Global Arc

This course focuses on key issues of 20th and 21st c. Latin American art. A thematic survey and general methodological introduction, we will treat emblematic works and movements, from Mexican muralism and Indigenism to experiments with abstraction, pop, conceptualism, and performance. Questions discussed include: What is Latin American art? What is modernism in Latin America? What is the legacy of colonialism? How do Latin American artists engage transnational networks of solidarity under conditions of repression? How can postcolonial, decolonial, and feminist theory illuminate the art and criticism produced in and about Latin America?

Painting, sculpture, and architecture in the Spanish-speaking world from 1492 to 1810. The great flowering of Spanish art, as represented by such figures as El Greco, Velázquez, and Goya, in its cultural and historical context, including developments in Latin America. Some attention to the art of Portugal. For department majors, this course satisfies the 1400-1800 historical period distribution requirement. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

In twelve weeks this course will examine major art works from the twelve centuries (300-1500 CE) that encompass the European Middle Ages. Presenting works from Europe and the Middle East, the course will introduce students to the art of Catholicism and Orthodoxy, Judaism and Islam; the great courts of the Eastern- and Holy Roman Empires, and the roving Vikings, Celts and Visigoths. Students will not only be invited to consider how art can represent and shape notions of sacred and secular power, but will also come to understand how the work of 'art' in this period is itself powerful and, sometimes, dangerous.

What was the Renaissance? This class explores the major artistic currents that swept northern and southern Europe from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries in an attempt to answer that question. In addition to considering key themes such as the revival of antiquity, imitation and license, religious devotion, artistic style, and the art market, we will survey significant works by artists and architects including Donatello, Raphael, Leonardo, Jan van Eyck, Dürer, and Michelangelo. Precepts will focus on direct study of original objects, with visits to Princeton's collections of paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, books and maps.

This course examines the range of work by African artists from the colonial period to the era of post-independence. It seeks to familiarize students with modern and contemporary art from Africa by studying forms, ideas, and subject matter that have preoccupied African artists since the mid-20th century. It is also interested in the critical practices that have helped set these artists on the global stage, as well as theoretical structures that might help our understanding of these processes.

A survey of photography from its multiple inventions in the early 19th century to its omnipresence (and possible obsolescence) in the 21st. Themes will include photography's power to define the "real"; its emulation and eventual transformation of the traditional fine arts; and its role in the construction of personal and collective memories. For department majors, this course satisfies the 1800-present historical period distribution requirement. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Art and science may appear to have nothing to do with one another, but history suggests otherwise. For centuries, artists and image-makers have incorporated the concepts and claims of scientific inquiry into their practices. Scientists, in turn, have relied on images as both sources of and evidence for scientific knowledge. By examining the interaction of art and science in Europe and America from the early modern period to the present day, this course will investigate the diverse and complex ways in which art and science have intersected as well as the manner in which image-making has been understood as a form of scientific practice.

An introduction to African art and architecture from prehistory to the 20th century. Beginning with Paleolithic rock art of northern and southern Africa, we will cover ancient Nubia and Meroe; Neolithic cultures such as Nok, Djenne and Ife; African kingdoms, including Benin, Asante, Bamun, Kongo, Kuba, Great Zimbabwe, and the Zulu; Christian Ethiopia and the Islamic Swahili coast; and other societies, such as the Sherbro, Igbo, and the Maasai. By combining Africa's cultural history and developments in artistic forms we establish a long historical view of the stunning diversity of the continent's indigenous arts and architecture.

This seminar examines the impact of the IMF's Structural Adjustment Program, military dictatorships, and political crises on artistic production in the 1980s, and the dramatic movement of African artists from the margins of the international art world to its very center since the 1990s. How familiar or different are the works and concerns of African artists? What are the consequences, in Africa and the West, of the international success of a few African artists? And what does the work of these Africans at home and in the West tell us about the sociopolitical conditions of our world today?

This course explores the visual and archaeological world of ancient Mesoamerica, from the first arrival of humans in the area until the Spanish invasion in the early 16th C. Major artistic traditions considered include those of the Olmecs, Maya, Aztecs, and others. Lectures will introduce students to these artistic traditions and pose central questions and debates in Mesoamerican art history and archaeology. Preceptorial sections apply this knowledge in hands-on work with objects form the collections of the Princeton University Art Museum. For department majors, this course satisfies the pre-400 historical period distribution requirement.