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2021 - 2022 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Art History Courses
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Art History
ARH 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
ARH 160 - An Introduction to Museum Studies 4 credits (Fall)
Introduction to Museum Studies explores a number of issues of museum history, theory, and practice, using public scholarship and research along with intensive class discussions. The content is directly applicable to students in art history, anthropology, education, history, studio art and sciences. The Grinnell College Museum of Art and Iowa museums provide examples and context. This course includes required travel as part of the prerequisite course. Students will be required to pay a $250 participation fee (most other required travel expenses will be covered). This fee will be added to the student tuition bill and is due by the first day of classes. If payment of this fee causes you financial concern, please contact Gretchen Zimmermann in the Financial Aid Office to discuss loan options to cover this additional cost for attendance.
Prerequisite: Participation in an intensive 5 day, 1/2 credit course prior to first day of classes.
Instructor: Wright
ARH 195-01 - Introductory Special Topic: Art of India 4 credits (Spring)
This course will cover the art of South Asia, from ancient Buddhism, to Hinduism, the Mughal Empire, to modern day art, architecture, and film. We will view and learn to analyze sculpture, architecture (including Buddhist and Hindu temples, Islamic architecture, and modern structures), painting, and the art of the book. We will also cover the basics of the many religious traditions practiced in South Asia.
Prerequisite: None.
Instructor: Mackenzie
ARH 211 - Arts and Visual Cultures of China 4 credits (Fall or Spring)
This course explores the arts and visual cultures of China from the Neolithic period through the nineteenth century. We will consider diverse media including painting, prints, textiles, ceramics, metalwork, jade, and architecture, as well as works in the College Art Collection. A central theme will be the role that various (non-Han Chinese) ethnic groups played in shaping the arts of the Chinese court, with special emphasis on cultural exchange with Central Asia and the Steppe.
Prerequisite: ARH 103 .
Note: Not offered every year.
Instructor: Shea
ARH 212 - The Global Mongol Century: In the Footsteps of Marco Polo 4 credits (Fall or Spring)
In this class, we will explore the arts and visual cultures of Mongol-controlled lands in Eurasia at the turn of the fourteenth century. Loosely following Marco Polo’s travels, we will travel from Italy to China, recreating the visual landscape of particular urban centers. Using primary sources and visual material, including illuminated manuscripts, textiles, paintings, ceramics, and metalwork, we will come to a clearer understanding of the interwoven networks in Eurasia during this period.
Prerequisite: ARH 103 .
Instructor: Shea
ARH 213 - Gender and Sexuality in East Asian Art 4 credits (Fall or Spring)
Cross-listed as: EAS 213 . This class explores themes of gender and sexuality in the arts of China, Japan, and Korea from the beginning of the Common Era to the present day. This class does not aim to be comprehensive but will rather focus on a series of examples that allow insights into culturally specific moments. We will be looking at a variety of media and will interrogate the diverse cultural contexts in which this art was produced and consumed.
Prerequisite: ARH 103 .
Note: Not offered every year.
Instructor: Shea
ARH 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: ARH 103 .
Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year.
Instructor: Staff
ARH 215 - Collecting the “Orient” 4 credits (Fall or Spring)
Cross-listed as: EAS 215 . The United States and Europe are home to world-class collections of Asian art, from murals and architectural elements to sculptures, ceramics, paintings, and textiles. This class examines the origins of such Asian art collections, from the nineteenth century to the present day. We will explore the changing practices of archaeological excavations, the antiquities market, and looting, as well as consider the ways, licit and illicit, that these collections were built.
Prerequisite: ARH 103 .
Note: Not offered every year.
Instructor: Shea
ARH 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: ARH 103 .
Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year.
Instructor: Staff
ARH 222 - Impressionism and Post-Impressionism 4 credits
A study of major artists, works, and issues in European Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painting (ca. 1865–1900). Specific movements include Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Symbolism, and Art Nouveau.
Prerequisite: ARH 103 .
Note: Not offered every year.
Plus-2 option available.
Foreign language option available in French or German for course and +2.
Instructor: Anger
ARH 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: ARH 103 .
Note: Plus-2 option available.
Foreign language option available in French or German for course and +2.
Instructor: Anger
ARH 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: ARH 103 .
Note: Plus-2 option available.
Foreign language option available in French or German for course and +2.
Instructor: Anger
ARH 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: ARH 103 .
Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year.
Instructor: Anger
ARH 248 - Greek Archaeology and Art 4 credits (Spring)
See CLS 248 .
ARH 250 - Roman Archaeology and Art 4 credits (Spring)
See CLS 250 .
ARH 270 - Modern Architecture and Globalization 4 credits (Fall or spring)
This course offers a survey of developments in modern architecture from the 19th century to the mid-20th century, with a focus on globalization. We discuss the aesthetic, political and social contexts of architecture, including colonialism, urbanization, industrialization, authoritarianism and nationalism. We will use visual materials (floor plans, renderings, photographs, etc.), texts by architects, scholars and critics, and local/regional examples of architecture to examine the built environment, architectural movements, urban planning, landscape design and architectural technologies.
Prerequisite: ARH 103 .
Note: Plus-2 option available. Foreign language option in Spanish available for Plus-2 option only.
Instructor: Rivera
ARH 295-01 - Special Topic: Blurring the Boundaries: Art of the late Middle Ages through the High Renaissance 4 credits (Spring)
Since Vasari heralded the “rebirth” of “excellent” art following the “barbarous” style of the “Goths,” art historians have often made a sharp distinction between what is considered medieval vs. Renaissance art. This course will question whether such a distinction is always valid by examining the art and visual culture of Western Europe from the Carolingians through the career of Michelangelo, emphasizing the 14th through 16th centuries.
Prerequisite: ARH 103 .
Instructor: Crites
ARH 295-01 - Special Topic: Questioning the Canon: Challenging Traditional Narratives in Medieval Art 4 credits (Fall)
Surveys of the art of Europe from the 9th-15th centuries often focus on developments in French and English church architecture/sculpture and illuminated manuscripts. This course moves beyond such a limited narrative by presenting works of various media from across Europe in addition to those of the medieval canon. Students are challenged to question traditional ways of categorizing and understanding medieval art through examining issues of nationalism, gender, race, and cross-cultural exchange.
Prerequisite: ARH 103 .
Instructor: Crites
ARH 295-02 - Special Topic: First World War in Art and Literature 4 credits (Spring)
The First World War was a momentously violent, destructive, but also transformative event, industrialized and mechanized to a degree, previously unimaginable. A generation of writers and artists struggled with the formal, intellectual, emotional, and ethical problems of representing their personal experience of it, and with giving the war meaning - or addressing its apparent meaninglessness. Modernist art and literature were to some extent responses to this problem. Examine questions of history and individual memory, and the limits of visual art and modern warfare.
Prerequisite: ARH 103 .
Instructor: Mackenzie
ARH 295-02 - Special Topic: Pre-modern/Early Modern Islamic Art 4 credits (Fall)
Does the term “Islamic” contribute to our understanding of the secular and religious art associated with Muslim peoples dating from the 7th through 18th centuries and stretching from Spain to China, or does it cause us to oversimplify the complex and nuanced art of diverse cultures? Determining ways of defining Islamic art will be the central objective of this course as we identify major themes and developments in architecture, book art, textiles, and decorative art.
Prerequisite: ARH 103 .
Instructor: Crites
ARH 295-03 - Special Topic: Cross-cultural Exchange in Spanish Art from the Middle Ages to the Golden Age 4 credits (Spring)
This course will examine issues of cultural identity and cross-cultural exchange in the art of Iberia from the end of Roman rule through early Spanish colonialism around the world. Students will engage with multi-cultural artworks and monuments from the Iberian Peninsula and colonial Spain through a variety of art historical methodologies from formal to post-colonial in order to identify what these works reveal about the cultures that produced them.
Prerequisite: ARH 103 .
Instructor: Crites
ARH 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
ARH 380 - Theory and Methods of Art History 4 credits (Fall or Spring)
This course studies the theory and methods of art history. We will explore historical and philosophical approaches as well as contemporary methods. The point is to think through how and why we approach art and architecture the way we do and to learn to do so more conscientiously and fruitfully.
Prerequisite: ARH 103 and one 200-level Art History course.
Note: Not offered every year.
Instructor: Anger
ARH 400 - Seminar in Art History 4 credits (Fall)
The seminar emphasizes research skills and art-historical methodology. Each student, in consultation with the professor, will select a special topic for research and critical evaluation. Final projects are expected to result in scholarly contributions equivalent to those of traditional senior thesis. Students are encouraged to find a public forum for presentation of their research.
Prerequisite: Junior or senior standing in art history major.
Instructor: Staff
ARH 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 320 - Advanced Studio: Site Specific 4 credits (Fall or Spring)
An intensive practice based course in which the problem of place and location is examined in relation to the development of a student’s individual body of work.
Prerequisite: 12 credits of 200-level studio art.
Instructor: Running
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