51 - 60 of 162 results for: ARTHIST

This seminar investigates architecture in Rome, from Michelangelo to Piranesi. It examines the origins of modern urbanism; the piazza as ceremonial theater; the water network and fountain displays; palace design inside and out; religious institutions, from convents to confraternities; church design inside and out; the devotional and illusionistic space of the family chapel; festival architecture; light symbolism and geometry; the use of new materials and technologies; the relationship of early modern architecture to painting and sculpture; and the question of a unity of the arts.

What happens when art functions as a decoy, taking us away from stories that it refuses to tell? We will explore three modern artists who grapple, in unpredictable ways, with the historical events that have shaped them: Philip Guston and the Holocaust; Martin Puryear and the Civil Rights movement; and South African artist William Kentridge and apartheid. When appropriate, we will look at objects at the Cantor Art Center (Stanford) as well as museums in the Bay Area. The course will provide the foundation for an exhibition at the Cantor Arts Center and the Yale University Art Gallery in 2016.

This seminar investigates all aspects of the work of the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and its leader Rem Koolhaas. Topics for class research and inquiry include but are not be limited to: Koolhaas's early work at the Architectural Association and the founding of OMA, the publications of OMA and their style of presentation and theoretical foundations, the importance of AMO, and the architects who have left OMA and founded their own practices and how these differ from OMA. Each student completes an in-depth research paper and an in-class presentation.

Both cars and the landscape are fundamental to American identity. This seminar will consider the relationship between them: how they have shaped each other, how one mediates the experience of the other, and how American artists such as Ansel Adams, Edward Hopper, and Ed Ruscha have represented both. We will discuss the relationship between nature and technology; the aesthetics of highways and parkways; the phenomenology of driving and road trips; maps and way finding; and the future of cars, mapping, and the landscape.

This seminar explores the place of images in how we understand and imagine the universe. The course draws on art, science, and popular culture, and pays particular attention to the ways they inform each other. Examples include: star maps, science fiction films, appropriated astronomical images, and telescopic views of stars, planets, and nebulae. Using these representations as well as accompanying readings we will discuss the importance of aesthetics for conceptions of the cosmos; the influence of technology on representations; strategies for representing concepts that exceed the limits of human vision; and the ways that views of the universe reflect and shape their cultural context. Open to undergraduates and graduates.

Printed objects produced during the Edo period (1600-1868), including the Ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world) and lesser-studied genres such as printed books (ehon) and popular broadsheets (kawaraban). How a society constructs itself through images. The borders of the acceptable and censorship; theatricality, spectacle, and slippage; the construction of play, set in conflict against the dominant neo-Confucian ideology of fixed social roles.

The Japanese tea ceremony, the ultimate premodern multimedia phenomenon, integrates architecture, garden design, ceramics, painting, calligraphy, and other treasured objects into a choreographed ritual wherein host, objects, and guests perform designated roles on a tiny stage sometimes only six feet square.. In addition to its much-touted aesthetic and philosophical aspects, the practice of tea includes inevitable political and rhetorical dimensions. This course traces the evolution of tea practice from its inception within the milieu of courtier diversions, Zen monasteries, and warrior villas, through its various permutations into the 20th century, where it was manipulated by the emerging industrialist class for different-but ultimately similar-ends.

Contemporary Chinese ink painters are exploring new ground. They push the limits of the medium, creating installations and performances, mixing ink with other media, and advancing age-tested brushstrokes and compositions. The recent flurry of exhibitions attests to contemporary ink painting¿s increasing importance. nnThis seminar introduces major figures (Xu Bing, Liu Dan, Zheng Chongbin, Li Huasheng, etc.) and movements in contemporary Chinese ink art. Emphasis is placed on improving writing abilities and on in-class reports and discussion. Topics for discussion include readings, individual works of art, and broad issues in contemporary art. Prerequisite: courses in Art History and/or Studio Art OR permission of instructor. open to undergraduates and graduates.

This course resembles an intellectual haberdashery, where students will try on different writing hats each week. They will begin as journalists, writing about the California art scene and responding to Bay Area exhibitions. They will then expand their writing skills to become scholars, critics and essayists, thinking more broadly about visual culture and the humanities. Over the course of the term, they will choose a selected group of art works from local museums (or focus on individual films) and then write an imaginary exhibition catalog centering on their choices. The writing will progress in stages, from early drafts to a publishable final product. Required course for Art History majors.WIM Course.