1700 through the lens of both art and history. We will examine a variety of sources to understand women's lives and work; with this evidence we will see that women had a much stronger presence than previously recognized, as artists, writers, musicians, patrons, nuns, and a wide range of professions inside and outside their homes. The seminar is linked to an exhibition at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, and several sessions will be held on site with museum staff. Other sessions will include visits to Wellesley's Special Collections, Papermaking Studio, and Book Arts Lab.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 13
Prerequisites: Previous courses in European art, history, or literature recommended.
Instructor: Musacchio
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will examine the art and history of the Second Plague Pandemic in Europe. We will trace plague from the arrival of the so-called Black Death in port cities in 1347 through the many outbreaks of varying severity over the next four centuries, focusing on Italy but considering additional case studies across the continent. We will investigate how plague and the ensuing demographic crisis were represented in art and material culture, and how those representations helped people understand, and cope with, the world around them. Readings in primary and secondary sources, interaction with guest speakers, and visits to Wellesley's Special Collections, Book Arts Lab, Botanic Gardens, and Davis Museum will demonstrate the myriad reactions to plague and will give us the tools we need to better understand the COVID-19 pandemic.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Previous courses in European art, history, or literature recommended. Not open to students who have taken ARTH 235/HIST 235.
Instructor: Musacchio
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar will analyze the role of food in the art and life of early modern Italy. We will examine the historic and economic context of food as the basis of our investigation of its representation in paintings, sculptures, and works on paper from circa 1300 to 1800. This will entail a close look at food as subject and symbol, as well as the material culture surrounding its production and consumption. The seminar will investigate illustrated herbals and cookbooks in Special Collections, dining habits and etiquette, and food as sexual metaphor through a wide range of interdisciplinary sources; Wellesley's Botanic Gardens will grow Italian fruits, vegetables, and herbs for us to incorporate in Renaissance-era recipes.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Previous courses in European art, history, or literature recommended but not required.
Instructor: Musacchio
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
During the Italian Renaissance, major family events like childbirth, marriage, and death were marked by both works of art and oftentimes elaborate rituals. In this seminar we will examine childbirth trays, marriage chests, painted and sculpted portraits, and funerary monuments, as well as a wide range of additional domestic objects that surrounded people in their everyday life. These objects will be related to contemporary monumental and public art, literature, account books, and legislation, as well as recent scholarship in art history, social history, and women's studies, to provide insight into Renaissance art and life.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Previous courses in European art, history, or literature recommended but not required.
Instructor: Musacchio
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
Communicate your art-historical knowledge to the broadest possible public. While focusing on public writing, we will study the history and politics of fashion. Topics will include gender and class performance, cultural appropriation, medicine and the body; technology; and law and society. Weekly meetings will include collaborative editing workshops, guest speakers, and a field trip. Students will build a writing portfolio including a book review, film review, Smarthistory essay, museum labels, and a one-minute radio text, among other projects. The Calderwood seminar model demands firm weekly deadlines, allowing classmates time to reflect and comment on each other’s work. We build a scholarly community that shows the larger world how the history of art intersects with fashion.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Berman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Intended for Seniors majoring or minoring in Art History Intended for Seniors majoring or minoring in Art History
This introductory survey explores Latin American and Latinx art of the 20th and 21st centuries. Through a series of case studies we will investigate how these painters, photographers, muralists and others engaged international currents (from symbolism to conceptual art) while also addressing local themes, such as national and racial identity, class difference, gender inequality, political struggle, and state violence. We will also cover the history of collecting and exhibiting Latin American and Latinx art. This course has no prerequisites; students without an art history background are welcome. Advanced students who enroll in 334 will have additional assignments, including a research essay.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: At least two art history courses. Not open to students who have taken ARTH 234.
Instructor: Oles
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as ARTH 234.
The visual arts play a critical role in shaping identity and formulating opinion. Recognizing the power of images and performance, participants in social and political movements enlist the arts in support of their work. In this case-study based seminar, we will explore ways in which the visual arts have been central features of social protest movements in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. The class will take a trip to New York. In some meetings, we will work with Studio Art instructors to create and analyze student production.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Berman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
The Imperial Painting Academy of the Song Dynasty China (960-1279), founded in 984, was the first of its kind in the history of world art. This seminar investigates the nature of imperial patronage and the institution and achievements of the Painting Academy (comparable to those of the Italian Renaissance art) in relation to the Song Empire. The seminar attempts to identify how exactly a particular imperial commission was initiated and carried out through critical reading of primary sources (in translation) that include artists biographies and case studies. Issues of connoisseurship and the relationship of painting/image and poetry/word are also examined.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to junior and senior students or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Liu
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course runs in parallel with ARTH 236. It will provide an introduction to the arts of the Ancient Americas from before the Spanish Conquest. Rather than a survey, we will concentrate on courtly ceremonial life in major cities from the Teotihuacan, Maya, Moche, Aztec, and Inca civilizations. We will explore specific artistic forms viewed across time and space, including palace architecture; stone sculpture; luxury arts of gold and feathers; textiles and costume; and manuscript painting. The course will also examine the history of collecting, with attention to legal and ethical concerns. We will consider the roles of archaeologists, curators, collectors, and fakers in creating our image of the Ancient American past. In-class discussion will be combined with the study of original objects and forms of display at the Davis and area museums.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Two 100- or 200-level art history courses. Not open to students who have taken ARTH 236.
Instructor: Oles
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as ARTH 236.
Frida Kahlo is one of the most famous artists in the world, the subject of a vast bibliography, both academic and popular, accurate and inaccurate. This seminar will explore how Kahlo moved from the margins to the center of art history. We will explore her life and work in detail using a wide variety of methodologies, readings, and assignments, in order to better understand the results of her complex self-invention. We will place her paintings in their historical context, but we will also study how she has been interpreted by feminists, filmmakers, and fakers. We will also use Kahlo as a jumping off point to consider broader topics, from self-portraiture to Chicano/a practice. Finally, whether you are new to art history or an advanced student, the class will help you develop the skills necessary to research, evaluate, and present visual and written information effectively and professionally.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Two 200 level ARTH courses. Not open to students who have taken ARTH 237.
Instructor: Oles
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200 level as ARTH 237.
Landscape painting, or more accurately, shanshui (literally "mountain-and-water/river"), rose as an independent and major art form in the tenth century in East Asia as a great tradition in the history of world art. How did it develop so early? What did it mean? How was it used for? How does its past serve as inspiration for the present? And why does shanshui remain a major subject of significance in modern and contemporary East Asian art? Following the development of shanshui from the early periods to the twentieth century, the course explores such critical issues as shanshui and representation of nature, shanshui and power, shanshui and national development, shanshui and environment, shanshui as images of the mind, the tension of tradition and creativity in painting shanshui. Comparisons will be made with Dutch, English, French, and American landscape painting to provide a global perspective.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Prior coursework in art history or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Liu
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
From triumphal arches to souvenirs, and from tombstones to public portraits, ancient Romans excelled in the art of commemoration. Focusing on a different kind of monument each week, we will explore how Romans negotiated power through designs and dedications. In light of current debates about contested memorials, we will analyze ancient precedents for destroying or rewriting dedications to condemned emperors. We will also ask how modern commissions, such as New York's Washington Square Arch, draw on the authority of antiquity. Students will leave the course with a deeper understanding of how monuments work and how the Roman Empire's monuments still shape how we commemorate today.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Prior coursework in Art History or Classical Civilization recommended.
Instructor: Cassibry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Domestic architecture is perceived as both a setting for private life and a means of public self-expression. This course will explore the duality of "house and home" by paying close attention to the changing nature of domestic environments in North America from 1600 to 1900. Topics will include the gendering of domestic space; the role of architects, designers, and prescriptive literature in shaping domestic environments; technological change; the marketing and mass production of domestic furnishings; the relationship of houses to their natural environments; and visions for alternative, reform, or utopian housing arrangements. Site visits and walking tours are a central component of the course.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 100 or WRIT 107 recommended. Not open to students who have taken ARTH 245.
Instructor: McNamara
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as ARTH 245.
Poetic painting is a conspicuous visual phenomenon in East Asian art that at its best is technically superlative and deeply moving. This seminar investigates the development of this lyric mode of painting first in China and then in Korea and Japan from the eighth century to the twentieth through the practices of scholar-officials, emperors and empresses, masters in and outside of the Imperial Painting Academy, literati artists, and modern intellectuals. Literary ideals and artistic skills, tradition and creativity, patronage and identity, censorship and freedom of expression, and other tensions between paintings and poetry/poetry theories will be examined.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to Juniors and Seniors with prior coursework in art history, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Liu
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The production and use of sacred images has provoked a wide variety of responses within the Islamic world. This class explores how sacred images have been created, viewed, destroyed, and reused within Islamic cultural contexts ranging from the Arab-Muslim conquests of the seventh century to the present day. Rather than progressing chronologically, it examines sacred images from thematic and theoretical perspectives. Topics include iconoclasm and aniconism, depictions of sacred figures and places, talismans and images on objects imbued with divine agency, and articulations of new attitudes towards images at key historical moments.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Prior coursework in Art History or Middle Eastern Studies, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Brey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
In the medieval Islamic world, crafting scientific tools wasn't just practical—it was an art form. Artists and builders used their knowledge of chemistry, metallurgy, geometry, astronomy, and anatomy to produce objects and monuments that were both beautiful and crucial to the discovery of new phenomena. In this seminar, we'll dive into the intertwined practices of artistic creation and scientific exploration, spanning the seventh to the fifteenth centuries. You'll investigate the discoveries behind objects, images, and monuments, such as astrolabes and zoological manuscripts. We'll cover fascinating topics like the secrets of constructing robotic automata, the alchemy of turning plants into vibrant textile dyes, and the geometric principles guiding the design of astronomical observatories and tile patterns. Our field trips to Special Collections and other exhibits will bring these concepts to life. You'll learn to see the world through both an artist's and a scientist's eyes, gaining insights into how medieval Islamic innovations continue to influence our modern world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Previous courses in Art History, Middle Eastern Studies, or Medieval and Renaissance Studies recommended but not required.
Instructor: Brey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ARTH 100 or permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 100 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
New technologies that enable the 3D scanning and fabrication of art and architecture have become integral in attempts to combat the decay, destruction, and disputed ownership of ancient works. Our seminar contextualizes the development of these current approaches within the longer history of collecting and replicating artifacts from the ancient Mediterranean. We will think critically about the role that replicated antiquities play in site and object preservation, college and museum education, and the negotiation of international political power. Potential case studies include the Bust of Nefertiti, the Parthenon Marbles, the Venus de Milo, and the Arch of Palmyra, all of which now exist globally in multiple digital and material iterations.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: CLCV 373
Prerequisites: Prior college-level coursework in Art History and/or Classical Civilization.
Instructor: Cassibry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
ARTH 376 is designed for students who are intrigued by direct work with historic artifacts and documents as well as students thinking about pursuing an honors thesis, or those who may need a writing sample for graduate school and fellowship applications. The course provides students with an opportunity to conduct directed, independent research in Boston-area museums, libraries, and historical societies on a topic that appeals to their particular interests. Students’ research will culminate in a project that interprets the material they analyzed and communicates their findings through a final written or digital project. The course will include field trips to local museums and libraries in the Boston area to learn about the diverse nature of historical collections along with hands-on workshops on different types of material and documentary evidence.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One 200-level course in Art History or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: McNamara
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar will offer an overview and critical examination of methodologies used in historical research in the fields of art history and architecture. It will be structured around in-depth examination of case studies and close readings of key writings, highlighting innovative approaches to works of art and architecture dating from 1500 to the present. In many cases, the authors of assigned readings will present and discuss their work, providing students with a unique perspective and analysis of methodologies ranging from cultural and economic histories to material and environmental studies. The course will also examine contemporary strategies for "decolonization of the curriculum" and anti-racist approaches to the art historical canon through analysis of the status of works by women, artists of color, and/or in non-traditional media.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: A minimum of two 200-level courses in Art History.
Instructor: Friedman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Art and anthropology museums tell stories about the past and its relevance to the present, but what stories they tell, who gets to tell them, and which objects should—or should not—be considered are not always self-evident. In this writing-intensive seminar, you will learn how texts—wall labels, press releases, exhibition reviews—engage audiences within and beyond the museum’s walls. The course consists of writing assignments related to artworks made in the Americas before Independence, from the ancient Maya to colonial Peru, many on exhibit at the Davis Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Through these case studies, we will learn how to convert visual images and academic arguments into appealing, jargon-free prose. In keeping with the structure of the Calderwood seminar, weekly deadlines in this class are firm so as to allow classmates time to reflect on such arguments and comment on each other’s ideas. Take on the role of museum curator and learn how texts help us navigate controversies over the acquisition, provenance, and display of artworks from distant cultures and places.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: LAST 378
Prerequisites: At least two 100- or 200-level courses in Art History or Anthropology.
Instructor: Oles
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall; Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Unacknowledged colonial ideologies have for too long promulgated structures and values that reinforce a white Euro-American privilege within the pedagogy of art history. How does one confront the legacy of colonialism within art history—a discipline that has historically focused on and promoted Eurocentric cultural and artistic values? How can we understand artistic movements and institutions relative to colonial legacies? What do decolonial processes look like as they are practiced at the juncture of art history, art practice, and critical theory? Building on postcolonial studies, critical race studies, and critical museum studies, among other theories and methods, this seminar will evaluate the possibilities and limits of decolonizing art history.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 100 or WRIT 107, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Oliver
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Visual images have always been enlisted to influence individual and collective decision-making, action, and identity. However, the rise of the mass media in the nineteenth century, the multiplication of technologies in the twentieth century, and the media spaces of the twenty-first century have created unprecedented opportunities for the diffusion of propaganda and persuasive images. This seminar enlists case studies to examine the uses and functions of visual images in advertising and political propaganda. It also considers the historical interplay between elite and popular arts. The goal of the course is to sharpen our critical understanding and reception of the visual world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: At least one 200-level course in Art or Media Arts and Sciences, and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Berman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
In less than two centuries, the British presence in India transformed from a small company of merchants into a vast, extractive empire ruled by the Crown. This course will critically examine visual culture relating to British colonialism in India from the mid-eighteenth century to Independence. We will consider the role of art in British diplomacy with rival kingdoms and independent territories, photography’s use in colonial surveillance, the impact of industrialization on Indian crafts, colonial patronage and institutions of art education, and architecture and monuments designed to naturalize British presence on the subcontinent. We will equally consider South Asian perspectives such as the role of photography and reproductive prints in the rise of nationalism, the swadeshi movement, and Indian artists’ engagement with or rejection of modernism.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: At least one 200-level Art History course or permission of the instructor recommended.
Instructor: Oliver
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: