Class Schedules

This studio course is an introduction to a variety of drawing media and techniques. Students explore a variety of themes and subjects, including still life, architecture, figure drawing, portraiture, and imagination. Formal elements explored include: line, value, volume, space, proportion, perspective, markmaking, and surface. Theoretical components include group critiques and slide lectures. In critiques and discussions, we consider composition, representational accuracy, emotional expression, content, and intention. Two three-hour periods per week. (4 credits)

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This studio course is an introduction to a variety of drawing media and techniques. Students explore a variety of themes and subjects, including still life, architecture, figure drawing, portraiture, and imagination. Formal elements explored include: line, value, volume, space, proportion, perspective, markmaking, and surface. Theoretical components include group critiques and slide lectures. In critiques and discussions, we consider composition, representational accuracy, emotional expression, content, and intention. Two three-hour periods per week. (4 credits)

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This introductory course will provide a supportive studio environment for the exploration of diverse approaches to the ceramic field, ranging from investigation of utilitarian object making to sculptural practice. Techniques and applications for both handbuilding and wheel throwing will be presented. Emphasis is placed on development and understanding of strong three-dimensional forms as well as the relationship with surface decoration. Content-based assignments allow for individual expression through creative problem solving. The course goal is to present students with a historical perspective and the understanding of contemporary ceramics, building an appreciation for the spirit of the hand-made object as well as preparing students for upper level self-directed work. Lectures, demonstrations, critiques and gallery/museum visits will supplement studio work. Learning will be assessed primarily through portfolio production and review, along with class participation. Three two-hour periods per week. $100 materials fee is required.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This course considers the production and reception of multiple visual culture forms, from standards of fine art practice such as painting and sculpture to mass media including TV, film, advertising, and the Internet. Students will learn different theoretical paradigms and techniques for visual analysis in order to understand how visual media inscribes power, difference, and desire as it mediates numerous social, economic, cultural and political relationships. We will investigate diverse types of visual culture through lectures, exhibitions, guest lectures, film, historical art and media, and, of course, those proliferating images that define our daily experiences. (4 credits)

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This course surveys the visual and material culture of Europe and the Middle East from the Paleolithic through the late Medieval period. We consider the material remains of Prehistoric Europe, the Ancient Near East, Egypt, the Aegean, Greece, Etruria, and Rome; early Christianity, Judaism and Islam; and Early Medieval, Romanesque and Gothic Europe from a contextual perspective, in order to recover the meanings of works of art within the cultures that produced them. A special focus is placed on the appropriation of these objects and images in later Western culture. Cross-listed with Classics 260. 4 credits

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This course introduces the art and visual culture of China from the Neolithic era to the twenty-first century. Through this survey, students will engage with a broad array of media, from jade carvings, Buddhist cave painting, calligraphy and monumental landscape paintings to ceramics, modern graphic media, and contemporary installations. Lectures and readings will teach methods of formal visual analysis as well as the historical context of each work. While examining the specific cultural, social, economic, and political functions of Chinese art and objects, we will think critically about different ways in which scholars write the artistic history of China. Fall semester. (4 credits) Course cross-listed as Asian Studies 170.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This course introduces conceptual, technical, and historical aspects of digital photography within a fine-arts context. The emphasis throughout is on photography as creative medium and narrative medium and will introduce strategies and methods related to this goal through assignments and class activities. Students will learn the foundational aspects of digital photography from manual camera operation to the editing of images through Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. Along the way, students will be introduced to digital workflow, color management, and how to take their images from screen to print. Historical presentations and assigned readings will help students develop the critical skills needed to understand how photographs function in society and culture. Every semester. * A digital SLR camera is required for this course. * (4 credits)

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

An introduction to the studio practice of painting, using oil paint on a variety of supports ranging from paper, board and canvas to non-traditional painting surfaces. Exploration of the practical techniques and mechanics of painting as well as a consideration of content and meaning. Readings and class discussions of historical and contemporary painting practices and issues will develop a visual vocabulary as well as critical/theoretical knowledge to complement technical skills. Slide lectures, critiques and a gallery/museum visit will supplement studio work. Three two-hour periods per week. (4 credits)

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This hands-on, studio class serves as an introduction to the rich and diverse field-of-inquiry we call sculpture. Over the course of the semester we will investigate a variety concepts, materials, and fabrication methods employed in the realization of sculptural works. Examples of fabrication methods include basic woodworking techniques, cold-working metal techniques, welding, “non-traditional” techniques, and possibly even metal-casting. Studio assignments are primarily self-selected from prompts, encouraging personal investigations based on individual interests and ideas. In addition to considering the formal and spatial aspects of the sculptures we create in the class, we will view our works through the lenses of endurance, ephemerality, tactility, temporality, commemoration, process, and play. Slide presentations, short readings, critiques, group discussions, and a gallery/museum visits will supplement our studio research. This class is ideal for any and all curious students interested in play, thinking with the hands, and reflecting on the results.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

A hands-on introduction to original printmaking in the media of relief, etching, lithography and handset type. Included are discussions of aesthetics, the impact of printed imagery on our society, printmaking practices from around the world and field trips to local exhibits and museum collections. Emphasis is on individual expression and appropriate techniques for the content.Drawing (Art 130) is recommended as an introduction to the studio courses in the department.Two three-hour periods per week. (4 credits)

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

A series of two-dimensional projects through which the components of design are examined and applied. Discussion includes philosophical, cultural and design topics and theories. Both manual and computer generated projects are expected. Three two-hour periods per week.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This course will examine the issues of gender, sexuality and feminist visual culture in the 20th century and contemporary art. Through different case studies, the course will examine the intersections of race, class, ethnicity, nationality with gender and and sexual orientations. Throughout the course we will try to discern several major themes and subjects explored by feminist artists throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. While much of the course will focus on the history of feminist art in Europe and the US, we will also discuss transnational feminist theory and emerging feminist artists in many other parts of the world, including Africa, India, the Middle-East, Eastern Europe and Latin America. Class meets TR, 9:40 am - 11:10 am in Art Commons 102
Writing designation: WA anticipated

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This course explores major developments in European and American art from the 1900s to the 1980s, including Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism, Dad, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop, Minimalism, Post-Minimalism and postmodern art trends. It will examine the key figures and works of Modernist period and the critique of Modernism formulated by its contemporaries and the postmodern discourse. Throughout the semester we will trace the unfolding of different avant-garde practices, both in the early decades of the twentieth century and in the post-World War II period, and analyze them vis-a-vis the politics and historical catastrophes of World War I and World War II, and with regard to ever increasing powers of capitalism and mass culture. Theoretical models used by critics and art historians to study artistic production of the twentieth century will be also addressed. (4 credits)

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

The development of art and identities in China over the last 400 years has been, literally, revolutionary. This class explores the inherent relationship between material practices and shifting subjectivities, that is the resonance between the physical external world and internal, thinking subject. During this time, ranging from the Manchu rule of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) to the 21st century, we see the dynamic development of modern subjectivities, evolving cultural connoisseurship, ethnic tensions, new definitions of citizenry, and counter-movements led by cynical agitators. Art and design played a critical role in these developments, functioning as a symbolic language through which identities and communities could form. This class draws on themes such as gender, sexuality, militarism, ethnicity, and commodity culture as well as theories of embodiment by scholars such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Paul Crowther to delve into the rich resonance between representation and identity formation. Students will not only learn to look closely at and write critically about a variety of media including paintings, calligraphy, prints, films, posters, performance art, and installations, but will also relate this historical cultural production to contemporaneous artistic, social, and political discourses. In the process, we will complicate notions of “Chinese” art and “Chinese” identity in Asia and on the global stage.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

From the Greek Archaic Period to the Late Antiquity, cities around the Mediterranean were decorated with images portraying the sovereigns in the guises of warriors, gods or religious leaders. Politicians, kings, and emperors were the primary patrons of art and architecture in major political centers such as Athens, Alexandria and Rome. This course will explore the art and architecture of the Greco-Roman world as a venue through which political ideology in its various forms was disseminated across the society. While surveying various forms of public and private art such as portraiture, monumental public art and murals, we will analyze how artistic production was closely manipulated by ruling elites of the Greek city-states, Hellenistic kingdoms and the Roman empire to modify the public view about the ruler and the state.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

This hands-on, studio class serves as an introduction to the fundamentals of organizing forms in three dimensions. Over the course of the semester we will work both collectively and independently to solve basic formal and spatial problems encountered in fields such as sculpture, architecture, and industrial design. We will develop a technical working vocabulary (e.g. line, plane, form, space, volume, mass, shape, scale, and proportion), and we will think critically about the formal, spatial, structural, and tactile qualities of the works we create. Slide presentations, short readings, critiques, group discussions, and a gallery/museum visits will supplement our studio research. This class is appropriate for any and all curious students interested in play, thinking with the hands, and occasionally building things in order to find out what it takes to break them.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

In this advanced course, students will learn how to effectively develop independent projects, through step-by-step strategies for idea development, working with their own individual ideas and interests. Open-ended prompts will introduce a range of approaches to content. Students may work in traditional drawing media or in an expanded approach to drawing that may include installation, sculpture, animation, video or other mixed-media forms.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

A continuation of Art 234, expanding both technical and critical/theoretical knowledge through projects which demand the development of each student's individual interests. Required projects will encourage increasing self-direction and development of the students' own artistic vision. Readings will supplement students' art historical critical, theoretical understanding of contemporary or postmodern art practices. Weekly group discussions and critiques. Three two-hour periods per week. (4 credits)

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This course is a continuation of Art 236, focusing on individually generated projects. There is an introduction of new techniques appropriate for content such as monoprint, collograph, screenprint, photo-printmaking and computer-based processes. Field trips, and arranged meetings. (4 credits)

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This course is for students with a passion for clay! Designed to engage and build on student’s previous ceramic experiences, advancing their knowledge, techniques and concepts of contemporary ceramic art. Course content will be both assignment based and self-directed whether created on the wheel or through handbuilding. Through thoughtful discussion, critical examination and evaluation of concepts and ideas the class encourages students to develop a better understanding of their relationship to the rich tradition of ceramics and ceramic sculpture. Students will develop an understanding of glaze and clay materials while also taking on responsibilities for electric, gas and raku kiln firings. Lectures, demonstrations, critiques and gallery/museum visits will supplement studio work. Learning will be assessed primarily through portfolio production and review, along with class participation. May be taken without an introductory class with instructor’s review and approval. Can be taken for credit up to three times. Three two-hour periods per week. $100 materials fee is required.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials