ARTHIST 1: Introduction to the Visual Arts: History of Western Art from the Renaissance to the Present
This course surveys the history of Western painting from the start of the 14th century to the late 20th century and our own moment. Lectures introduce important artists (Giotto, Rembrandt, Velazquez, Goya, Manet, Matisse, Pollock, and others), and major themes associated with the art of particular periods and cultures. The course emphasizes training students to look closely at - and to write about - works of art.
Terms: Aut
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Units: 5
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UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
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Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit
ARTHIST 2: Asian Arts and Cultures (JAPANGEN 60)
An introduction to major monuments, themes, styles, and media of East and South Asian visual arts, in their social, literary, religious, and political contexts. Through close study of primary monuments of architectural, pictorial, and sculptural arts and related texts, this course will explore ritual and mortuary arts; Buddhist arts across Asia; narrative and landscape images; and courtly, urban, monastic, and studio environments for art from Bronze Age to modern eras.
Terms: Win
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Units: 5
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UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II
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Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit
ARTHIST 3: Introduction to the History of Architecture- Domes: from the Pantheon to the Present (CLASSART 103)
This introduction to the history of architecture traces domed architecture, sacred and secular, from the 1st century BC to the 20th century AD. Themes include pre-modern cosmology and the dome as microcosm; innovations in engineering and the history of geometry; structural and painted illusionism; the dome as religious symbol, urban landmark, and national or political monument; social, religious, and political history and symbolism. Individual case studies range from Hadrian to Richard Rogers.
Terms: Spr
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Units: 5
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UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
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Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP)
Instructors:
Barry, F. (PI)
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Binning, R. (TA)
ARTHIST 10SC: Photography: Truth or Fiction or...
"All photographs are accurate. None is the truth."nRichard Avedon (1923-2004)nnThe invention of photography inspired the belief that there could be a truthful and objective way to visually record the world. From portraits to travel photographs to documentary, photography has influenced how modern history is understood and remembered. Yet, a photograph is a manipulated image, shaped by the perspective of the photographer and further framed by its printing, presentation, and interpretation. The complex ethical and political issues associated with photography significantly impact how events and moments are recorded by history. Consider, for example, the US government's 18-year ban (ended in 2009) on photographing the flag-draped coffins of America's war dead as their bodies are returned to the United States. What matters most: protecting the privacy of military families or protecting American citizens from the death toll of war?nOver the past decade, the number of photographers has increased exponentially, further blurring the boundary between what is truth and what is fiction. Even the concept of "gatekeepers" is obsolete: anyone with a smartphone is armed with a camera and can create their own stories, their own records, and their own truths. Further, the Internet grants nearly universal freedom to document and disseminate images that record, incriminate, illuminate, persuade, enrage, and glorify. In this course, we will examine the ethical parameters of photography and the many ways in which photography contributes to presenting powerful truths, creating compelling fictions, and recontextualizing history. nOur discussions will be informed by course readings and opportunities to view photographs in museums and private collections throughout the Bay Area. Field trips will be arranged to meet with artists, collectors, photo editors, and advertising executives. In addition, a special session covering photographic techniques will familiarize students with the diversity of the medium.
Terms: not given this year
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Units: 2
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Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit
ARTHIST 80N: The Portrait: Identities in Question
Most of us hold libraries of hundreds or thousands of ¿portraits¿ ¿ more or less instantly available posed images of ourselves and others. For most of human history, before the development of portable and digital cameras, portraiture was a much rarer and more deliberate social act and cultural practice, involving special materials and techniques, encounters with expert portraitists or photographers, and established settings for display. What almost all portraits, of whatever time or cultural place, have in common are presentations of social identities, roles, or persona, as well as a potential fascination and power that may be based in our neurological capacities for facial recognition and ¿mind-reading¿ through facial expressions. nn This introductory seminar will explore many aspects of this basically simple category of thing ¿ images of particular persons. Our point of departure will be from the history of art, focusing on portrait sculptures, paintings, and photographs from many eras and cultures, some of which are among the most studied and discussed of all artistic monuments. We will consider techniques and approaches of portrait making, including the conventions that underlie seemingly realistic portraits, posing, the portrait situation, and portrait genres. Our primary focus will be on the multiple purposes of portraiture, from commemoration, political glorification, and self-fashioning to making claims of social status, cultural role, and personal identity. We will also discuss the changing status of portraiture under modern states of social dislocation, technological change, and psychoanalytic interrogation, and in postmodern conditions of multi-mediated realities and distributed subjectivities. Along the way, we will see that our understandings of portraiture benefits from the approaches and insights of many fields ¿ political and social history, anthropology, neuroscience, and literary studies among others.
Terms: Spr
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Units: 3
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Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP)
Instructors:
Vinograd, R. (PI)
ARTHIST 99A: Student Guides at the Cantor Center for the Visual Arts
Open to all Stanford students. Public speaking, inquiry methods, group dynamics, theme development, and art-related vocabulary. Introduction to museum administration; art registration, preparation and installation; rights and reproduction of images; exhibition planning; and art storage, conservation, and security. Students research, prepare, and present discussions on art works of their choice.
Terms: Aut
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Units: 2
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Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit
Instructors:
Young, P. (PI)
ARTHIST 100N: The Artist in Ancient Greek Society (CLASSART 22N)
Given the importance of art to all aspects of their lives the Greeks had reason to respect their artists. Yet potters, painters and even sculptors possessed little social standing. Why did the Greeks value the work of craftsmen but not the men themselves? Why did Herodotus dismiss those who worked with their hands as "mechanics?" What prompted Homer to claim that, "there is no greater glory for a man¿ than what he achieves with his own hands," provided that he was throwing a discus and not a vase on a wheel? Painted pottery was essential to the religious and secular lives of the Greeks. Libations to the gods and to the dead required vases from which to pour them. Economic prosperity depended on the export of wine and oil in durable clay containers. At home, vases depicting gods and heroes reinforced Greek values and helped parents to educate their children. Ceramic sets with scenes of Dionysian excess were reserved for elite symposia from which craftsmen were excluded. Sculptors were less lowly but even those who carved the Parthenon's pediments and frieze were still "mechanics," with soft bodies and soft minds (Xenophon), "indifferent to higher things" (Plutarch).nnThe seminar addresses these issues. Students will read and discuss texts, write response papers and present slide lectures on aspects of the artist's profession.
Terms: not given this year
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Units: 3
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UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
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Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP)
ARTHIST 101: Archaic Greek Art (ARTHIST 301, CLASSART 101, CLASSART 201)
The development of Greek art and culture from protogeometric beginnings to the Persian Wars, 1000-480 B.C.E. The genesis of a native Greek style; the orientalizing phase during which contact with the Near East and Egypt transformed Greek art; and the synthesis of East and West in the 6th century B.C.E.
Terms: Aut
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Units: 4
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UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
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Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP)
Instructors:
Maxmin, J. (PI)
ARTHIST 102: Empire and Aftermath: Greek Art from the Parthenon to Praxiteles (ARTHIST 302, CLASSART 102)
The course explores the art and architecture of the Athenian Empire in the age of Pericles, and then considers the effects of civil war and plague on Greek art and society in the later 5th and early 4th centuries.
Terms: Win
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Units: 4
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UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
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Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP)
Instructors:
Maxmin, J. (PI)
ARTHIST 105: Art & Architecture in the Medieval Mediterranean (ARTHIST 305, CLASSART 115, CLASSART 215)
Chronological survey of Byzantine, Islamic, and Western Medieval art and architecture from the early Christian period to the Gothic age. Broad art-historical developments and more detailed examinations of individual monuments and works of art. Topics include devotional art, court and monastic culture, relics and the cult of saints, pilgrimage and crusades, and the rise of cities and cathedrals.
Terms: not given this year
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Units: 4
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UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
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Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP)
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