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2015-2016 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Art Descriptions
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Art
Art: History and Theory
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ART 103 - Introduction to Art History 4 credits (Fall and Spring)
A thematic and cross-cultural study of art and architecture as expressions of diverse social, intellectual, religious, and aesthetic values, primarily in Western societies since antiquity, with reference to certain East Asian and African traditions. Emphasis on developing critical skills. Use of Grinnell College Art Collection.
Prerequisite: None.
Instructor: Staff -
ART 210 - Women, Art, and History 4 credits
An introduction to the history of women’s involvement in the visual arts. Concerned with ways of analyzing changing relationships among gender, culture, and creativity. The focus is on a historical study of women as producers of art, with emphasis on the various ways women have responded to social conditions determining the production of art, and on defining the issues and methods of investigations, based on feminist critiques of conventional art historical approaches.
Prerequisite: ART 103 or GWS 111 .
Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year.
Instructor: Staff -
ART 214 - Monastery and Cathedral in Medieval Europe 4 credits
Study of major developments in architecture and art from the Carolingian through Gothic periods (9th–14th centuries). Primary focus on architectural design and structure (as at Durham, Canterbury, Lincoln, Cluny, Paris, Chartres, Amiens), including the roles of sculpture and manuscript painting within their social, political, religious, and intellectual climates. Option of executing projects in architectural design or doing reading in French, German, Italian, Latin, or Spanish.
Prerequisite: ART 103 .
Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year.
Instructor: Staff -
ART 221 - European Art 1789-1848: Figures & Ground 4 credits
Examination of 19th-century Romantic and Realist painting as critical responses to the period’s dramatic political, industrial, and cultural transformations and as the foundation of artistic “modernity.” Emphasis on issues of high and mass culture; art and political voice; representations of non-Europeans; relevance of the canon; tensions between the urban and natural worlds; and creation of the Avant-Garde.The French Revolution of 1789 marked the entrance on the world stage of a new concept of the modern, self-determining subject. During the first half of the nineteenth century, artists in France, England, Spain and Germany sought to discover an artistic language that would represent this new individual’s relationship to the natural and the built environment, a dialogue of figure and ground that this course studies in the mediums of painting, sculpture, printmaking and photography.
Prerequisite: ART 103 .
Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year.
Instructor: Staff -
ART 222 - Impressionism and Post-Impressionism 4 credits
A study of major artists, works, and issues in European Impressionist and PostImpressionist painting (c. 1865–1900). Specific movements include Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Symbolism, and Art Nouveau.
Prerequisite: ART 103 .
Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year.
Instructor: Staff -
ART 225 - The Baroque Imaginary 4 credits (Fall or Spring)
The Baroque has fascinated - and incensed - artists, historians, cultural critics, and philosophers from Henrich Wölfflin, Walter Benjamin, and Erwin Panofsky to Gilles Deleuze, Hubert Damisch, and Peter Greenway. Often aligned with an artistic “Golden Age” exemplified by the works of Bernini, Rubens, Velázquez, and Vermeer, the Baroque is also associated with decadence, irrationality, and effeminacy. We will explore the stakes of these connotations for seventeenth-century Baroque icons as well as for later, (Neo)Baroque artists.
Prerequisite: ART 103 .
Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year.
Instructor: Lyon -
ART 231 - Modern Art in Europe, 1900–1940 4 credits (Fall)
An examination of major movements in European art from 1900–1940, including Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Dada, Surrealism, Constructivism, and Socialist Realism. Focus upon the historical contexts of art production and reception. Readings range from contemporary criticism to historical analysis. Investigation of recurrent problems such as primitivism, gender, authorship, and cultural politics.
Prerequisite: ART 103 .
Note: Plus-2 option available.
Instructor: Anger -
ART 232 - Art Since 1945 4 credits (Spring)
An examination of developments primarily in American and European art since 1945, from Abstract Expressionism to current trends such as the globalized art market. Particular attention to art since 1960: Pop, Happenings, Black Art, Minimalism, Conceptualism, Earth Works, Feminist Art, Video, and Installation. Readings range from contemporary criticism to historical analysis from a variety of perspectives (e.g., formal, multicultural, deconstructive).
Prerequisite: ART 103 .
Note: Plus-2 option available.
Instructor: Anger -
ART 233 - American Art 4 credits
A survey of American art within its cultural, philosophical, and social contexts. Topics include: colonial portraiture; history painting, landscape, and vernacular expressions in the 19th century; and the sources and development of modernism and postmodernism.
Prerequisite: ART 103 .
Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year.
Instructor: Anger -
ART 248 - Greek Archaeology and Art 4 credits (Spring)
See CLS 248 .
Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year.
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ART 250 - Roman Archaeology and Art 4 credits (Spring)
See CLS 250 .
Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year.
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ART 260 - Museum Studies: The Art Museum 4 credits
An examination of the history of museums, museum operations, funding, ethics, and the philosophical and intellectual issues raised by the contemporary museum. The course will focus on art museums, but many of the topics will pertain to history, ethnographic, science, and other types of museums.
Prerequisite: ART 103 .
Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year.
Instructor: Wright -
ART 360 - Exhibition Seminar 4 credits (Fall)
An exploration of the materials and methods of primary art historical research and museum practice through the organization and presentation of an exhibition. Students work directly with art objects, using works in the Grinnell College Art Collection and/or borrowed from lenders. Topic and instructor vary; see current Schedule of Courses. Course may be repeated once for credit.
Prerequisite: One 200-level art history course.
Note: Not offered every year.
Instructor: Staff -
ART 400 - Seminar in Art History 4 credits (Spring)
An intensive study of selected problems with emphasis on research, methodology, and critical evaluation of a special area. May be repeated for a maximum of 8 credits if different topics are taken each time. For current course content please see the variable topic course listing below or search the online live schedule of courses.
Prerequisite: Junior or senior standing in art history major.
Instructor: Staff -
ART 499 - Mentored Advanced Project — Art History 4 credits (Fall or Spring)
The preparation, writing, and public presentation of a piece of advanced art-historical research in any area of art history. Students must obtain approval of a department member as faculty director. The MAP application must be completed with the required project statement and with all faculty signatures before submission to the Office of the Registrar. All applications are subject to the approval of the associate dean of the College.
Prerequisite: Senior standing.
Instructor: Staff
Art: Studio
Special Topics-Fall
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ART 195-01 - Introductory Special Topic: An Introduction to Museum Studies 4 credits (Fall)
Cross-listed as: HUM 195-01 . An introduction to the history of museums and to museum operations, funding, exhibitions, collections, and ethics. The course will also consider the philosophical and intellectual issues raised by the contemporary museum. While art museums will be the primary focus, material pertinent to history, ethnographic, science and other types of museums will also be included.
Prerequisite: Second-year standing.
Instructor: Wright -
ART 295-01 - Special Topic: “On the Art of Building”: History of Architecture in the Renaissance (1400-1600) 4 credits (Fall)
Study of the major buildings, figures, and cultural centers of the Renaissance, the watershed moment in the architectural history of the Western World. The course expands beyond the Italian peninnsula across the European continent. Key themes include: the Renaissance appropriation of classical antiquity, the persistence of Gothic tradition, and encounters with Islamic art. We will examine the material, urban, social, and political dimensions of architecture, as well as temporal and geographic migrations of architectural knowledge.
Prerequisite: ART 103 .
Instructor: Pistis -
ART 295-02 - Special Topic: Rubens and the Rest of the World 4 credits (Fall)
Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) was arguably the most original, successful, and erudite painter of his age. He was also a spy, diplomat, and courtier par excellence who changed the face of Baroque art-even if portraiture was his least favorite genre. This course explores the world of Rubens, from his Italian years to his commissions in Paris, Madrid, Flanders, and London. Van Dyck, Velázquez, and Rubens’s legacy in modern art will also be considered.
Prerequisite: ART 103 .
Instructor: Lyon -
ART 295-03 - Special Topic: Gender, Race and Fashion in Western Portraiture, 1550-1950 4 credits (Fall)
Explores race, gender, and fashionable dress as co-constitutive forces in portraiture from 1500 to 1950. We will investigate self-portraiture, group portraiture, historiated portraiture, and allegorical personification. If idealized white, female beauty is one of the portraiture’s longstanding fetishes, how do notions of sexual difference, physiognomy, and skin-color, among other variables, inflect representation? Subjects range from Tudor England, Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, and Velaquez to Qing, China, Viceregal Mexico, ninteenth century Paris, and post-war New York.
Prerequisite: ART 103 .
Instructor: Lyon
Special Topics-Spring
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ART 295-01 - Special Topic: Art and Anti-Art Since 1980 4 credits (Spring)
The course explores Postmodernism in the 1980s to its aftermath(s) in contemporary art around the world. We will attend closely to trends that affirm, challenge, and/or reject the significance of aesthetic experience. Readings range from contemporary criticism to historical analysis, as well as from formalist to semiotic, deconstructive, feminist, Marxist, queer, and postcolonial theory.
Prerequisite: ART 103 .
Instructor: Anger -
ART 295-01 - Special Topic: Mixing Forms: Collage, Sample, Mashup, Remix 4 credits (Spring)
This studio course explores analog and digital forms of visual and aural juxtaposition: collage, sampling, mashup, and remixing. Specifically, we will be involved with the skillful building of artwork imbued with resonant meanings through the utilization of different, technologically transgressive mixing methodologies. Projects will range from image to sound and video, readings, discussions, and presentations will situate the craft of juxtaposition into a critical and historic framework.
Prerequisite: ART 111 .
Instructor: Kaufman -
ART 295-03 - Special Topic: History of Prints 4 credits (Spring)
Prints play a vital role in the dissemination of imagery throughout artistic and popular cultures alike. This course surveys the history of printmaking as the first “mass media” in the western world, highlighting renowned masters of the medium such as Dürer, Rembrandt, Goya, Kollwitz, Picasso, and Warhol. Class meetings will consist of lecture and weekly visits to the Print and Drawing Study Room in Burling Library. Periodic studio demonstrations will also introduce various printmaking techniques.
Prerequisite: ART 103 .
Instructor: Popp -
ART 295-04 - Special Topic: European Architecture of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 4 credits (Spring)
Study of major European buildings, architects and cultural centers in a moment of critical change in society and state, wherein new travel explorations and revolutionary developments in science and antiquarian studies expanded the horizons of knowledge in every direction. Travelling across courts, academies, streets and buildings devoted to new institutions, this course examines the cultural, material, urban, social, and political dimensions of architecture, as well as temporal and geographic migrations of architectural knowledge.
Prerequisite: ART 103 .
Instructor: Pistis -
ART 295-05 - Special Topic: Architectural Theory from Vitruvius to the Present 4 credits (Spring)
Through analysis of architectural treatises, prints and drawings, as well as of their production, circulation and reception, this course explores how different figures have thought, discussed and written about architecture from antiquity to contemporary America. It investigates architectural theory’s relationship with practice as well as with contemporary debates on society and fields of knowledge such as literature, music, philosophy and science. Topics range from the construction of Western canons to developments of the architectural profession.
Prerequisite: ART 103 .
Instructor: Pistis -
ART 295-06 - Special Topic: Russian Conceptualism and Underground Soviet Culture 1 credits (Spring)
See RUS 295-02 .
Variable Topics- Spring
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ART 400-01 - Seminar in Art History (Spring) 4 credits (Spring)
Avant-Garde Exhibition, or: Before the Imaginary “White Cube”. Brian O’Doherty memorably pilloried the modernist exhibition space for its purported decontextualization of art and simultaneous disembodiment of the spectator in the so-called “White Cube” (1976), yet closer attention to pivotal twentieth-century exhibitions reveals far more complex and relational environments. The seminar will address seminal Euro-American examples in order to explore the curatorial role in the creation of modern art and the perplexing persistence of the twin myths of autonomy and the White Cube.
Prerequisite: Junior or senior standing in art history concentration.
Instructor: Anger
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