History of Art & Architecture

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  • CAS AH 326: Arts of Japan
    The arts of Japan, from prehistory to the twentieth century. Lectures intend to cover a broad range of media (painting, sculpture, ceramics, prints) and building types (temples, palaces, castles, teahouses). Special attention is paid to major projects integrating multiple forms. 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 327: Arts of China
    Introduction to the major tradition of Chinese art, from the Neolithic period to the present. Topics include bronzes, tomb sculpture, painting,calligraphy, ceramics, and gardens. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Aesthetic Exploration, Research and Information Literacy.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Research and Information Literacy
  • CAS AH 333: Arts of Classical Greece
    Examines architecture, sculpture, painting, and other arts of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. Topics include: the concept of classicism, how art was made, the "Greek revolution" and consequences of naturalism, the artist as individual. 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 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 353: Renaissance Architecture and Theory
    Italian Renaissance architecture and architectural theory from 1400 to 1600. Emphasis on individual buildings and urban planning in Rome, Florence, and Venice, and on treatises by Alberti, Serlio, and Palladio.
  • CAS AH 365: Baroque Arts in Northern Europe
    Explores Netherlandish art from the late sixteenth through the seventeenth centuries, focusing on Rubens, Rembrandt, and Vermeer. Addresses the embattled Christian image; art in the service of princely, patrician, and ecclesiastical authority; the Dutch art market; women and domesticity. 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 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 377: American Furniture and Allied Arts, 1630-1830
    Survey of furniture and related arts-- painting, architecture, and silver-- with an emphasis on aesthetics and quality, sources, style changes, regional differences, materials, and construction. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
  • 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 389: The Age of Impressionism
    Impressionism, its sources, and its aftermath: from the painting of modem life and leisure by Manet, Monet, Morisot, Renoir, and Degas to the evocation of spirituality, pain, and desire in the work of Van Gogh, Gauguin, Rodin, and Munch. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
  • 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 European and American art made between 1940 and 1980. Examines the following movements and media in relation to postwar culture and politics: abstract expressionism, pop art, minimalism, conceptual art, earthworks, performance, and video. 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
    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.

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