Global Arc

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.

This course explores the history, aesthetics and discourse framing the art of the Arab world, Iran and Turkey from the late twentieth century to the present. With a focus on building the skills of visual analysis, lectures and discussions will explore the intersection of media, technique, subject matter, artistic discourse and political and social conditions as codetermining factors in art objects. Representing many nations, each with a distinct political and cultural history, the Middle East is multi-ethnic, religious, and complexly interconnected place, whose influence in the art world has steadily grown throughout the last thirty years.

What is the role of photography in contemporary society? Looking at photographic forms, ranging from commercial portraits, ID cards, family albums, and fashion and advertising photography to newspaper and magazine illustrations, this course explores diverse ways that photographs have come to define and challenge the "real." Students talk with professionals in fields of journalism and fashion, examine controversies over digital manipulation and politically charged photos, and consider historical sources of contemporary styles. One three-hour seminar.

From the toppling of a statue of King George in New York in 1776 to the super PAC "For Freedoms" founded by artists in 2016, art and politics in America have gone hand in hand, and understanding the history of American art requires a deep dive into the history of American politics. With the current political landscape as both backdrop and incitement, this course considers the history of intersections between art and politics in the United States, from the revolutionary era to the present, and examines how artists have engaged the political sphere and produced political art in order to express critique, accommodation, resistance, and rage.