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History of Art & Architecture

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  • CAS AH 333: Arts of Classical Greece
    Examines architecture, sculpture, painting, and metalwork of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. in their original contexts. Addresses such larger issues as development of portraiture; tension of "real" and "ideal"; roles and shifting iconographies of myth; and political use of monuments. Effective Spring 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Ethical Reasoning, Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS AH 345: Early Medieval and Romanesque Art
    Art and architecture of medieval Europe from the Early Christian Catacombs to the great Gothic cathedrals. Topics include piety, the cult of relics, the Virgin, monasticism, and secular monuments such as medieval European castles and the Bayeux Tapestry.
  • CAS AH 352: Venetian Renaissance Art
    A study of art and architecture in Renaissance Venice with focus on the "Myth of Venice," Byzantinne heritage, introduction of the oil medium, Scuole, and the work of the Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Palladio, Veronese, and Tintoretto. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Digital/Multimedia Expression, Creativity/Innovation.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
    • Creativity/Innovation
  • CAS AH 361: Southern Baroque Art
    Explores transformations in painting, sculpture, and architecture of late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Italy, Spain, and France. Topics include: crisis of the religious image and Counter-Reformation; arts in service of a rejuvenated, triumphant Catholic faith; papal nepotism and patronage. Effective Spring 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS AH 363: The Arc of Russian and Ukrainian Art
    This course introduces students to the history of art and architecture of Russia and Ukraine from the early Slavic period to the present day. The lectures and readings are organized chronologically and follow the main artistic developments throughout this period.
  • CAS AH 365: Baroque Arts in Northern Europe
    Explores the rich artistic traditions of the northern (Dutch) and southern (Flemish) Netherlands from the late sixteenth through the seventeenth centuries. Emphasis on major artists such as Rubens, Van Dyck, Frans Hals, Rembrandt, and Vermeer. Visits to the MFA's new Center for Netherlandish Art, conditions permitting. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS AH 367: Material Culture
    Introduction to the theory and practice of the interdisciplinary study of material culture, which includes everything we make and use, from food and clothing to art and buildings. Topic for Fall 2022: Race and Power in Everyday Objects. How have diverse groups of Americans used everyday objects to envision, embody, and resist racial categories since the 18th century? Students use objects like Chinese export porcelain teacups, Klan robes, and mid-century modern coffee tables to see what material culture can teach us about histories of race in the US.
  • CAS AH 369: American Folk Art
    Explores the objects that collectors and museums identify as "American Folk Art." Examines how this label developed throughout the twentieth century; familiarizes students with major collections and genres including painting, sculpture, textiles, and other media. Also offered as CAS AM 369.
  • CAS AH 379: American Art and Culture in the Nineteenth Century
    Explores the visual arts of painting, sculpture, photography, and popular media, through their interplay with persistent political and social questions that defined nineteenth-century America and continue to shape life in the twenty-first century. Themes include heroes, citizenship, war, imperialism, cosmopolitanism, consumerism. Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS AH 380: The Age of Napoleon
    In-depth exploration of art in the age of revolution, nationalism, colonial expansion, and religious revival. Development of new attitudes toward history, nature, and the imagination in the work of Friedrich, Goya, Delacroix, Gericault, Ingres, Turner, Constable, Blake, and others. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS AH 385: American Buildings and Landscapes
    An introductory analytic survey of American buildings and landscapes within their historical and cultural contexts. Students examine forces that have shaped the American built environment. Topics range from Indian mounds to commercial strips, Spanish missions to skyscrapers. Also offered as CAS AM 385.
  • CAS AH 386: Modern American Art
    This class explores the diverse and contested field of modern art in the United States, examining the broad range of artists and art practices that laid claim to aesthetic modernism in the years between 1890 and 1945. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS AH 387: Boston Architecture and Urbanism
    This class presents a history of Boston from the seventeenth through twenty- first centuries, as seen through the region's architectural and urban history. Major buildings, architects, and urban planning schemes are examined in terms of economic, political, social, and institutional histories. Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry I, Oral and/or Signed Communication, Teamwork/Collaboration.
    • Social Inquiry I
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
    • Teamwork/Collaboration
  • CAS AH 391: Twentieth-Century Art to 1940
    A study of the key tendencies in European art between the 1880s and World War II. The work of van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Dali, and their contemporaries is examined in relation to major issues in European culture and politics. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Research and Information Literacy
  • CAS AH 392: Twentieth Century Art from 1940 to 1980
    Explores major currents in art produced around the world during the tumultuous middle decades of the 20th century. The following topics, among others, are examined in relation to postwar culture and Cold War politics: realism vs. abstraction, global pop art and conceptual art, new materials and technologies, international artists' networks, and performative art practices. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS AH 393: Contemporary Art: 1980 to Now
    Explores the terms of debate, key figures, and primary sites for the production and reception of contemporary art on a global scale since 1980. Painting, installation art, new media, performance, art criticism, and curatorial practice are discussed. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS AH 395: History of Photography
    An introduction to the study of photographs. The history of the medium in Europe and America from its invention in 1839 to the present. After lectures on photographic theory and methodology, photographs are studied both as art objects and as historical artifacts. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Critical Thinking
  • CAS AH 398: Twentieth-Century Architecture
    This course provides an introduction to the major developments in architecture and urban planning from ca. 1900 to the present. It traces the proliferation of modernist thought through key projects but also to everyday buildings and landscapes. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • CAS AH 399: History and Theory of Landscape Architecture
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120).
    Explores man's relationship with nature by a study of selected built environments from antiquity to the present. Focus on both the private garden and the public park--here considered as works of art--and their changing forms, meaning, and interpretations. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing- Intensive Course, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Aesthetic Exploration.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS AH 404: Seminar: Topics in Museum Exhibits
    Topics seminar. May be repeated for credit as topics change. Considers and uses the methods and tools of curators and other museum professionals in gallery arrangement and exhibition- making. Taught around specific projects, with visits to museums and meetings with practitioners as can be arranged. Topic for Fall 2023: Contemporary Exhibition Practices. Examines developments in contemporary exhibition practices from the 1980s to the present. Taking a global perspective, the course considers how curators, artists, and scholars have sought to expand and decentralize the art world through transnational and multicultural approaches to exhibition-making, including large-scale exhibitions and biennials.

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