HSAR 112, Undergraduate Lecture
Mondays and Wednesdays, 11:35am-12:25pm
(with Prof. Milette Gaifman)
This course surveys the history of Western art, in various media, from its paleolithic origins through Greco-Roman antiquity and the Middle Ages to the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. Lectures will introduce important monuments of architecture, sculpture, and painting, as well as major themes associated with particular periods and cultures. We will pay special attention to the formative role art played in the development of cultures, its relation to verbal forms of expression, and its use as an instrument of social, political, and religious power in different times and places. Discussion sections will help cultivate students’ ability to speak and write intelligently about the formal qualities of works of art, their subject matter, and their significance within their respective historical contexts.
