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2023-2024 Academic 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 115 - Art of India and South Asia 4 credits (Fall or Spring)
This course will survey the art of South Asia (including India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh) from the 5th century to BCE to the modern period, including the art of Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Islam, as well as modern secular art, including film. Basic principles and skills of art historical analysis will be covered.
Prerequisite: None.
Note: Not offered every year.
Instructor: Mackenzie
ARH 160 - An Introduction to Museum Studies 4 credits (Spring)
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 and visits to area museums. The content is directly applicable to students in art history, anthropology, education, history, studio art and sciences.
Prerequisite: Second-year standing.
Instructor: Baley
ARH 195-01 - Introductory Special Topic: Sugar, Science, Slavery: Visualizing Modernity in the Americas 4 credits (Spring)
Our course examines a global economic system related to the specific commodity of sugar, from its historical roots to its lasting present-day impacts. We explore the science of sugar and technology of sugar production in the expanding colonial world of the Americas, as well as the development of African diasporic art and culture alongside the exploitative economies of sugar. Course travel will take place in Louisana and Cuba during spring break 2024 and Brazil in May 2024.
First-year students interested in this course will need to complete an application By October 12, 2023 in addition to doing the normal registration process. The application materials are available here:
https://www.grinnell.edu/academics/global/flag/glp
There is a $2,000 course fee for participating in Global Learning Program classes that will be added to the student’s bill during the first week of the semester. Scholarships are available for students who qualify for need-based financial aid at Grinnell and will be automatically provided. There is a $2,000 scholarship for very high need (net cost added to the bill $0), a $1,500 scholarship available for high need students (net cost added to the bill $500), a $1,000 scholarship for moderate need students (net cost added to bill $1,000), a $500 scholoarship for low need students (net cost added to bill $1,500) and no scholarship for students with no need. If you have questions about your need level and scholarship eligibility, please contact Meg Jones at jonesmeg@grinnell.edu
Prerequisite: TUT-100 with grade of S, C, or better, and application. Open to first-year students only.
Instructor: Rivera, Levandoski
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 with grade, S, C, or better.
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 with grade, S, C, or better.
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 with grade, S, C, or better.
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 with grade, S, C, or better.
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 with grade, S, C, or better.
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 with grade, S, C, or better.
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 with grade, S, C, or better.
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 with grade, S, C, or better.
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 with grade, S, C, or better.
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 with grade, S, C, or better.
Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year.
Instructor: Anger
ARH 234 - Caribbean Art and Visual Cultures 4 credits (Fall or Spring)
This course provides a broad survey of Caribbean art and visual culture, focusing on the Caribbean archipelago and surrounding territories into consideration, as well as the Caribbean diaspora. With material ranging from the Pre-Columbian era into the contemporary, this course includes close readings on topics such as slavery in the Caribbean, religious expression, the African diaspora, migration, colonialism, nationalism, postcolonialism, and the politics of tourism.
Prerequisite: ARH 103 with grade, S, C, or better.
Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year. Foreign language option available in Spanish and French for Plus-2 only.
Instructor: Rivera
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 with grade, S, C, or better.
Note: Plus-2 option available. Foreign language option in Spanish available for Plus-2 option only.
Instructor: Rivera
ARH 272 - Contemporary Architectures 4 credits (Fall or Spring)
This course centers contemporary architectures within the context of social justice, providing a broad overview of architecture from the 1960s onwards. In this class we consider the economic, aesthetic, socio-political and semiotic functions of architecture, landscape design, interior design, and urban planning. We ask: How do architecture and design impact our everyday lives? In an ever-complex world, how does the built environment and infrastructure contribute to our understanding of place, power, and agency?
Prerequisite: ARH 103 with grade, S, C, or better.
Note: Plus-2 option available.
Instructor: Rivera
ARH 295-01 - Special Topic: Empire of the Subconscious: Symbolist Art in Europe late 19th Century 4 credits (Fall)
The course will study the cultural politics of the Symbolist movement in the late 19th century. We will look at art, architecture, and decorative arts, and the influence of music and literature. Symbolism emphasized interiority, spirituality, mysticism, magic, the supernatural, the irrational and the unconscious, and renewed an interest in craft, nature, and ideas of the primitive. We will examine the mingling of frank eroticism and a rising sense of anxiety about the future.
Prerequisite: Second-year standing.
Instructor: Mackenzie
ARH 295-01 - Special Topic: The Art and Architecture of the Medieval Mediterranean 4 credits (Spring)
The modern constructs of “East” and “West” fundamentally shape contemporary discourse. However, recent scholarship on the cosmopolitan societies of the pre-modern Mediterranean and their role in the development of the modern world has reinforced the need to revise this ill-defined, inaccurate binary. This class will examine the issues complicating the East/West divide through the stunning and ecletic visual culture of the Mediterranean from the fall of Rome through the height of the Ottoman Empire.
Prerequisite: Second-year standing.
Instructor: Crites
ARH 295-01 - Special Topic: The Camera and the Body 4 credits (Spring)
See AMS 295-01 .
ARH 295-02 - Special Topic: Challenging Traditional Narratives of Medieval and Renaissance European Art 4 credits (Fall)
This course will challenge traditional ways of categorizing and understanding European visual culture (13th -16th centuries) by using various methodological approaches to examine not only canonical works of art, but also those that have been dismissed as marginal. When such diverse works are considered in terms of race, gender, materiality, and cross-cultural exchange, standard divisions such as medieval vs. Renaissance, East vs. West, and high art vs. decorative art become insufficient and even erroneous.
Prerequisite: Second-year standing.
Instructor: Crites
ARH 295-02 - Special Topic: Surrealism 4 credits (Spring)
Surrealism was a cultural movement that emerged in the early 1920s in Paris. Its practitioners, including artists, writers, and filmmakers, sought to explore the unconscious through the use of dream imagery, automatic writing, and other techniques, and they tried to break down the boundaries between reality and fantasy in order to challenge traditional thinking and societal norms. In this class we will study surrealism’s roots and its legacy well beyond 1920s Paris.
Prerequisite: Second-year standing.
Instructor: Anger
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. For current offerings review the variable topic course listing below or use the course search to filter by variable topic type. Course may be repeated once for credit.
Prerequisite: One 200-level art history course with grade, S, C, or better.
Note: Not offered every year.
Instructor: Staff
ARH 370 - Architecture and Urbanism in the Developing Worlds 4 credits (Fall or Spring)
Cross-listed as: GDS 370 . This workshop seminar explores architecture and urbanism in the “developing world”, using comparative urban case studies to discuss debates from the colonial era to the contemporary. Students will analyze architecture, urban policy, and forms of urbanization, and will chart urban phenomena through close visual readings of pertinent primary sources, including maps, floor plans, urban plans, and other visual representations of place.
Prerequisite: ARH 103 or GDS 111 and one 200-level ARH or GDS course.
Instructor: Rivera
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 395-01 - Advanced Special Topic: The Classical Athenian Acropolis and Its Afterlives 4 credits (Spring)
See CLS 395-01 .
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 with grades, S, C, or better.
Instructor: Staff
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