Art & Art History

This course explores drawing and painting as a means of seeing more acutely, examining cultural narratives, and experimenting with a range of materials. Technical skills are fused with conceptual inquiries and critical analysis. This course emphasizes the interplay between intellectual, expressive, and material aspects of the creative process as they relate to recording and relating visual relationships, expressing spatial and temporal phenomena, and critically engaging with art historical, contemporary, and personal issues and narratives relating to the figure and/or body. The course will begin with explorations of different drawing media and approaches and then shift to painting processes. Additionally, an examination of contemporary trends in art informs the themes and approaches explored in this course.

This beginning printmaking course introduces students to technical aspects and creative possibilities of lithography and screen printing. Planographic processes that are introduced include stone lithography and plate lithography. Students learn several non-toxic screen print procedures, including paper and fluid stencils, reduction printing and crayon resists. There is an overview of historical and contemporary works in each area.

This course explores the use of computer code as a form of creative practice and artmaking. Students discuss the history, practice, and current trends in computational art through a blend of theoretical and project-based learning. Through weekly examples and projects, students learn core concepts of computer science and apply them to the creation of digital artworks. Creative coding, the practice of writing computer programs for creative purposes, is practiced in many different domains of art and design. These include graphic design, generative art, interaction design, digital fabrication, data visualization, and installation art. To explore these different applications of creative coding, this course is oriented around four core topics: generative design, interaction design, data-driven art, and virtual environments. Prior experience with computer programming is not required.

This course explores the artistic traditions of the Late Antique and Byzantine periods from the earliest surviving monuments of Christian art of the mid-3rd century to the monuments of the Late Byzantine Empire up to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The course examines how the interactions between the Greco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian traditions produced the art of Late Antiquity and Byzantium, and accentuates the visual, social, and religious continuities and ruptures between these traditions. Works of art are examined with particular attention to their original function, context, and intended audience, and are presented from a range of methodological perspectives. Topics of special interest include: the formation of Christian art; images of power and authority; representations of gender; the function and decoration of liturgical spaces; icons, image theory, and the Iconoclastic Controversy; depictions of the secular world; Byzantine art beyond the borders of the empire.

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the history and techniques of East Asian calligraphy as one of the supreme artistic accomplishments in China, Japan, and Korea. It combines the historical study of this art form with its hand-on practice as an art performance. Emphasis is put on the understanding of the multi-function of calligraphy in East Asian society.