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The Minor in Art History

Laptop Requirement

To complete this program, the student must have the use of a laptop computer. Please consult with the department for current hardware and software requirements. Students qualify to receive special education discounts on computers and software sold through the Associated Students Bookstore (an Apple authorized campus store). For some programs, in an effort to lower student expenses, bundles consisting of a specially priced Apple laptop computer with the program's required software will be made available at the beginning of each academic year through the Associated Students Bookstore. This laptop computer package is expected to serve the student for the entire length of the program.

Course Requirements for the Minor: 21 units

The following courses, or their approved transfer equivalents, are required of all candidates for this minor.

2 courses required:

SUBJ NUM Title Sustainable Units Semester Offered Course Flags
Survey of the major visual arts of the Ancient World through the Middle Ages. 3 hours lecture. This is an approved General Education course. (000705)
Survey of the major visual arts of the Renaissance and the Modern World. 3 hours lecture. This is an approved General Education course. (000706)

1 course selected from:

SUBJ NUM Title Sustainable Units Semester Offered Course Flags
Survey of the major visual arts of India, China, and Japan from the prehistoric to the nineteenth-century period. An emphasis on the traditional Buddhist, Taoist, and Shinto arts. 3 hours lecture. This is an approved General Education course. This is an approved Global Cultures course. (000707)
A survey of visual arts, including Pre-Columbian, Post-Columbian, Native American, Islamic, and African. These arts will be placed in their historical, social, and religious contexts. 3 hours lecture. This is an approved General Education course. This is an approved Global Cultures course. (000709)

4 courses selected from:

SUBJ NUM Title Sustainable Units Semester Offered Course Flags
Prerequisites: ARTH 101 and ARTH 102 for art majors; faculty permission.
In-depth investigation of certain special areas of interest in art history based upon particular faculty competencies and student interest. 3 hours seminar. (000856)
Prerequisites: ARTH 101 and ARTH 102 for art majors.
In-depth study of the art and architecture of the Greek world during the Bronze Age, Aegean, Geometric, Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods. An emphasis will be placed upon understanding the development of the Greek artistic concepts, such as idealism and realism, within their cultural and political context. 3 hours lecture. (000858)
Prerequisites: ARTH 101 and ARTH 102 for art majors.
In-depth study of the art and architecture of the Roman world covering the Etruscan, Republican, Early and Late Imperial periods. An emphasis will be placed upon understanding the Roman character of Roman art and architecture, as well as domestic life through the arts as found at Pompeii, Herculaneus, etc. 3 hours lecture. (000860)
Prerequisites: ARTH 101 and ARTH 102 for art majors.
In-depth study of the art and architecture of the Middle Ages, with an emphasis on the Romanesque and Gothic periods in France and England. The course will cover great cathedrals, such as Notre Dame of Paris, Chartres, Amiens, etc., and their sculpture and stained glass decorations. The course will also provide an understanding of the nature of style change and development from the Classical to the Medieval periods. 3 hours lecture. (000843)
Prerequisites: ARTH 101 and ARTH 102 for art majors.
An investigation of the arts of Northern Europe and Spain during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with emphasis upon the Netherlands' development of oil painting. The scriptoria and illuminations of the International Style, the Limbourg Brothers, the Master of Flemale, Van Eyck, Van der Weyden, Van der Goes, Bosch, Schongauer, Grunewald, Durer, Cranach, Charoton, Fouques, Berruguete, Bruegel, Holbein, and the Tutor Mannerist Style; reciprocal influences with the Italian Renaissance of Italy will be covered. 3 hours lecture. (000845)
Prerequisites: ARTH 101 and ARTH 102 for art majors.
An investigation of form and content in Italian Renaissance and Mannerist painting, sculpture, and architecture between 1400 and 1500. The impact on art of Neoplatonic philosophy, Humanism, Franciscan Catholicism, political intrigues, and the growth of capitalism will be considered, as well as other aspects of the historical context of art. Botticelli, Donatello, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Titian are among the artists to be studied. 3 hours lecture. (000846)
Prerequisites: ARTH 101 and ARTH 102 for art majors.
An investigation of form and content in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European painting, printmaking, sculpture, architecture, gardens, and decorative arts. Protestant and Catholic visual languages and patronage will be compared. The impact on art of exploration and colonial expansion, war, and revolution, as well as developments in education and technology, will be explored, along with influences on European art from the Orient. Some of the artists to be covered are Caravaggio, Bernini, Leyster, Gentileschi, Rembrandt, Rubens, Velazques, Hogarth, and Vigee-Lebrun. 3 hours lecture. (000849)
Prerequisites: ARTH 101 and ARTH 102 for art majors.
An investigation of form and content in European painting, printmaking, sculpture, and architecture during the first half of the nineteenth century. Attitudes toward observation versus invention, and originality versus eclecticism, common to Romantic, Neoclassical, and Realistic artists will be examined. Writings by philosophers, artists, and critics such as Burke and Runge will be analyzed, as well as the effect on art of the industrial revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and progress in the fields of education and science. Issues related to gender and to Non-Western peoples will be discussed. Some of the artists to be covered are Bonheur, Delacroix, Friedrich, Goya, Ingres, and Turner. 3 hours lecture. (000774)
Prerequisites: ARTH 101 and ARTH 102 for art majors.
An investigation of form and content in European painting, printmaking, sculpture, architecture, and decorative arts during the second half of the nineteenth century. Attitudes toward observation versus invention, and originality versus eclecticism, common to Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, Symbolist, and Expressionist artists will be examined. Writings by philosophers, artists, and critics, such as Ruskin and Van Gogh, will be analyzed. Issues related to gender and to Non-Western peoples will be discussed, as well as the effect on art of the Industrial Revolution, wars, and progress in the fields of education and science. Some of the artists to be covered are Cassatt, Cezanne, Gaugin, Manet, Monet, Marisot, Modersohn-Becker, Seurat, and Munch. 3 hours lecture. (000776)
Prerequisites: ARTH101 and ARTH 102 for art majors.
An investigation of the European Avant-Garde of the first half of the century: Modernism, Cubism, Fauvism, Expressionism, Futurism, Constructivism, Dada, Neue Sachlichkeit, the Bauhaus, and Surrealism in painting, sculpture, architecture, and performance art. These movements will be related to music, dance, literature, theater, and to the European social, intellectual, and political ambience of the period up to and including World War II, when key European artist refugees arrived in the United States. Such artists as Marcel Duchamp, Kathe Kodwitz, and Pablo Picasso will be considered. 3 hours lecture. (000777)
Prerequisites: ARTH 102 for Art majors.
An investigation of artists and issues that have occupied the global contemporary art world since 1980. 3 hours lecture. (000838)
Prerequisites: ARTH 101 and ARTH 102 for Art majors.
This course investigates the development of American art from the Colonial period to World War II. It concentrates on painting, but also considers sculpture, architecture, photography, as well as decorative and folk arts. Artists to be explored at some depth include Benton, Cole, Henri, Homer, Krasner, Lawrence, O'Keefe, Pollack, Rivers, and West. Art will be presented in its social and historical contexts. The roles played by museums, galleries, and art schools, and the influence of collectors and dealers will be examined. Mutual influences between American and European, Non-Western, and Ethnic cultures will be discussed. 3 hours lecture. (000835)
Prerequisites: ARTH 101 and ARTH 102 for art majors.
This course investigates the development of California Art from the late eighteenth century to the present. Emphasis will be on painting, with sculpture, architecture, photography, and allied arts also considered. An understanding of California idioms will be developed through the examination of landscape painting, California Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, WPA projects, Post-Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, the Bay Area Figurative Movement, Assemblage, "Kar Kulture," Minimalism, and Performance Art. 3 hours seminar. (000861)
Prerequisites: ARTH 101 and ARTH 102 for art majors.
In-depth study of Chinese and Japanese visual arts (architecture, painting, sculpture, and other fine arts such as ceramics and woodblock prints) from the pre-historic to the nineteenth-century period. 3 hours lecture. (000844)
Prerequisites: ARTH 101 and ARTH 102 for art majors.
A survey of ancient Mexican art and culture of formative, classic, conquest, including the Olmec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Mxtec, Classic Gulf Coast, Toltec, and Aztec. Sites discussed include El Tajin, La Venta, Monte Alban, Milta, Tula, and Tenochtitlan 3 hours lecture. (000841)
An investigation of the art of the ancient Maya of Mexico and Central America prior to European contact, from the Preclassic to Postclassic periods. The relationship of art to religious beliefs and practices will be explored, as well as the development of local styles associated with royal courts. Sites discussed include Tikal, Palenque, Copan, Uxmal, and Chichen Itza 3 hours lecture. (020618)
Prerequisites: ARTH 101 and ARTH 102 for art majors.
This course is also offered as CHST 406.
A survey of Mexican art and culture from the Cortesian Conquest, the Colonial Period of monastery- and church-building, the Revolution of 1810, the Revolution of 1910, and the painters of the great revolutionary mural movement that followed, Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueriros, to contemporary artists who have tended toward international pluralism. Attention is given to the process of acculturation that produced the modern Mexican peoples, their national character, and their contemporary art. 3 hours lecture. (000842)
An investigation of the art of Peru and adjacent regions prior to European contact. The relationship of art to religious beliefs and practices, political ideologies, and the significance of styles and technologies are examined. Cultures surveyed include Chavin, Paracas, Nasca, Moche, Tiwanaku, and Inka, as well as the Northern Andean civilizations such as San Agustin. 3 hours lecture. (020619)
Prerequisites: ARTH 101 and ARTH 102 for art majors.
Investigation of the traditional and contemporary arts and cultures of the Amerindian and Eskimo of the continental United States, Canada, and Alaska. Six major culture areas will be examined: the Arctic, Pacific Northwest, California, the Southwest, and Eastern Woodlands, and the florescent cultures of the Plains and Intermontane. Such problems as a definition of Indian Art, transoceanic contact, acculturation, and the moral and ethical questions posed by Indian Rights will be considered. 3 hours lecture. (000852)
Prerequisites: ARTH 101 and ARTH 102 for art majors.
An investigation of the arts and cultures of the African continent, with major emphasis upon the Negroid peoples south of the Sahara, the medieval kingdoms of the Sudan and the rain forest cultures and great civilizations of Ife, Benin, and the Congo, the sculpture, painting, body art, architecture, music, dance, belief systems, aural tradition of folklore, and reciprocal influences with other continents will be considered. 3 hours lecture. (000853)
Prerequisites: ARTH 101 and ARTH 102 for Art majors.
This survey acquaints students with the language of form and space and stylistic vocabularies related to interiors, furnishings, and architecture from the Egyptians through 18th century European. Some aspects of Asian and Islamic furnishings and decorative arts will be included as influences on European design. 3 hours lecture. (000775)
Prerequisites: ARTH 101 and ARTH 102 for Art majors.
Survey of the language of form and space and stylistic vocabularies related to interiors, furnishings, and architecture for 19th and 20th century European and American art from the Colonial period. Styles such as Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Bauhaus, Memphis, and Post Modern will be addressed, and architects and designers such as William Morris, Frank Lloyd Wright, Eileen Gray, and LeCorbusier will be included. 3 hours lecture. (000778)
The visual aspect of film (without which there would be no film), a history of film imagery, analysis of aesthetic aspects of montage, examination of relationships between film and major nineteenth and twentieth century art movements, avant-garde and underground film, recent developments, including experiments in video and computer-generated imagery. Innovative filmmakers such as Maya Deren and Hans Richter will be studied. 3 hours lecture. (000780)
The development of photography from roots in classical and medieval discoveries to the present, its role in historical documentation, its reciprocal influence upon the arts, its contribution to science, and its importance as an extension of human vision. Non-silver processes and fusion of photography with computer and other media will be examined. Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Alfred Stieglitz, and Edward Weston are among the photographers to be considered. 3 hours lecture. (000773)
Catalog Cycle:11