4.601 | Fall 2018 | Undergraduate

Introduction to Art History

Calendar

Each week of the course is organized around a different theme; most weeks featured two lectures on topics related to that theme.

WEEK # THEMES LECTURE TOPICS RECITATIONS and field trips KEY DATES
1 Introduction 1. Introduction: What is Art?    
2 Art, History, Representation 2a. Learning to Look/Interpreting What We See
2b. The Devotional Image
Recitation topic: Thinking About Pictures  
3 Capturing the World 3a. Pictorial Space and Perspective
3b. Media Revolutions: Paint and Print in the North
   
4 Renaissance Worlds 4a. Worlding the Italian Renaissance
4b. Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael: Making Renaissance Art
Field trip: “Adam and Eve” exhibition at the Harvard Art Museums Tuesday: first paper due
5 Women and Men in the Renaissance 5a. Representing Women
5b. The Status of the Artist
Recitation topic: Gender Trouble in the Renaissance  
6 Reformation / Counterreformation 6. Art as Theater in 17th-Century Rome Midterm review  
7 The Global Seventeenth Century 7. Dutch Art in Global Perspective   Thursday: midterm exam
8 Art and Power 8a. Art and Absolutism in France and Spain
8b. Public Exhibitions: Enter the Art Critic
Field trip: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston  
9 Art and Morality 9a. The Lure of the Antique
9b. Beyond Representation: Color and Touch
Recitation topic: The Art Museum  
10 Art and Empire 10. Romanticism and Empire Recitation topic: Orientalisms Tuesday: second paper due
11 The Second Media Revolution 11a. Photography and Photographic Truth
11b. The Artist and the City
Field trip: visit to the MIT Museum to view daguerrotypes and stereoscopes  
12 The Spaces of Modernity 12. The Artist and the City, part 2    
13 Art / Anti-Art 13a. Modernist Primitivism
13b. Surrealism and Dada
Recitation topic: Primitivism  
14 Art and After 14a. Abstract Expressionism: Art and Politics
14b. After the Art Object: From Pop to Performance
Field trip: visit and discussion of exhibition, “Joan Jonas, Sources and Methods,” MIT, ACT Tuesday: final paper due
15 The Global Contemporary 15. Where We Are Now; Concluding Thoughts    

Course Info

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As Taught In
Fall 2018