Art 201: Introduction to Art History

Art 201. Introduction to Art History
Reed College, Spring 2006, Section 02

Syllabus (Download as a .doc)

Classes: Tuesdays and Thursdays 10:30 to 11:50 am. in ART 201.
Instructor: Ömür Harmansah (Office: Library 321 - E-mail: harmanso@reed.edu)
Office Hours: Fridays 9-12 am and by appointment
Course Website: http://www.reed.edu/~harmanso/art201s06_02/index.html
Consult website for syllabus and weekly reading updates, assignments etc.

Course Description

This course is an introduction to art history as a field of cultural production. The readings and conference discussions will be directed towards exploring not only the paradigmatic works of art and architecture from antiquity to post-modernity but also the interpretive texts produced about them. Emphasis will be placed on the shift of practices of artifact production with skilled crafting in pre-industrial societies towards modern definitions of art and visual culture with their distinctive socio-cultural status in the contemporary world. Case studies are thus drawn from ancient Near Eastern and classical antiquity as well as the Western post-industrial art. While the development of the discipline form 18th century onwards will be problematized, core discursive issues in art history such as representation, iconography, narrative, technology, style, museum studies will be addressed.

Books ordered through the Bookstore:

The following three books are available for your purchase at Reed Bookstore. Several readings will be assigned from Nelson and Schiff's edited volume throughout the semester, and Berger and Panofsky's books will be read in their entirety. Other articles and books will be available on paper and e-reserve.

Nelson, Robert S. and Richard Schiff (eds.); 2003. Critical terms for art history. The revised 2nd edition. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago.
Berger, John; 1972. Ways of Seeing. BBC and Penguin Books: London.
Panofsky, Erwin; 1991. Perspective as symbolic form. Translated by Christopher S. Wood. Originally published as Perspektive als 'Symbolische Form' (Leipzig-Berlin 1927). New York : Zone Books; Cambridge, Mass. : Distributed by the MIT Press.

Requirements

1. Conference Attendance and Participation
All students are expected to do the weekly readings and participate regularly and rigorously in the conference discussions. If you miss a conference, you will be responsible to turn in summaries of articles that were discussed on the day of your absence.

2. Logbook: an Intimate Record of the Course
You will be asked to keep a logbook throughout the semester to keep an intimate documentation of your ideas, thoughts, projects, visual imagery that this class had provoked in your mind. Hard-cover, spiral-bound, 7-10" sketch books are made available for you at the bookstore but you are free to try different formats, or you can even produce it yourself. The logbook will be an accumulated product of the whole semester's work of note-taking, writing, sketching, drawing, cutting-pasting etc, using any kind of media. It will be your own design, your own work of art. It will be reviewed by Ömür twice during the semester, once before the fall break and once at the end of the semester. Expected minimum for the content of the logbooks will be the core concepts to be covered in conferences.

3. Papers
A series of three short writing assignments will be spread throughout the semester. The first assignment involves a museum visit and writing about a painting, second will relate to the problem of style/visual culture, third on architectural space. Especially the last two papers should demonstrate your library research skills.

4. Final Exam
There will be a take-home final exam at the end of the semester. You will receive a set of broad art- and architecture historical questions, drawn from conference discussions throughout the semester, and will be asked select one or two to respond. To be well-prepared for this take-home, it is recommended that you keep a good record of your reading notes and conference discussions throughout the semester.

Weekly Reading Schedule

Please note that the following is only a guideline and there will be slight adjustments in this schedule over the course of the semester. Look for Ömür's handouts every week for reading list updates or check the course webpage.

Week 1. Introduction: Art history as a discipline.

Jan. 24 - (Tu): Introduction: the field of art history, architectural history: looking at images, buildings and reading texts.
Jan. 26 - (Th): Art history as a modern discipline: foundations, boundaries and frontiers.
Nelson, Robert; 1997. "The map of art history" The Art Bulletin 79: 28-40. (Handout).
Carrier, David; 2003. "Art history" in Critical terms for art history, 174-187.

Week 2. But what is art? (or The Origins of the World)

Jan. 31 - (Tu): The origins of the world: from the Woman of Villendorf to Courbet.
Nochlin, Linda; 1986. "Courbet's 'L'origine du monde': The Origin without an Original," October 37: 76-86.
Collins, Desmond and John Onians; 1978. "The origins of art" Art History 1: 1-25.
Feb. 2 - (Th): But what is art?- Palaeolithic cave paintings in South Africa: production of images as bodily performance and shamanistic practice.
Lewis-Williams, J. David; 2001. "South African shamanistic rock art in its social and cognitive contexts," in Archaeology of shamanism. Niel S. Price (ed.). London and New York: Routledge, 17-39. (E-reserve)
Taon, Paul S.C. and Sven Ouzman; 2004. "Worlds within stone: the inner and outer rock-art landscapes of northern Australia and southern Africa," in The figured landscapes of rock-art: looking at pictures in place. C. Chippindale and G Nash (eds.). Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 39-68. (E-reserve)

Week 3. Looking, describing, interpreting the work of art.

Feb. 7 - (Tu): Describing pictures, making meaning.
Alpers, Svetlana; 1977. "Is art history?" Daedalus 1: 1-13 (Handout).
Baxandall, Michael; 1985. "Patterns of intention," in The art of art history. D. Preziosi (ed.). Oxford History of Art, 52-61. (Reserve Main)
Crary, Jonathan; 1998. "Attention and modernity in the Nineteenth Century" in Picturing science, producing art. C. A. Jones and P. Galison (eds.). Routledge: New York, 475-499. (E-reserve)
Feb. 9 - (Th): Art historical description: the portrait. Discussion of the first writing assignment.
[Museum paper due]
Van Alpen, Ernst; 2005. "The portrait's dispersal," in Art in mind: how contemporary images shape thought. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 21-47. (Reserve Main)

Week 4. What is an image? Problems in iconography.

Feb. 14 - (Tu): Panofsky's concept of iconology.
Panofsky, Erwin; 1955. "Iconography and Iconology: an introduction to the study of Renaissance art," in Meaning in the Visual Arts. New York; 26-40. (Reserve Main).
Mitchell, W.J.T.; 2003. "Word and image" in Critical terms for art history, 51-61.
Feb. 16 - (Th): Other ways of seeing: visuality in the contemporary media.
Berger, John; 1977. Ways of seeing. New York: Penguin Books.
Online images at: http://courses.washington.edu/englhtml/engl569/berger/

Week 5. Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Feb. 21 - (Tu): Walter Benjamin and the status of the photographic image.
Benjamin, Walter; 1969. "The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction," in Illuminations. Hannah Arendt (ed.). New York: Schocken Books, 217-252. (E-reserve)
Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich and Michael Marrinan (eds.); 2003. Mapping Benjamin: the work of art in the digital age. Stanford University Press: Stanford.
Feb. 23 (Th): No class- Ömür out of town: CAA Meetings.

Week 6. Representation, power and the art-historical discourse.

View images for this week.

Feb. 28 - (Tu): Representation, power and art-historical interpretation: (inter-)disciplinary quarrels over interpretations of Velasquez's Las Meninas (1655).
Foucault, Michel; 1994 (1970). The order of things: an archaeology of the human sciences. New York: Vintage Books, 3-16. (E-reserve)
Owens, Craig; 1994. "Representation, appropriation and power," in Beyond recognition: representation, power, and culture. S. Bryson et. al. (eds.) Berkeley: University of California Press, 88-113. (E-reserve)
Alpers, Svetlana; 1983. "Interpretation without representation, or the viewing of Las meninas," Representations 1: 30-42. (E-reserve/J-Stor Database)
Mar. 2 - (Th): Orientalism and the postcolonial discourse in art history.
Said, Edward; 1979. Orientalism. New York Vintage Books.
Nochlin, Linda; 1989. "The imaginary Orient" in The politics of vision. New York, 33-59. (Reserve Main)
‚elik, Zeynep; 2002. "Speaking back to Orientalist discourse" in Orientalism's interlocutors: painting, architecture, photography. Jill Beaulieu and Mary Roberts (eds.). Durham and London: Duke University Press, 19-42. (E-reserve)

Week 7. Style: old and new definitions.

Mar. 7 - (Tu): Style in dominant art-historical discourse.
Elsner, Jas; 2003."Style" in Critical terms for art history. 2nd edition. Robert S. Nelson and Richard Shiff (ed.) 98-109. (Reserve Main)
Shapiro, Meyer; 1998. ."Style" in Preziosi, The art of art history, 143-149.
Gombrich, Ernst; 1998. "Style" in Preziosi, The art of art history, 150-163.
Mar. 9 - (Th): Post-formalist approaches to style: the idea of technological style in the ancient world.
Summers, David; 2003. "Facture" in Real spaces: world art history and the rise of Western modernism. New York: Phaidon, 61-98.
Winter, Irene J.; 1998. "The affective properties of styles: An inquiry into analytical process and the inscription of meaning in art history," in Picturing Science, Producing Art, C.A. Jones and P. Galison (eds.), New York & London: Routledge; 55-77.

Spring Break: March 11-19.

Week 8. Anthropological approaches to art: skilled craftsmanship, technology and the agency of artifacts.

Mar. 21 - (Tu): Alfred Gell's theory of art and agency.
Gell, Alfred; 1998. Art and agency: an anthropological theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1-27. (Reserve Main N72 A56 G45 1998 and Omur's Door)
Gell, Alfred; 1992. "The technology of enchantment and the enchantment of technology," in Anthropology, art and aesthetics. Jeremy Coote and Anthony Shelton (eds.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 40-63. (Reserve Main, e-reserve and Ömür's Door)
Mar. 23 - (Th): Poetics of making and cultures of viewing in Early Mesopotamia.
[Logbooks due at the end of class-returned on Friday morning]
Helms, Mary W.; 1993. Craft and the kingly ideal, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1-27. (E-reserve)
Winter, Irene J.; 2003. " 'Surpassing work': mastery of materials and the value of skilled production in ancient Sumer," in Culture through objects: ancient Near Eastern studies in honor of P.R.S. Moorey. Timothy Potts, Michael Roaf, Diana Stein (eds.); Oxford: Griffith Institute, 403-421. (E-reserve)

Week 9. The problem of style and authorship - conventions of representation.

Mar. 28 - (Tu): The miniature album signed by Siyah Kalem in the Topkapi Palace archives, Istanbul.
Foucault, Michel; 1969. "What is an author?" in Preziosi, The art of art history 299-314.
Grabar, Oleg; 2001. Mostly miniatures: an introduction to Persian painting. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Haydaroglu, Mine (ed.); 2004. I, Mehmed Siyah Kalem: Master of humans and demons. Istanbul: Yapi Kredi Yayinlari.
Steinhardt, Nancy Shatzman; 1987. "Siyah Qalem and Gong Kai: an Istanbul album painter and a Chinese painter of the Mongolian period," Muqarnas 4: 59-70.
Mar. 30 - (Th): Spatial representation: the problem of the perspective.
Leon Battista Alberti. De re aedificatoria (On the art of building in Ten Books.) J. Rykwert et al (trans). Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press. Book 1 (E-reserve).
Perez-Gomez, Alberto and Louise Pelletier; 1997. Architectural representation and the perspective hinge. The MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass. 16-33.
Summers, David; 2003. Real spaces: world art history and the rise of Western modernism. New York: Phaidon, 508-526.

Week 10. Perspective as symbolic form- narrative as pictorial form.

Apr. 4 - (Tu): Panofsky's theory of perspective as symbolic form.
Panofsky, Erwin; 1991. Perspective as symbolic form. Read C. Wood's introduction and the Four sections of the main text. Pp. 7-72.
Apr. 6 - (Th): Narrativitiy and pictorial representation.
Kemp, Wolfgang; 2003."Narrative" in Critical terms for art history. 2nd edition. Robert S. Nelson and Richard Shiff (ed.) 62-74. (Reserve Main)
White, Hayden; 1987. "The value of narrativity in the representation of reality," in The content of the form: narrative discourse and historical representation. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1-25. (E-reserve)

Week 11. Pictorial narratives

Apr. 11 - (Tu): Assyrian palace reliefs and the question of pictorial narrative in ancient Mesopotamia.
Winter, Irene J.; 1981. "Royal Rhetoric and the Development of Historical narrative in Neo-Assyrian Reliefs", Studies in Visual Communication 7 (1981) 2-38. (E-reserve)
Russell, John Malcolm; 1987. "Bulls for the palace and order in the empire: The sculptural program of SennacheribÕ Court VI at Nineveh," Art Bulletin 69: 520-539. (E-reserve)
Apr. 13 - (Th): The Column of Trajan: pictorial narrative in the Roman Empire.
Brilliant, Richard; 1984. "The column of Trajan and its heirs: helical tales, ambiguous trails," in Visual narratives: storytelling in Etruscan and Roman art. Cornell University Press, 90-123.

Week 12. Architectural histories I:

Apr. 18 - (Tu): History of architecture: context and meaning.
Kostof, Spiro; 1995. "The study of what we built" in A history of architecture: settings and rituals. New York: Oxford University Press, 3-19.
Hersey, George; 1995. The lost meaning of classical architecture. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1-45.
Apr. 20 - (Th): Phenomenology of space and place.
Heidegger, Martin; 1971. "Building dwelling thinking," in Poetry language thought. A. Hofstadter (trans.). New York: Perennial Classics, 141-160.(E-reserve)
Norberg-Schulz, Christian; 1996 (1976). "The phenomenon of place" in Theorizing a new agenda for architecture: an anthology of architectural theory 1965-1995. Milan: Skira, 412-428. (E-reserve)

Week 13. Architectural histories II:

Apr. 25 - (Tu): Alois Reigl's concept of the monument. [Logbooks due]
Reigl, Alois; 1982. "The modern cult of monuments: its character and its origin," Oppositions 25: 21-51. (E-reserve).
Nelson, Robert S.; 2003. "Tourists, terrorists and metaphysical theater at Hagia Sophia," in Monuments and memory, made and unmade. Robert S. Nelson and Margaret Olin (eds.). The University of Chicago Press, 59-81.
Apr. 27 - (Th): Museums, cultural heritage, cultural representation and the political sphere.
Meskell, Lynn and Robert W. Preucel; 2004. "Politics," in A companion to social archaeology, 315-234. (Reserve Main CC72.4 C67)
Michael Shanks and Christopher Tilley, 1987. "Presenting the Past: towards a redemptive aesthetic for the museum" in Re-Constructing archaeology: theory and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 68-99. (E-reserve).

May 11 Thursday. Take home finals due, before 5 pm at Ömür's door.