Art History (AHI)

Chronological survey of painting, architecture, and sculpture from the birth of civilization to the Northern Renaissance; stylistic analysis of works of art within social and historical contexts.

Chronological survey of painting, architecture, and sculpture from the Italian Renaissance to modern European and American art; stylistic analysis of works of art within social and historical contexts.

Introductory to Contemporary non Western art. Students will acquire the basic knowledge of painting, architecture, and sculpture, and other forms of visual representation in non-Western countries. The course will cover works of art of Japan, China, South Korea, India, Africa, and Latin America from World War II to the present day.

This course will introduce the student to the mythology and art of the ancient world. The course will focus on ancient art that depicts scenes in the mythology of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt,India, Greece, Rome, China and the Maya.

This course is a historical introduction to the great civilizations of the world before 1500 A.D. We have two main goals: 1) to introduce past cultures (pre- 1500 A.D.) such as the ancient Mediterranean world, the Islamic Near East, Hindu India, Buddhist and Confucian Asia, animist Sub-Saharan Africa, and Mayan central America to students, and 2) to illustrate the political and ideological role public art played within these cultures. Cultural topics will include Near Eastern literature (Epic of Gilgamesh, Genesis, Deuteronomy, Hymn to Aton), Greek philosophy and science, the origins of democracy, Roman law, the development of Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, the Popul Vuh, and the historical roots of the current conflict over Jerusalem. Major artistic monuments to be examined include the Stele of Hammurabi Egyptian funerary architecture, Greek, Roman, Hindu sculpture, the Athenian Parthenon, the Roman Colosseum, Islamic architecture, Chinese landscape painting, Teotihuacan, and Gothic cathedrals. Upon completion of this course, students will be acquainted with an outline of world history, ca 3000 BC 1400AD, and the major intellectual and artistic contributions of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece & Rome, Judaism, Islam, India, China, the New World, and medieval Europe, and the role that art has played in their culture

This course will be taught on a rotational basis with faculty from COL, ART and RLL. Beginning in the late 19th Century a new cultural movement was born: the avant garde. This course seeks to understand how and why art and literature that deliberately challenged popular understanding came to be dominant. This course will introduce you to the main currents of 19th and 20th Century avant garde history, theory, and aesthetic practice. Grounding our approach in the specific geographic and historical conditions that gave rise to these individual movements, we will explore their expression through a wide variety of mediums including art and visual culture, literature, poetry, music, and film. We will read both primary and secondary documents as we grapple with these movements' modernist and revolutionary agendas in order to assess their successes and failures and evaluate their impacts and legacies.

The one credit UB Seminar is focused on a big idea or challenging issue to engage students with questions of significance in a field of study and, ultimately, to connect their studies with issues of consequence in the wider world. Essential to the UB Curriculum, the Seminar helps transition to UB through an early connection to UB faculty and the undergraduate experience at a comprehensive, research university. This course is equivalent to any 198 offered in any subject. This course is a controlled enrollment (impacted) course. Students who have previously attempted the course and received a grade of F or R may not be able to repeat the course during the fall or spring semester.

The three credit UB Seminar is focused on a big idea or challenging issue to engage students with questions of significance in a field of study and, ultimately, to connect their studies with issues of consequence in the wider world. Essential to the UB Curriculum, the Seminar helps students with common learning outcomes focused on fundamental expectations for critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and oral communication, and learning at a university, all within topic focused subject matter. The Seminars provide students with an early connection to UB faculty and the undergraduate experience at a comprehensive, research university. This course is equivalent to any 199 offered in any subject. This course is a controlled enrollment (impacted) course. Students who have previously attempted the course and received a grade of F or R may not be able to repeat the course during the fall or spring semester.

Greek and Near Eastern mythologies in ancient art; mythological representations in the art of these cultures and the differences in the manner each represented similar myths; readings in mythology.

Familiarizes students with the major and minor arts of China from Neolithic to the Modern periods. Requires no prior exposure to the arts and culture of China. The course considers the artistic history of China in terms of its material culture, looking at techniques, materials, and processes, as well as stylistic influences and evolution.

Introduces Islamic culture and its art and architecture. Uses both a chronological and geographical approach, beginning with the establishment of Islam in Arabia in the seventh century, following the course of its spread throughout Europe, Asian and Africa, and ending with contemporary Islamic art and architecture.

Examines a current topic of interest in Art History, i.e. architecture, medieval, non-Western, Asian, etc.

Major ideas defining the art of the modern world; painting, sculpture, architecture, and related arts; what these works mean and how they illustrate changing views of modernity.

Painting and sculpture in France and its relationship to contemporary political, social, intellectual, and cultural developments; David, Ingres, Gricault, Delacroix, Daumier, Courbet, Manet, Monet, Degas, Rodin, Cezanne, Seurat, Van Gogh, and Gauguin; the modern artist in a society characterized by an accelerating sense of change.

French art from 1860-1900; Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Seurat, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Cezanne; the aesthetic nature of their works and the connection to contemporary literary, political, philosophical, and scientific developments. Impact of impressionism and postimpressionism on the art of the twentieth century.

Relationship between the artist and revolutionary society; uses revolutions of 1789, 1830, 1848, and 1917 to examine artists like David, Delacroix, Daumier, Courbet, and Malevich.

Examination of the iconography and literature of the sacred tradition in art. For example: Prof. D. Christian, Heaven, Hell & Judgement The course will consider ideas and images of eternal reward and punishment & stories and pictures of heaven, hell, and judgment from ancient Sumner to modern film. We will begin with the oldest known story of the underworld, five-thousand year-old Sumerian goddess Inannas descent From the Great Above to the Great Below. We'll look at the Egyptian weighing of the soul at death against the feather of Maat or justice, at Odysseus and Aeneas explorations of the worlds of the dead, at Plato's and popular ideas of what's next. We'll also consider Biblical apocalypses, Sheol, Hades and heaven, medieval journeys to heaven and hell, Dante's Inferno and Paradiso, and Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. We'll look at paintings, mosaics, and sculptures of Judgment, heaven and hell, including especially some Byzantine art, Romanesque churches, Giotto, Signorelli, Michaelangelo, and Bosch. We'll close with the 1946 classic film, A Matter of Life or Death, released in America as Stairway to Heaven. Through these verbal and visual imaginations we'll explore ethical and religious ideas of the judgment of good and evil, punishment and reward. This course is the same as ENG 375, RSP 375, and CL 375 and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Examines a current topic of interest in art history, i.e. architecture, medieval, non-Western, Asian, etc.

Surveys architecture, sculpture, and painting from ca. 700 B.C.E. to ca. 350 B.C.E. Traces the development of artistic types, towns, and sanctuaries against the setting of the history, political institutions, and public figures of the times. This course is the same as CL 337and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Focuses on the Roman Empire from Augustus (d. A.D. 14) to Constantine (d. A.D. 337), considering art, architecture, and archaeology both at home and in the far-flung provinces. This course is the same as CL 339, and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Investigates the different forms of African American visual artistic traditions in relation to their historical origins and sociocultural context from the early days of slavery to the present time. Starts with an overview of African art, the experiences of the middle passage, and slavery in relation to African American traditions in the decorative arts, including pottery, architecture, ironwork, quilt-making, and basketry. This is followed by a fine-art survey starting with the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, continuing through early twentieth-century Harlem Renaissance up to the present. Also explores certain issues related to African American arts and creativity, such as improvisation, Black aesthetic, Pan Africanism, and gender. Slides, films, and videos are used extensively to illustrate topics discussed in class.

Offers a highly selective survey of U.S. painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, and popular culture from the Colonial era to the present. Focusing on five thematic units--gods, nature/culture, consumer culture, gender, and the body--the class provides an overview of U.S. art, suggesting how our material record both expresses and forms America's social, political, and cultural climate.

Begins with an introduction to European realism and a discussion of its adaptation to an American context during the final quarter of the nineteenth century. The course then denaturalizes Realism's ties with objectivity, explaining the movement as one in a series of subjective strategies for ordering one's relation to the world. Focusing then on several discrete artistic movements, the course considers the changing cultural functions of "the real", ranging from the early nineteenth through the late twentieth centuries. Movements to be addressed include romanticism, sentimentality, naturalism, impressionism, urban realism, regionalism, abstract expressionism, neo-realism, and photorealism.

Considers the representation of gender (femininity and masculinity) in pictures, and the impact of gender on making and looking at art and media. Discusses works from several historical periods, concentrating on nineteenth- and twentieth-century art and media. Topics and issues considered are the professionalization of the artist and myths of genius; artists and models; the problems of a feminine aesthetic; the nude; and the gendered spectator. This course is the same as GGS 308, and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Art of contemporary life; art criticism; art and politics; art in the media; pop and minimal art; conceptual art, earthworks, realism, feminist art, and performance. Requires attendance at events and exhibitions at local galleries.

A written proposal outlining and justifying the work must be presented to and approved by the faculty member with whom the work is to be done.

Examines a current topic of interest in art history, i.e. architecture, medieval, non-Western, Asian, modern, etc.

Reviews photography's contribution to the visual arts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Studies individual photographers, the nature and development of various styles, photography's relationship to other art media, and the effect of photographic imagery on our culture.

This course aims to pluralize aesthetic modernism, expand its definition and decentralize it from its origins in the West. It looks at how modernist styles in art and visual culture circled the globe and found expression within the cultural centers of the Global South. We will study modernist aesthetic practices within the context of regional histories in order to understand how these practices may reflect quests for self-determination, identity formation and social change in the post-colonial world. This course is dual listed with VS 570.

Looks closely at the ways in which influential art historians have analyzed and discussed works of art, and at the significance of the strategies that these art historians developed. The first half of the semester covers subjects like iconography, connoisseurship, formal and structural analysis, and psychoanalytical approaches.

Museum and gallery internships are available at such institutions as the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the CFA Art Gallery, the University Art Gallery, the Amherst Museum, and the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University. The opportunity is by permission only. Students are encouraged to take AHI 480 Museum Studies, before applying for an internship.

Accepted senior pursue a specialized, independent study leading to an honors thesis. For further information, please contact the director of undergraduate studies

Three credit hours of independent study may be undertaken with a faculty member. It must be an outgrowth of course study already completed, and not a substitution for any of the required coursework. Only three credit hours may be applied toward the degree.