Introduction to Art History &Theory

This course introduces students to the tools of the art historian. We will investigate how the discipline of art history began to take shape as early as the 17th century, and focus on the key theoretical investigations and methods of interpretation that have informed the study of art through the present. Such approaches include connoisseurship, iconography, semiology, Marxism, feminism, poststructuralism, visual culture, and postcolonial studies. Important questions that will surface throughout our discussions include the relationship of artistic form to context, the very notion of art as history, and the possibilities and challenges of a truly ‘global’ art history. Assessments and activities will encourage students to think of theory as method, and to apply these lenses of interpretation to objects and images of study.