The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York Ph.D. Program in Art History FALL 2003 - COURSE DESCRIPTIONS N.B. Lecture classes are limited to 20 students, Methods of Research is limited to 15 and seminar classes are limited to 12 students. Three overtallies are allowed in each class but written permission from the instructor and from the Executive Officer and/or the Deputy Executive Officer is required. ART 70000 - Methods of Research GC: Tues., 11:45 A.M.-1:45 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Bletter, Rm. 3416, [45689] The course will examine the power of visual imagery over text first as a pre-literate, then as a populist, seemingly non-elitist system of information that dominates our culture today. It will deal with the impact of scientific rationalism (the role of perspective and axonometric projections) and Romanticism on the understanding of perception in general (Goethe, Friedrich, and Schinkel will be used as case studies). Notions of mimesis will be introduced through an analysis of the panorama, diorama, photography, and theories of polychromy. The psychological and social developments of perception and their formative influence on theory and practice of art in the nineteenth century will be stressed, as well as the impact of phenomenology and Gestalt psychology in the twentieth century. Jonathan Crary’s approach in Techniques of the Observer will be problematized through examples that contradict his thesis, such as the central place of emotive states in Charles Fourier’s social utopianism, the anti-rationalist program of the 19th c. pre-school and education reform movement (Pestalozzi, Froebel, Montessori) through its emphasis on the emotive (Cizek’s and Itten’s art classes for children in Vienna, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Froebel toys); and the influence of synaesthesia (Symbolism, Art Nouveau, Expressionism), and primitivism (Fauves, New Brutalists, etc.). It will conclude with a brief overview of chaos theory, computer imaging, and fractal geometry’s influence on advertising, art and theory (Lyotard, The Post- Modern Condition, 1984. Auditors permitted. ART 70300 - Topics in Non-Western Art: Art of the Andes and Intermediate Area (Central America and Caribbean) GC: Wed., 11:45 A.M.-1:45 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Quiñones-Keber, Rm. 3416, [45690] This course, structured as a colloquium, focuses on Pre-Columbian arts of the various cultures of the Andean region of South America, from their origins to the 16th century Incas. Included among these diverse arts are monumental architecture, sculpture, textiles, gold and silver work, and ceramics. It also surveys the arts of the “intermediate area” of Central America, chiefly gold and jade work and ceramics, as well as the Caribbean, especially Taino sculpture. Requirements: weekly written critiques and discussions of readings, and a final examination. Auditors are permitted, but they will be expected to attend regularly, do all the readings, and contribute to discussions. 1 FALL 2003 - COURSE DESCRIPTIONS ART 71500 - Topics in Italian Renaissance and Mannerist Art: Trecento Painting and Sculpture in Italy, 1250-1400 GC: Wed., 6:30-8:30 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Mallory, Rm. 3416, [45691] This course will examine the art of Florence, Padua, Siena, Rome and Assisi from c. 1250 until c. 1400. Called Late Gothic or Proto Renaissance by art historians, this period is witness to a transformation in religious and secular art that paves the way for the great masters of the Italian Renaissance. Major painters and sculptors to be studied include Nicola, Giovanni, and Andrea Pisano, Cimabue, Giotto, Duccio, Simone Martini, and Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Topics to be discussed include: the evolution of the altarpiece, the development of large- scale fresco decoration, Giotto and Duccio and the growth of visual narratives, the role of secular art, and the effects of the “Black Death” on the art of its time. Auditors permitted. ART 72100 – Topics in Baroque Art: Velázquez: Painting as Making and As Discourse in 17th- Century Europe GC: Tues., 2:00-4:00 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Vergara, Rm. 3416, [45693] The paintings and career of Velázquez provide the touchstones of this course. “Making” refers to the material and formal constituents of Velázquez’s paintings--i.e., to the very basis of their imagery and metaphors. “Discourse”-- here limited primarily to 17th-c. writings on art from Spain, Italy and The Netherlands; highly influential passages on painting from Pliny’s Natural History (1st c. CE); and pictorial discourse discernable in selected paintings by other 17th-c. practitioners--will provide an important interpretative tool, and will also help historicize the phenomena that inspired comments from that of painter Luca Giordano, on Las Meninas: “this is the theology of painting” (ca. 1692) to Manet’s “Velázquez is the greatest painter there ever was,” and beyond. Recurring themes include: forms of artistic self-definition and self-reflection; career strategies; interdependencies of patronage and art; the value placed on virtuosity, and some characteristically Baroque notions of this; concepts of nature and the naturalistic; and the intense awareness of recognizable visual languages (styles, manners) as essential components of artistic intelligibility. Students will be provided with a list of promising, manageable paper topics from which to choose, each with an accompanying bibliography; they may also submit topics for approval. Auditors permitted. ART 75500 – Topics in Modern Art: From Symbolism to Constructivism: Pioneers of Abstraction in France, Germany, The Netherlands, and Russia GC: Mon., 4:15-6:15 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Long, Rm. 3416, [45695] Why did so many European artists equate the process of abstraction with concepts of purity and progress during the first two decades of the twentieth century? This course will discuss the social, political, and cultural context that contributed to the privileging of abstraction as an international means of expression, not only in painting but also in design and photography as well. Among the artists to be considered wilt be Kandinsky, Marc, the Delaunays, Kupka, Mondrian, van Doesburg, Malevich, Tatlin, Lissitzky, Rodchenko, Stepanova, and Moholy- Nagy. We will examine their involvement with Symbolism, Expressionism, Orphism, Dadaism, Suprematism, Constructivism, and Productivism and analyze critical essays of the period that attacked and/or defended concepts of abstraction. Requirements: short oral report and exam. Auditors permitted. 2 FALL 2003 - COURSE DESCRIPTIONS ART 75600 - Topics in Modern Architecture: Townhouses, Brownstones and Rowhouses GC: Mon., 6:30-8:30 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Murphy, Rm. 3416, [45723] This course will introduce the histories of a group of related building types: townhouses, rowhouses, and brownstones. In general, it will focus on buildings that share at least one party wall with another residential structure and that were conceived as parts of larger groupings in European and U.S. cities. Examples will range in date from the origins of the type in the mid-18th century through the “Brownstone Revival” of the 1960s onward. The intention will be not just to show architectural variations on the basic themes, but also to address how these building types responded to changing conceptions of domestic and urban life. Further, we will look at some of the ways that townhouses, rowhouses, and brownstones have figured in works of literature and the other visual arts. Lectures will begin with the development of attached housing for various classes of urban dwellers in Europe and Great Britain. Then the course will move to the U.S. to examine some of the many variations on the rowhouse type that emerged in Boston, New York, Baltimore, Charleston, San Francisco and other cities. Both modest examples (often by unknown designers) and more elaborate architect-designed rowhouses will be treated. In addition to attending the lectures, students will be required to participate in class visits to New York area rowhouses, take a final exam, and to write a short research paper on a building of their choosing. For students not focusing on architecture, it will be possible to write about a literary or visual representation of a townhouse, rowhouse, or brownstone. Auditors permitted. ART 75600 - Topics in Modern Architecture: Islamic Art, Architecture and Society in the West GC: Mon., 2:00.-4:00 PM, 3 credits, Prof. Dodds, Rm. 3416, [45848] This course will explore the meanings that can be drawn from interchange between the architecture of Islamic communities within pluralistic societies in Europe, the Mediterranean and America. In the 20th Century, global economics and politics will draw the architecture of Iraq, Iran and New York City into the subject of the course. It will begin with an introduction to Islamic Architecture, and an exploration of issues surrounding the formation of visual identity in a multi-confessional landscape. It will continue with a number of case studies ranging from the 8th century to the present, that include introductions to some of the theoretical discourses that have emerged concerning cultural representation and exchange and appropriation in art and architecture. Auditors by permission of instructor. ART 76000 – Topics in Contemporary Art: Latin American Vanguards GC: Mon., 11:45 A.M.-1:45 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Manthorne, Rm. 3416, [45692] This lecture course explores the character of Latin American artistic vanguards of the 1920s and 1930s. Building on that material, we then consider vanguardism as a precursor to developments in contemporary art. We span the principle geographic centers where these movements emerged including Havana, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, and Lima. We look at these vanguards as multifaceted cultural activity, a layering of a variety of creative acts and events. We view the works of art against larger philosophical and political themes expressed in manifestos, public performances, and criticism. Parallel literary vanguard movements provide us with important counterpoints. Five (5) auditors permitted. 3 FALL 2003 - COURSE DESCRIPTIONS ART 76000 – Topics in Contemporary Art: European Art 1945-1982 GC: Thurs., 2:00-4:00 P.M., 3 credits, Prof.