Art History: Renaissance through Modern

This course introduces the history of art from the early Renaissance in Europe to the present in Europe and the U.S. It surveys the artists, architects, and art movements that constitute the canon of Western art since the Renaissance with an eye to examining how society influences artistic production. The role of patronage, individual artistic personalities, religion, war and peace, and attitudes about gender are explored throughout and compared across geographic boundaries. This course provides comparative global examples to understand Western movements in context. The basic principles of visual analysis are taught and utilized; students are also introduced to fundamental methods of art history such as iconography, formalism, and social art history. This course also includes a visit to and analysis of artwork at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Image Credit: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, La Grande Odalisque, 1814. Oil on canvas. The Louvre.