How to Look at Art: A study of art and its history through art theory

The History of Art History is an introduction to art through a study of the development of art theories. Readings and discussions will cover such topics/ideas as iconography, semiotics, originality, intentionality, etc. When we look at a work of art, what and how should we proceed? This course attempts to answer this question.

From Aristotle, to Giorgio Vasari, to Linda Nochlin, students will become familiar with some of the most pertinent of various approaches to analyzing and understanding art. Thus, students will learn how to think critically when examining art, all while learning about artists, techniques, and the overall development of artistic practices throughout history.

This 32-week course consists of four eight-week quarters. Within each quarter, students will be assigned a weekly pre-recorded lecture. Additionally, there will be a reading assignment each week with relevant reading questions provided. Each week, there will be a 1-hour live recitation. There will be four exams and two 2,000-word essays will be submitted. In the course of the year, the students will have read all the texts listed below, listened to 32 lectures, written two essays, and attended a minimum of 30 (ideally 32) live recitations to discuss both text and art.

Course Objectives:

1. To be equipped with the necessary tools to observe, analyze, and intelligently write about and discuss art
2. To learn about key art theorists and historians
3. To become familiar with a variety of the most influential works of art throughout history
4. To encourage an interest in art and its study through a wide range of approaches
5. To study diverse methodologies and philosophies from a Christian perspective

Texts:

The following readings have been carefully selected to ensure that students have a manageable amount of text to read each week. Each reading is available in the Public Domain and/or on JSTOR. JSTOR offers users free access to 6 articles per every 30 days. You may also subscribe in order to have access to unlimited downloads. Thus, none of the following texts require purchase. Those in the Public Domain are easily accessed through Project Gutenberg.

Links will be provided to the students by the instructor, and the following reading list is subject to change.

• Plato, (The Republic, Book X only)
• Aristotle (Poetics)
• Roger Fry (Chapter: An Essay in Aesthetics from Vision and Design)
• Clive Bell, (Selections from Art)
• Immanuel Kant (Chapter: Transcendental Doctrine of Elements; First Part—Transcendental Aesthetic from The Critique of Pure Reason)
• Giulio Argan, (Essay: Ideology and Iconology)
• David Summers, (Essay: Conventions in the History of Art)
• Plotinus, First Ennead, Book Six
• Jaś Elsner, Essay: Iconoclasm as Discourse: From Antiquity to Byzantium
• Leonardo da Vinci, (Selections from A Treatise on Painting)
• Giorgio Vasari, (Selections from Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects)
• Marni R. Kessler, “Unmasking Manet’s Morisot”
• George Dickie and W. Kent Wilson, (Essay: The Intentional Fallacy: Defending Beardsley)
• Andrea Fraser, (Essay: Autonomy and Its Contradictions) (open access)
• Paul Barolsky, (Essay: A Very Brief History of Art from Narcissus to Picasso)
• Andrew Hemingway, (Essay: Marxism and Art History after the Fall of Communism)
• T. J. Clark, (Essay: Modernism, Postmodernism, and Steam)
• Elena Oxman, (Essay: Sensing the Image: Roland Barthes and the Affect of the Visual)
• Jacques Derrida, (Parergon)
• T. J. Clark, (Essay: Clement Greenberg’s Theory of Art)
• Rosalind Krauss, (Essay: The Originality of the Avant-Garde: A Postmodernist Repetition)
• Linda Nochlin, (Essay: Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?)
• Marianne Hirsch, (Essay: Mourning and Postmemory)
• McKenzie Wark, (Essay: Telesthesia: Communication, Culture, and Class)