Global Arc

The class surveys connections in art of different cultures and continents throughout the world from the first civilizations to the present. Attention will be paid to distinctive and related forms of culture and their expression in art and architecture that includes trade, migration, gift exchanges, war and economics.

The 18th century saw the emergence of the first architectural and engineering schools. Architects and engineers started to compete all over Europe in a time when technical knowledge and efficiency were becoming as important as experience and learnedness. This course provides students with a survey of 18th-century European architecture in the light of the rivalry between two trades on the verge of professionalization. The first weeks will be devoted to the actors of the building world before focusing on the fields of contest between architects and engineers and how this battle defined the nature of each profession, between art and science.

This course will focus upon prints or drawings studied from original works of art. All periods of European art may be considered along with occasional Asian objects. Classes will be conducted in the Princeton University Art Museum, New York (museum and dealer and/or auction house), and possibly Washington D.C. (National Gallery of Art). For fall 2016 the course will study drawings from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century.

This class is an extensive introduction to the materials and techniques of art through the ages. It will involve direct study of works of art in the museum introducing each week a different kind of object and problem drawn from Princeton's extensive collections. Museum staff will help teach classes every week. Students will learn not only how works of art are made, but how intense study of objects can lead to knowledge about them and about the past, and how we can tell who made them. Copies, fakes, and replicas will all be considered. Works of art from a wide variety of times and places will be considered.

In the Western world and since the 18th century, mental asylums and prisons are linked not only by their architectural features - security, isolation, restriction of movements - but also by their common history and the goals of their builders: reforming minds and bodies through isolation and architectural coercion. In this community-engaged course, conceived in partnership with the New Jersey Prison Watch, students will learn the architectural history of Western mental hospitals and correctional facilities, while applying this knowledge to the critical assessment of contemporary facilities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The concept of nature from the Renaissance through the 18th century as seen in European gardens and landscape architecture. Major consideration will be given to the Italian villa-garden complex, the French classical garden, and the English romantic garden and park as evidence of large-scale planning. For department majors, this course satisfies the Group 2 distribution requirement. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

European architecture from 1420 to the mid-18th century with particular emphasis on its historical and social background. The various architectural movements--Renaissance, baroque, and rococo--are studied in terms of important architects and buildings especially of Italy, France, and England. For department majors, this course satisfies the Group 2 distribution requirement. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

This course introduces the student to the art of the Byzantine Empire from ca. 800 to ca. 1200. Byzantine art has often been opposed to the traditions of western naturalism, and as such has been an undervalued or little-known adjunct to the story of medieval art. In order to develop a more sophisticated understanding of our visual evidence, this course will stress the function of this art within the broader setting of this society. Art theory, the notions of empire and holiness, the burdens of the past and the realities of contemporary praxis will be brought to bear upon our various analyses of material from all media.

Painting, sculpture, and architecture in Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Germany, and Russia, ca. 1450-1800. Special emphasis is placed on the changing roles of court, city, cloister, and aristocracy and the relation of local styles to international trends, including art elsewhere in Europe. For department majors, this course satisfies the Group 2 distribution requirement. Offered in alternate years. One three-hour seminar.

Photography and violence have been entwined for as long as there have been photos. These images pose questions about the past and present: What are the ethics of global representations of war, so-called natural disasters, and other atrocities? How have violent pictures particularly shaped US culture? What does it mean to bear witness through photographs? Grounded in visual analysis of complex and disturbing images such as photographs of enslaved people and photographs of victims of the Holocaust, this class will engage in rigorous conversations about the meaning, circulation, and power of photos.