Undergraduate Courses
ARTH389A Special Topics in Art History and Archaeology:
The Art of Drawing: A Left and Right Brain Experience (Bland)
M-F 12-3pm (ASY 3217)
This course examines drawing in the history of art, theories of drawing and seeing and drawing practice. The class lectures will examine drawing as a visual language from pre-history to the Renaissance and the Nineteenth to the Twenty-first centuries. Rather than a chronological survey, the course will examine the work of Old and Modern Masters through the visual vocabulary of line, value, space, proportion and composition. The lectures will explain and discuss various drawing techniques, and materials, examining how they enhance the artist's creative expression and style. Old Master artists include Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Durer, and Rembrandt, while the Nineteenth century and Modern masters include Ingres, Degas, Picasso, Kollwitz, Wyeth, Pearlstein and Bravo.
Theoretically, drawing is an acquired skill like driving a car. Lectures will discuss Dr. Betty Edwards theory that there are two ways of knowing- verbal, analytical (Left Brain) and visual, perceptual (Right Brain). As practice, students will complete drawing exercises that help them make a mental shift from their left, analytical brain to their right visual brain. These exercises are based on the series of drawing exercises from Betty Edward's text, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain . The class will also discuss Daniel Mendelowitz and Duane Wakeham's, “ Learning to See .” No prior drawing experience is necessary. However, students should be willing to extend a concerted amount of time and effort on each studio assignment.
ARTH389B Special Topics in Art History and Archaeology: The Art of Color: A Left and Right Brain Experience (Bland)
M-F 3-6 pm (ASY 3217)
This course is about understanding color and experiencing color. The course is composed of two parts, a lecture and color practice. The lectures examine a wide range of old and modern master paintings from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century. The lectures also examine how artists use color in a variety of media to distinctively record their surroundings, express their emotions and explore the aesthetics color applications. The practice portion of this course is composed of color/painting assignments that challenge students beyond color theory. Students will complete a series of exercises based on Dr. Betty Edward's text, Color, A Course in Mastering the Art of Mixing Color . No prior drawing or painting experience is necessary. However, students should be willing to extend a concerted amount of time and effort on each studio assignment.
ARTH457 History of Photography: From Daguerre to Digital (Grossman)
M-F 12-3 pm (ASY 3219)
This course is a study of the historical, social, aesthetic and technological developments of the photographic medium and its relationship to other modes of visual representation in the development of modernism. We will cover the period from the inception of the medium in the 19 th century to the Family of Man ( 1955 ), a seminal exhibition that defined an era. Focusing primarily on Europe and the United States , the class will explore developments in photography that have brought about important changes in ways in which we represent and interpret the world. In addition to Family of Man, the role of exhibitions and institutions in constructing photographic history through a modernist lens will be considered, paying special attention to the Film und Foto project ( Stuttgart , 1929) and the Museum of Modern Art 's History of Photography (New York, 1937). Scheduled visits to local photography exhibitions will be assigned.
Rather than approaching the history of photography as one of technological advancements or as a narrative of master photographers and their photographs, we will study the historiography of photography through a series of critical themes. Topics include photography in the construction of national, racial and sexual identity, the medium as art or science/truth or beauty, and modernity/modern/modernism. Placing photographs into the larger historical and cultural contexts in which they were created and received, the course will provide students with insights into the instrumental role played by the medium in the development of modern life and ideas.
ARTH489A Special Topics in Art History: Film as Dream (Metcalf)
M-Th 1-4:30pm (SQH 1120)
Film is consumed like dream. We sit in the dark, without control as someone else's fantasies bombard us with symbolic images and narratives. Some films attempt to recreate the narratives of dream, attempting to capture the associations and logic – or illogic – of remembered dream.
Some films depict dream. Dream sequences foreshadow the future, offer clues to mysteries, give hints about characters, provide subtext or even battlegrounds. In a general sense, most feature films offer the lowgrade sort of wish-fulfillment dreams of wealth, of power, of experience, of sex, of violence. Of escape.
In this course we'll explore dream dynamics of film and some of the ways that they have been applied and explored. From psychological to symbolist and surrealist, as subtext and subject matter, from art film to entertainment.
