MWF 10–11
Instructor TBA

MW 10–11 + Discussion Section
Ann Johns

TTH 9:30–10:30 + Discussion Section
Mode of Instruction: Hybrid
Douglas Cushing

Art is a language: how do we decode its meaning and its extraordinary effect on us, the viewers? How does art reflect the era, location, and culture of both its maker and its patron? Through a blend of online lectures, quizzes, and tests, as well as TA-led visits to UT’s Blanton Museum of Art, students will learn that art is a prism—often beautiful, always challenging—through which we can view the human experience, both past and present. Throughout the semester, students will increase their visual literacy and critical thinking skills by looking at a global array of works from many eras and locations. The only prerequisites are open eyes and open minds! We will concentrate on the familiar media of painting, sculpture, and architecture, but we will also examine drawings, prints, photography, garden planning, ceramics, textiles, earthworks, installation art, and other forms of visual culture, both through live online lectures and through in-person visits to UT’s collections of art.

Fulfills → VAPA

MW 11–12 + Discussion Section
Nassos Papalexandrou

TTH 5–6:30
Instructor TBA

This course discusses art from the prehistoric period to the Early Renaissance (ca. 1300) in Europe, the Middle East and the ancient Americas, with emphasis on style and social and cultural context. The focus on arts-architecture and city planning, sculpture, painting, metalwork, and ceramics—is global with special attention lavished on ancient Near East, Egypt, Africa, Greece, Rome, Islam, Mesoamerica, India, and the European Middle Ages. The control of the viewer’s experience, the political and religious use of art, the meaning of style, the functions of art in public and private life, and the role of art in expressing cultural values will be among the major themes considered. This is also an introduction to the discipline of art history and archaeology, training students in basic vocabulary and techniques of close looking and analytical thinking about visual material.

Fulfills → VAPA

MWF 11–12 
Instructor TBA

TTH 8–9:30
Instructor TBA

As a class, we will explore an extraordinary array of art and architecture from across the globe, including art of Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Cultures. Our course begins c. 1300, in the late Global Middle Ages, and concludes with international artistic trends of the early 21st century. While we will concentrate on the familiar media of painting, sculpture, and architecture, we will also be looking at drawings, prints, photography, the decorative arts, garden planning, ceramics, textiles, interior design, earthworks, installation art, and digital media.

Fulfills → VAPA

TTH 12:30–2
Nassos Papalexandrou

Admit it! You have often allowed yourselves to be lured by the irresistible power of Classical Myths! You have often sailed along with Odysseus in dangerous and uncharted waters and you have been wounded by the bittersweet arrows of Eros. In the Graeco-Roman world myths formed the most important means for articulating the fundamental concepts of the physical and moral universe of the peoples that sought expression in them. The Greeks, the Romans and their neighbors loved to “think” their myths in images covering a wide variety of media such as the wonderful vases at the Blanton museum of art. Can we “think” with them by engaging into a dialogic relationship with their mythical images? Despite the fact that we live in an increasingly visual culture, the ancient usages of imagery may seem puzzling or even paradoxical to us today. Why did the Greeks and Romans need myths in images? How were myths in images meant to be read or looked at? What is the function of images in preliterate versus literate cultures? What is most persuasive: myth in texts or myth in images? In this course we will explore these and other questions by confronting ourselves with a multiplicity of figurative media and the situations that dictated “thinking in visual form.” Our goal will be to understand the nature of myth not only as a particularly Graeco-Roman phenomenon but also as a universal category of thought alongside the power of images in the past and in the present. A basic premise of our exploration is that myth is a dialogic phenomenon, so a particular component of our class will be dedicated to discussion prompted by the content of the images we will be looking at.

TTH 3:30–5
Penelope Davies

This survey of the public art of the city of Rome begins with Augustus’ accession to power (27 BCE) and ends in the late antique period in the early fourth century CE. Lectures are concerned with state or imperial works of architecture and sculpture, assessed within their cultural, political and topographical contexts as vehicles for propaganda, commissioned and designed by the political elite, often as a means of retaining power and suppressing dissent. Politics and power changed the face of Rome through these monuments, which in turn provided sculptural, architectural and urbanistic models that influenced western cultures for centuries to come.

Fulfills → VAPA

MW 2–3:30
John R. Clarke

This course aims to examine Visual Culture to gain a better understanding of how ancient Greeks and Romans thought about themselves with regard to love, sexuality, divine and human beauty, and protection from demonic forces. We will analyze specific works of Greek and Roman art between the sixth century B.C. and the fourth century A.D. to increase our understanding of what these concepts meant within social and cultural contexts that were very different from our own.

My hope is that you will leave the course with a greater understanding of the processes of acculturation or attitude-formation. You will be able to recognize how, in a given culture, the processes of acculturation lead to specific constructions of love, beauty, and security. Indeed, you may come to realize that all the practices of everyday life are cultural constructions: that each culture constructs the rules that regulate social behavior. I hope that your study of these ancient cultures will give you greater understanding of the phenomena of cultural diversity in the world. You should also gain a greater understanding of the major developments within the visual arts over this long period, from classical Greece to early Christianity.

You will improve your ability to read critically, and to recognize and scrutinize the arguments presented in the readings. The course will help you develop your ability to express your ideas in writing and speaking.

This is primarily a lecture course with three exams. The exams combine slide identifications and comparisons with prepared essays. These exams have the goal of getting you to engage with visual representations through the lens of class discussion and the readings. In particular, the prepared essay should develop your critical skills as well as your writing skills. Finally, the five assignments are designed to help you think about how different cultures mirror or contradict the Greek and Roman cultures we are studying.

Fulfills → VAPA

TTH 3:30–5
Katherine Taronas

This course examines the art and architecture of the eastern Mediterranean from the end of Late Antiquity until the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453. Having defined itself against its Classical past, Byzantium in the seventh century underwent fundamental changes that produced a medieval and Christian view of the world. This course will interpret different expressions of this worldview in art and architecture, through the upheavals of Iconoclasm in the eighth and ninth centuries and the so-called “renaissances” of the Macedonian, Komnenian, and Palaiologan periods. It will look at meanings Byzantium gave to materials and techniques in architecture, mosaic, relief carving, textiles, wall and panel painting, enamel and metalwork, coins and seals, and more. Finally, the course will examine art produced within the cultural orbit of Byzantium, exploring themes of artistic exchange with Islamic empires, the Caucasus, Christian Africa, and European kingdoms and Crusaders.

Fulfills → VAPA

Cross-listings → R S 357I

MW 12–1:30
Ann Johns

Florence, Venice, Siena: the cultural landscape of Italy is dominated by cities so rich in artistic treasures that any one example is worthy of a whole course. We begin with the most famous Renaissance city-state, Florence. We will explore the development of art and architecture in civic, ecclesiastic, monastic, palatial, and private settings, from Brunelleschi’s dome to private, secular decoration in the city’s palazzi. We will then examine the cities of Venice and Siena; each of these cities is distinguished by its own unique style of art and architecture. We’ll study Italy’s “court” cities, including Ferrara, Mantua, and Urbino. We’ll observe the unique sense of “place” that distinguishes these communities, but we’ll also discover cultural, artistic, and urban commonalities throughout Renaissance Italy.

We’ll also examine issues such as the role of women and the family; the importance of race and international trade; the rise of specialized hospitals and quarantine islands in an era of plague; and the delicate balance between the growing urban centers and the control of the surrounding territory, so necessary for crops and other resources.

All readings will be posted on Canvas. Assignments include reading responses and other urbanistic analyses. All tests are non-cumulative.

Fulfills → VAPA 

Cross-listings → CTI 375.4 / EUS 347.33

MW 12:30–2
Douglas Cushing

This course examines art produced in Europe and the Americas during the so-called long nineteenth century—spanning from the French Revolution through the First World War. A chronological survey, the class explores art in terms of historical contexts of production and reception, key themes, functions (social, cultural, and aesthetic), literary connections, and legacies.

Fulfills → VAPA 

TTH 11–12:30
Adele Nelson

It is an exciting moment of heightened visibility for postwar and contemporary Latin American art in the United States. This course will take advantage of the University’s rich Latin American art collections to study artwork first-hand and examine South American art and critical debates from 1945 to the present in particular depth. We will also work to redress the exclusion of Caribbean and Central American art and Afro-descendant and Indigenous creators from the study of art of Latin America. Attention will be paid to transnational artistic exchanges, including the role of new art institutions, such as the São Paulo and Havana Biennials. We will consider Latin America-based artists in their distinct contexts and in relation to broader political, social, and economic forces, among these violent dictatorial governments and the Cold War and its aftermaths.

Cross-listings → LAS 327.9

MW 11–12:30
Adele Nelson

Building on landmark exhibitions, this course studies the art of women artists in Latin America from 1900 to the present, ranging from abstract, conceptual, figurative, and performance modes of art making. Discussions will focus on understanding the distinct social, political, and historical contexts of artistic production in various Latin American centers and how artists conceived of their work in relationship to local and international debates about aesthetics, gender, and identity. We will take advantage of the University’s rich collections of Latin American art, including those of the Benson Latin American Collection and Blanton Museum of Art, to study artwork and their display first-hand.

TTH 2–3:30
Natalie Zelt

What are the limits of photography? And how is photography entangled with ideas of Blackness in art? Some artists working today use the photograph and its loaded history in the United States to interrogate formal elements such as tonal range or the chemistry of light, while others delve directly into the politics of representation, the history of art, the boundaries of citizenship, or the performance of gender. This undergraduate seminar will examine various intersections of Blackness and photography in contemporary art of the United States. Paying attention to representation, aesthetics, materiality, and the politics of identity, students will investigate select ways living artists use photographs to grapple with a medium, history, Blackness, and a nation. Each week we will spend time looking an artwork—in class or on campus—reading scholarly texts, and putting them in conversation. This is a discussion-based seminar with a writing flag, not a lecture course. Students will practice close looking with visual texts and will foster analytical skills necessary to carefully and persuasively write about history-making and art in culture. Some of the artists studied will include Nona Faustine, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Zora J. Murff, and Mickalene Thomas.

Fulfills → COM

Cross-listings → AFR 335T / AMS 370

MW 12–1:30
Mode of Instruction: Internet
Moyosore Okediji

This course is a comprehensive study of the visual arts of Africa, in the social and cultural contexts within which people make and use these images. Students will explore historical, contemporary, and diasporic aspects of African art, as part of a larger expressive complex that includes music, dance, literature, and cinematography. The course will present the works of major artists, art groups, ethnicities, and communities, as a lively dialog between the creative imaginations of those who make the objects, and the philosophical responses of those to whom the artists address the objects. This course is web-based.

Fulfills → VAPA

Cross-listings → AFR 335E

TTH 2–3:30
Astrid Runggaldier

This course provides an overview of the cultures that occupied the Andean coast and highlands prior to and in contact with the Spaniards who occupied the area in the 16th century. Given the lack of written historical documentation prior to the Spanish arrival, investigations of the ancient Andean visual arts – the elaborate textiles, fine ceramic vessels, carved stone sculptures, and monumental architecture – have advanced through multidisciplinary approaches. Students examine various culture groups by engaging both the iconography and archaeology of the regional traditions, focusing primarily on the Nasca, Moche, and Chimu cultures, as these are featured prominently in the UT Art and Art History Collection (AAHC).

In this course, we address pertinent environmental and ecological factors, evidence of ritual practices, such as human sacrifice and water management, techniques and materials of manufacture of art and architecture, and issues in looting and collecting antiquities, as well as preserving and presenting collections. Additionally, you will work with primary sources: the ceramic objects in the AAHC provide the basis for written assignments and digital humanities projects focused on these artworks. To that end, your coursework includes group-work and collaborative projects to enhance the information on objects in the AAHC lab, displays of objects in the Fine Arts Library, and online exhibitions.

Fulfills → VAPA

Cross-listings → LAS 327.6

W 11–2
Astrid Runggaldier

This course explores, through the lens of architecture and sculpture, the ancient world of the Maya, encompassing both monumental, non-movable art, and smaller-scale sculpture and portable artworks. You will learn about the Maya from recent interdisciplinary research highlighting the deep history of art and architectural design, and the social functions of sculptural and artistic programs. With a focus especially on the Preclassic and Classic periods of the Lowland regions within the Maya area, you will develop an understanding of the role art plays in society, politics, and religion, and you will explore how architecture and sculptural works express Maya concepts of kingship, divinity, gender, cosmology and worldview in general. As a writing-focused course, this upper-level undergraduate seminar comprises ongoing student engagement throughout the semester with several writing-based projects and assignments. Student work will include engaging with primary sources: ancient Maya sculptures and artifacts in the Art and Art History Collection will provide hands-on opportunities in the AAHC lab and your work will contribute to ongoing digital humanities projects focused on researching and writing about the AAHC materials in order to make them more accessible through public-facing digital platforms.

Fulfills → COM

Cross-listings → ANT 322V / LAS 327.10

TTH 9:30–11
Jessica Maratsos

This course examines art and architecture from what has been traditionally referred to as the Baroque and Rococo periods (c.1590-1760).  At the end of the sixteenth century, major upheavals in Europe created by the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, in conjunction with the consolidation of nation-states, and the expansion of international power through trade and aggressive colonialism, had significant ramifications for the arts.  Style, patronage, and content underwent innovative and paradoxical changes, as artists struggled to respond to, and in their own turn reshape, new cultural realities.  We will explore new directions in the field that emphasize cross-cultural interconnections in this era, while still examining monuments and artists long considered canonical, including Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Watteau.  This course will be an investigation both of exciting historical developments, and the ways in which the field of art history grapples with understanding and defining such phenomena.  A variety of different analytical frameworks—including social, political, economic—will be employed throughout the semester. 

MW 9:30–11
Douglas Cushing

Fascism arose in Europe amid the upheaval caused by WWI. The authoritarian political movement's relation to visual culture was complex. By the 1930s, fascism was largely anti-modernist, promoting instead a return to traditions including classicism. The fascists were also attuned to the ways in which visual culture—fine art, mass media, exhibitions, architecture, fashion, and stagecraft—could serve their political agenda. Concurrently, visual culture provided a means of resistance to fascism for individuals and groups alike. This activity ranged from individual action & collective avant-garde practices to artists’ congresses and allied propaganda. This course is historically grounded, with careful attention paid to political theories of fascism as a foundation. Our focus is the period from 1919-1945, though we will also examine historical antecedents (e.g., Romanticism, Neo-Classicism) and the legacies of fascist (and counter-fascist) visual culture. This course will make extensive use of primary sources, and it will culminate in student research projects.

TTH 9:30–11
Dr. Carma Gorman

Explore contemporary color notation systems and color management techniques. Survey economic, health and safety, environmental, cultural, legal, political, and other ethical considerations pertinent to using color.

Cross-listings → DES 323 / ART 350M

MW 12:30–2
Virginia Grise

This class will explore artistic citizenship, artivism, and socially engaged artists across disciplines including music, theatre, dance, and the visual arts whose work centers the building of community as art practice. Through a series of readings, guest lectures and community site visits, this class will explore artistic citizenship, artivism, and the work of socially engaged artists across disciplines including music, theatre, dance, and the visual arts.

Cross-listings →  T D 353T

MW 2–3:30
Carma Gorman

For years, scholars and students of graphic design history have justifiably complained that the field’s standard textbooks promote a biased canon of “great works” produced almost exclusively by elite white Northern European and North American male professional designers. How have textbook authors explained or justified their choice of illustrations? How should they respond to these critiques as they prepare the next editions of their textbooks? Will adding more works by and for Black, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, female, LGBTQIA+, and/or working-class people suffice to “fix” these books? And if not, which of the definitions, assumptions, and values that currently undergird these textbooks’ narratives should their authors also revisit? In this course, you will answer these questions by proposing remedies to errors, biases, and omissions you identify in the textbook and by reflecting on course readings and lectures that offer counternarratives to the story our textbook tells.

Cross-listings → DES 337.1

MW 11–2
Alexandre Pépin

This course introduces a beginning painting student to basic materials, techniques and ideas germane to historical and contemporary painting. Through the production of painting, one-on-one conversations with the instructor, and class discussion/critique, each student will become more sensitive, insightful and critical about works they produce and encounter. Note: The content of this course is determined by the instructor.

MW 8–11
Carlos Rosales–Silva

This course introduces a beginning drawing student to basic materials, techniques and ideas germane to historical and contemporary drawing. Through the production of drawings, one-on-one conversations with the instructor, and class discussion/critique, each student will become more sensitive, insightful and critical about works they produce and encounter. Note: The content of this course is determined by the instructor.

MW 11–2
Erin Miller

As a print survey course, Print for Non-Majors will introduce students to the basic conceptual issues of print and the technical processes of risograph, relief, intaglio, monoprint etc. This course is a “sampler platter” in that it will give students a taste of numerous processes so that students can get a sense of which they would like to explore further. The structure will include a mix of demonstrations, hands-on instruction, and lectures on historical and contemporary print artists.

MW 2-5
Nathan Anthony

Exploration of the processes involved in the production of object-oriented sculpture.

MW 11–2
Melissa Nuñez

This class will introduce you to the fundamentals of black & white photography. You will learn how to use a manual medium-format camera, expose and develop black & white film, and make gelatin silver prints. You will also study aspects of photographic history and begin to define your individual voice as an artist using photography.