ART 120 - Introduction to Art History

5 Credits

Studies the development of visual art from the Paleolithic to early Christian art of Western civilization. Designed to develop the awareness and understanding of the basic language of art in context of differing styles in art history and to give an introduction to the subject matter of broad areas to the history of art as humanistic study.

Fees

Quarters Typically Offered
Fall Day
Spring Day

Designed to Serve All students.
Active Date 20220330T15:32:35

Grading Basis Decimal Grade
Class Limit 24
Contact Hours: Lecture 55
Total Contact Hours 55
Degree Distributions:
AA

Humanities Area II
Performance

Course Outline

The Artist™s Profession: nature of creativity, artist in Antiquity, women artists
Art and a Matter of Life and Death: cave art, Egyptian Tomb art, tribal art
Images of gods: Apollo, Buddha, Christ
Religious architecture: Parthenon, cathedral structure, Romanesque, Greek
The Sacred Book: manuscripts, miniatures
15th century Flemish art: synthesis of Heaven and Earth
15th century Italian Art: nudity, perspective, religious, and secular philosophies
Michelangelo: musculature, Sistine Chapel
16th and 17th Century Art: art for popular taste, flesh and spirit
Baroque Secular Art: food and drink, games and music
Rembrandt: spiritual art, meditations on death, landscapes, anatomical science
Images of authority: king as deity, warrior kings, imperial portraits
Architecture of authority: gateways, civic structure, palaces, capitol building
19th Century Art: artists as political critic, social crises, ethic of modern art
Art and Nature: landscapes, sculpture and nature
The portrait in painting: sculpture and nature
The figure in modern sculpture: pre WWI, post WWII
Picasso: Guernica, Crucifixion
Imaginative Art: literary and artistic sources, limits of reason
Abstract Art: simple forms

Student Learning Outcomes
Identify selected masterpieces of art and architecture in primarily the Western tradition from ancient to twenty-first century.

Describe representative works from major art periods.

Analyze and interpret historic works of art to determine cultural significance.