MW 10–11 + Discussion Section
Dr. Astrid Runggaldier

MW 9–10 + Discussion Section
Mode of Instruction: Internet
Dr. 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
Dr. David Stuart

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

MW 11–12 + Discussion Section
Dr. Ann Johns

TTH 5–6:30
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

MW 9:30–11
Dr. John R. Clarke

This course examines how study of visual representations allows us to enter into the mentality of ancient non-elite Romans. We will survey the art and architecture of Roman Italy between 100 B.C. and A.D. 315 to explore non-elite attitudes toward the practices of daily life: religion, work, theater, gladiatorial games, tavern-going, banqueting, sexuality, self-representation, death, and burial. In this way, we will learn how the Romans were—and were not—“just like us.”

Fulfills → VAPA

Cross-listings → EUS 347.26

Art History Majors  
Download this guide to view the qualifying Time Periods and Geographical Locations for this course.

MW 2–3:30
Dr. Katherine Taronas

In AD 921, a learned courtier from the most elegant city in the 10th century world, the glittering capital of Baghdad, set off on a journey into the uncharted land of the Vikings as secretary to the embassy of the Abbasid caliph. A couple of centuries later, in 1130, a Christian king would conquer the Italian island of Sicily from the Muslims and then begin to create a kingdom that merged the Islamic and Christian cultural traditions. Just a few decades later, around 1160, a young Crusader would journey to the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and find a Christian Kingdom that had all the hallmarks of an Islamic Sultanate. This course will explore the art and culture of the global Middle Ages, and will look closely at recent films, popular and academic publications and works of art and architecture that show the interconnected character of the European and the Islamic worlds.

Fulfills → VAPA

Cross-listings → RS 361

Art History Majors  
Download this guide to view the qualifying Time Periods and Geographical Locations for this course.

MW 1–2:30
Dr. Ann Johns

The focus of this upper division course will be the rising status of the artist and architect in 15th century Italy. We will begin in Florence, the canonical site of Renaissance artistic innovation, with a close examination of the various competitions involving Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Luca della Robbia, and others. We’ll examine workshop practices, artistic handbooks, and other training resources available to artists in the early 15th century. We will also read from the many artistic biographies and early art historical accounts, including those of Ghiberti, Manetti, and Vasari.

We’ll then move to other artistic centers within Italy. Florentine artists such as Masaccio, Masolino, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Fra Angelico undertook important projects outside of Florence, including the cities of Rome, Naples, Padua, and Siena. We’ll also examine how prominent non-Florentine artists such as Mantegna, Sassetta, Melozzo da Forli, and Piero della Francesca reacted to the prevailing artistic developments of Florentine artist and patrons.

Throughout, we’ll examine the rising independence and opportunities of both artists and architects.

Fulfills → VAPA

Cross-listings → CTI 352D / EUS 337F

Art History Majors  
Download this guide to view the qualifying Time Periods and Geographical Locations for this course.

MW 12:30–2
Dr. Douglas Cushing

This course surveys the major movements, ideas, and social contexts of visual modernism in Europe (and related movements in the Americas) from the late nineteenth century through the Second Word War.

Fulfills → VAPA

Cross-listings → EUS 347.46

Art History Majors  
Download this guide to view the qualifying Time Periods and Geographical Locations for this course.

T 11–2
Dr. Susan Rather

Many U.S. medical schools partner with museum educators on art-centered courses meant to sharpen powers of observation, build empathy, foster teamwork, deepen cultural sensitivity, and promote wellness in future doctors. ARH 339R introduces students of diverse majors to such programs and explores how fundamental practices of art history enhance those same capabilities, important life tools for anyone.

Weekly meetings take two primary formats: (1) classroom-based lecture/discussion consideration of historical Euro-American artworks relating to allopathic (“Western”) medicine, and (2) on-site, project-oriented meetings in the Blanton Museum, in which students work individually, collectively, and with professional art educators and curators in a process of systematically deepening powers of observation, description, analysis, interpretation, and communication. Class members are expected to complete regular short reading and writing assignments, to make oral presentations, and to engage productively with classmates, the instructor, and invited guests. No exams and no book purchases necessary.

Open to all majors, without prerequisite or prior experience of art history.

Fulfills → VAPA

Art History Majors  
Download this guide to view the qualifying Time Periods and Geographical Locations for this course.

TTH 12:30–2
Dr. Julia Guernsey

This course surveys the art, architecture, and material culture of a number of the ancient civilizations of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica that flourished in what are now the modern countries of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras.  The course spans the time of the Olmec through that of the Aztecs, or from the 2nd millennium BC through the arrival of the Spanish in 1519. The goal of this course is to provide students with a general knowledge of the history, ritual traditions, and belief systems of ancient Mesoamericans, as expressed through sculpture, painting, architecture, archaeological remains, and ancient writing systems.

Fulfills → VAPA

Cross-listings → LAS 327.3

Art History Majors  
Download this guide to view the qualifying Time Periods and Geographical Locations for this course.