Fall 2012 Tu/Th Survey of Art
Art is the creation of its creator as well as the cultural, political, economic, and social forces that shaped that artist. This course will connect art to those histories, and will introduce students to the visual language of Western art from ancient to modern times, in order to increase the recognition and understanding of references in advertisements and posters, on clothing, and in film and other media. The course introduces a wide variety of methodologies and topics of current debate in the field of art history, including: style, technique, patronage, iconography (subject matter), social context, historiography (writings about art and how they shaped our concepts), gender, psychoanalysis, and art theory.