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Associate Professor Janis Bergman-Carton, Division
Chair
University Distinguished Professor: Annemarie Weyl Carr.
University Distinguished Teaching Professor: Karl Kilinski
II. Professor: P. Gregory Warden. Associate
Professors: Randall C. Griffin,
Adam Herring, Pamela A. Patton. Assistant Professor: Lisa Pon. Adjunct
Professor: Mark Roglán. Tufts Fellow: Sarah Rogers
The Master of Arts (M.A.) degree in Art History is designed to provide a broad but rigorous background in the history of art. It is intended either as a final degree for those who wish to pursue careers in which training beyond the baccalaureate degree is helpful or as a foundation in graduate study for those who wish to continue work toward a Ph.D. at another institution.
Admission to the graduate program is selective. Students are expected to have had substantial undergraduate work in the history of art. A minimum of 12 term credit hours of undergraduate art history above the survey level or equivalent is required before a student may begin to accumulate hours for graduate credit. Students who have been admitted without adequate undergraduate preparation will be expected to take the requisite number of undergraduate hours before or during their first term at SMU.
The applicant should have a reading knowledge of one foreign language. Applicants must take the GRE or, in the case of non-U.S. citizens who are residents outside the U.S., have a previous degree from an English-speaking university. An interview with the art history graduate adviser is desirable.
Outstanding students are awarded tuition grants and teaching/research assistantships. These awards are based on merit. Students accepting the offer of a scholarship may not decline the accompanying assistantship. In addition, the division has funds available so that graduate students may travel to conduct research on their thesis topic.
Application for admission with financial aid must be filed in full by February 15 for the fall term and November 1 for the spring term. To receive a graduate application for admission and/or information concerning assistantships and fellowships, scholarships and degree programs, write to the Office of Graduate Admissions and Records, Meadows School of the Arts, SMU, P.O. Box 750356, Dallas TX 75275-0356.
This is a 36-term-credit-hour program. Thirty credit hours are required in coursework; each course is worth three credit hours. Twenty-one of the 30 credit hours must be of seminar standing, that is, ARHS 5303 plus six additional seminars. During the first term of graduate study, a student must enroll for at least two seminar courses. The final six credits must be taken in the form of a major research paper in the field of the student’s strongest interest. This thesis will be presented at the conclusion of the student’s M.A. work. Prior to enrollment for the thesis, each student must pass a translation examination in a foreign language related to the field of his or her particular concentration.
Each student will consult with the department’s director of Graduate Studies upon arrival. Subsequently, students will select permanent advisers and committees in their fields of special interest. Courses numbered 5000 or higher are graduate courses.
5011, 5012. Museum Internship.
5101, 5201, 5301. Directed Studies in Art History. To be arranged with permission of the adviser and the faculty members directing the studies project.
5303. History and Methods of the History of Art. Introduction to the history of the discipline with discussion of major methodological approaches as they have shaped past scholarship and the present sense of crisis in the discipline. Exercise in methods of research and its presentation in good form. Required of all first-year graduate students.
6101, 6201, 6301. Master’s Thesis.
5304. Seminar in Ancient Art. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructors. Student reports will be discussed by seminar members.
5305. Seminar in Greek Art. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructors. Student reports will be discussed by seminar members.
5306. Seminar on Art, Society and Politics in Periclean Athens. The interrelationships among the social and political institutions of Athens and its art and architecture in the Golden Age. Set against historical currents of the fifth century B.C.E., the art and theater of classical Athens are explored for their social and political relevance. A variety of topics is offered for individual research and classroom presentation, along with a class visit to the Dallas Museum of Art. Taught jointly by faculty in art history and history.
5307. Seminar on Classical Art and Theatre. A comparative examination of art, architecture and theatre in Classical Greece, with particular attention to representational structures and strategies in classical performance and the visual arts. Topics will include the uses of art and performance as a forum for addressing issues of local and universal concern and for reflecting upon mythic and historical events. Taught jointly by faculty in art history and theatre.
5308. Seminar in Etruscan Art. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructors. Student reports will be discussed by seminar members.
5309. Seminar in Roman Art. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructors. Student reports will be discussed by seminar members.
5310. Seminar on Classical Myth in Art. The myths of the Greeks and Romans provide a lively commentary on the beliefs and feelings of those peoples, founders of Western civilization, whose art and literature continue to have profound effects today. The course is designed to study the origins, developments, iconography and interpretations of classical myth through the painting and sculpture of the Greeks and Romans. It also will focus on the treatment of classical myth in subsequent periods of Western art up to and including the 20th century.
5311. Seminar on Classical and Neo-Classical Architecture. A detailed analysis of the “vocabulary” and “syntax” of Greek and Roman architecture and a study of the re-use of classical motifs, symbols and styles by architects from the Renaissance to the 20th century.
6306. Mummies, Myths and Monuments of Ancient Egypt: Art and Expression of Eternal Egypt. Mummies, magic, pyramids and pharaohs provide the focus for a survey of the exotic world of the ancient Egyptians as seen through their brilliantly preserved art and architecture along the banks of the Nile. Egyptian artistic developments from Pre-Dynastic times through the New Kingdom.
6311. Mortals, Myths and Monuments of Ancient Greece. A visual analysis of the rich tapestry of ancient Greek culture, fountainhead of Western civilization, with emphasis on mythological, archaeological and historical settings in which the art and architecture occur. Touches on various aspects of ancient Greek life including religious practices, Olympic contests, theatrical performances and artistic perfection.
6312. Etruscan and Iron Age Italy. A survey of the art, architecture and material culture of Etruscan and Roman Italy from about 800 B.C. to the advent of Christianity. Begins with the Etruscans and their neighbors in Iron Age Italy and ends with Roman art in the age of Constantine. Special emphasis placed on the interpretation of art within the historical, social and cultural context of ancient Italy.
6313. The Etruscans and Early Italy: Art and Culture. The art and architecture of early Italy, including Etruscan art, early Roman art and “Italic” art, will be studied with respect to the cultural context and environment.
6314. The Art and Architecture of Ancient Pompeii. A survey of the history, monuments and society of Campania from the Iron Age to A.D. 79 as reconstructed from the excavations of Pompeii, Herculaneum and neighboring sites. The influence of the Pompeian discoveries on 18th- and 19th-century art will also be discussed.
6315. Classical Sculpture. A study of the styles, subjects and techniques of the sculptor’s art during the ancient Greek, Hellenistic and Roman eras. Focuses on the functions of sculpture in the round and in relief, free-standing and in architectural settings, with particular attention to historical background.
6317. Ancient Painting. A study of the painter’s art in the Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan and Roman eras encompassing murals, mosaics and ceramics. Iconographical and stylistic developments are given equal consideration.
6319. Art of the Roman Empire. The art and architecture of Imperial Rome in relation to the complex artistic traditions of the Roman provinces. The monuments and art of all the provinces of the Roman Empire are surveyed, dealing with the problem of Roman interaction with alien cultures and styles.
6303. Archaeological Field Methods of Italy. Archaeological field experience in classical archaeology in Italy.
5320. Seminar in Medieval Art. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructor.
5321. Seminar in Early Christian Art. Taught jointly by professors in art history and theology, this seminar engages students in both disciplines in examining the emergence of a distinctly Christian visual culture, the functions and communicative strategies of its images and the role they played in both the religious and the cultural development of early Christianity.
5322. Seminar on “Convivencia”: Jewish, Islamic and Christian Art in Medieval Spain. The art and architecture produced by the Christians, Jews and Muslims of Iberia during the 10th through 15th centuries, studying the cultural contacts, conflicts and compromises that affected each culture’s artistic traditions and contributed the diverse heritage of what now is called Spanish art.
5323. Seminar in Byzantine Art. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructor.
6320. Medieval Art. An introduction to the art of Byzantium, Islam and the medieval West through study of five genres to which each of these cultures made distinctive contributions: the congregational worship space, imaging the sacred word, the court and its objects, the pilgrimage site and the urban religious complex.
6321. Age of the Crusades. The art of the various Christian cultures that were swept into the Crusades — especially the northern European, Italian, Byzantine and Armenian — and the changes and the interchanges that characterize the period between 1096 and 1291.
6322. Art and the Italian Commune. The interplay of artistic styles, workshop practice, religious change and political controversy in the century between St. Francis and the Black Death, emphasizing the art of the Pisani, Cimabue, Cavallini, Giotto, Duccio and the Lorenzetti.
6323. Romanesque Art and Architecture. The flowering of art and architecture that appeared throughout Western Europe at the threshold of the new millennium. Emphasis will be placed on issues of cultural exchange and conflict, the intensification of national identities, the role of spirituality and the changing conception of the individual during the 11th and 12th centuries.
6324. Art and Cultures of Medieval Spain. The art architecture of the Iberian Peninsula within its highly diverse cultural context. Hispano-Roman, Visigothic, Romanesque, Gothic, Jewish and Islamic examples will be highlighted. Classroom lectures will be supplemented by direct study of works in the Meadows Museum.
6325. The Gothic Cathedral. The social and spiritual centerpiece of medieval European life, the Gothic cathedral was also one of the greatest multimedia creations of its age. This lecture course uses the cathedral as a springing point for the investigation of the rich architectural and artistic traditions of the high and late Middle Ages in Europe.
6328. Byzantine Art. The art of the Byzantine Empire from the end of Iconoclasm through the 14th century, examining both major media — gold mosaics, mural painting, manuscript illumination, ivory carving and enamel — and the role that this art played in the lives, thoughts and writings of its contemporaries.
6399. The Jewish-Christian Dialogue in Art and Text. The mutual perceptions, conflicts and commonalities among medieval European Christians and Jews, as reflected in works of visual art and in philosophical, theological, legal and literary texts.
5330. Seminar in Italian Renaissance Art. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructor.
5331. Seminar in Early Modern Art. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructor.
5332. Seminar in Northern Renaissance Art. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructor.
5333. Seminar in 18th-Century Art. Specific topics on 18th-century art and/or architecture chosen by the instructor.
5334. Seminar in Italian Art: Rome. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructor.
5340. Seminar in Spanish Art. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructor.
5341. Seminar on Goya and Spanish Culture in the Age of Reason. The paintings and etchings of Goya and their significance in the Age of Reason. After full discussion of the range of Goya’s diverse work, students may either draw on the rich resources of the Meadows Museum for their reports or research a cultural or ethical topic pertinent to the period.
6330. Renaissance and Baroque Architecture. An introduction to Renaissance and Baroque architecture through a focus on the fashioning of religious spaces in Italy in the 15th to 17th centuries. The work of artists and architects such as Bramante, Sangallo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Vasari, Bernini, Borromini, Tintoretto, Caravaggio, Guarini and others will be considered.
6331. Art and Culture of the Italian Renaissance. Major artistic developments of the Renaissance (1300-1600), with special attention to the work of Giotto, Donatello, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian and Michelangelo. Includes study of the customs, literature and philosophy of the period through selected readings of primary sources.
6332. Sixteenth-Century Italian Art. Issues to be considered include the dominance of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian in the 16th century; the High Renaissance in Florence and Rome and its aftermath, Mannerism, in Catholic courts across Europe; the development of art history as a discipline in conjunction with the rise of academics, art collecting and the search for elevated status; and the challenge of women artists such as Sofonisba Anguissola to prevailing notions of creativity.
6335. Renaissance and Baroque Art in Northern Europe. Survey of major artists and monuments in France, Germany and the Low Countries from 1400 to 1700.
6336. Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art. An examination of visual culture of the Netherlands during the 17th century as an “art of describing” through the work of such painters as Hals, Vermeer and van Ruisdael and a consideration of the major figure of the period, Rembrandt.
6337. The Baroque from a Northern Perspective. The world of Rembrandt, Rubens, Leyster, Vermeer, Van Dyck, De la Tour, Le Brun, Jones and Wren in the context of such contemporary events as the Thirty Years’ War and the Reformation, as well as such issues as art versus craft, nationalism versus internationalism, individual genius versus market, colourism versus classicism, collector versus connoisseur. By considering a broad range of artworks – from tapestry to painting, from etching to architecture – in terms of the maker, patron/client and market, this survey will seek the underlying whys for this absorbing period.
6338. Baroque Art in Italy, Spain and the New World. A survey of artistic currents in Southern Europe and the Americas during the 17th century, concentrating on the achievements of such artistic giants as Bernini, Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi, Murillo and Velázquez, studying the artistic controversies they ignited and placing them in the context of major social movements. Also, the work of artists who are less well-known and the development of Baroque styles in Central and South America.
6339. El Greco to Goya: Spanish Painting of the Golden Age. A survey of the incomparable painting traditions of Spain’s 15th through early 19th centuries, including such artists as El Greco, Valazquez, Ribera, Murillo and Goya. Lectures will be supplemented by direct study of Spanish paintings and prints in the Meadows Museum.
6343. Goya and His Time. A study of Goya’s versatile talents as painter, etcher, lithographer, miniaturist and master of drawing. Through Goya’s work, it will be possible to follow the most relevant events of a decisive period for contemporary Spain.
6347. Eighteenth-Century European Art and Theatre: Staging Revolution. The repercussions in the visual and dramatic arts of what historian Eric Hobsbawm called the “dual revolution”: the French Revolution of 1789 and the early English Industrial Revolution. This twin upheaval had broad effects on cultural production in ways that can be explored through the interrelations between art and theatre in France and England between 1750 and 1848.
6348. Eighteenth-Century Art. A study of European visual culture, 1700-1800, in its many contexts. Topics to be considered include art and the public sphere; the rise of museums, exhibitions, criticism and theory; shifts in patronage and artistic practice; connections between commerce, industry and the arts; questions of identity; stylistic revivals and innovations; explorations of the past; and encounters with cultures outside Europe.
5350. Seminar on Romanticism and the 19th Century. An interdisciplinary investigation of the cultural sources and subject matter of Romanticism in Europe and America. Students will present oral reports on topics of their choice.
5351. Seminar on Art Nouveau and Symbolism. Introductory lectures on centers, sources and styles of the two international art movements with emphasis on parallel manifestations in dance, music, literature, cinema and philosophy.
5352. Seminar on Edvard Munch and the Nordic Impact. The Scandinavian heritage of existential anxiety as voiced by Kierkegaard, Ibsen, Strindberg and Ingmar Bergman, with a focus on the work of Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. Students report on topics of their choice.
5353. Seminar on Vienna: From Facade to Psyche. An interdisciplinary study of the imperial city just before World War I: Klimt, Schiele, Mahler, Schönberg, Schnitzler, Hofmannsthal, Musil, Kraus, Loos, Wittgenstein and Freud. Student oral reports on related topics.
5354. Seminar in 19th-Century Art. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructor.
5355. Seminar in 20th-Century Art. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructors.
5356. Seminar on Picasso. The styles and personality of this genius whose protean oeuvre anticipated every major art movement of the first half of the 20th century. Lectures cover Picasso in Spain and the early years in France. Student reports on thematic topics.
5357. Seminar on Cubism. A research seminar in the development of what has been called the most significant stylistic revolution since the Renaissance. The course will examine the origins of cubism and its effect on such other styles as orphism, synchronism, constructivism, futurism, dada and abstract art.
5358. Seminar on Modern Art. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructor.
5359. Seminar in Contemporary Art. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructor.
5364. Contemporary Art Seminar: Mobile Perception and the Double Aperture: Conceptualism and the Art of Seeing-Through the Car. The post-WWII era inaugurated another stage in the unfolding of the great saga of the machine and human movement. The National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956 (a.k.a. the Federal Highway Act of 1956) was passed under President Eisenhower, inaugurating an ongoing process of road development that brought with it the fundamental transformation of community and urban form. Today there are 46,726 miles (75,198 km) of roads and a new normative urban condition called urban sprawl. Reflecting a concomitant shift in human perception, artists and filmmakers such as Dan Graham, Robert Smithson, Ed Ruscha, Paul McCarthy, John Baldessari, Jeff Wall, Robert Altman, Steven Spielberg, Jean-Luc Godard, Joel Schumacher and Wim Wenders have distilled the technology of the double aperture, or the art of “seeing-through” the car window. The focus of this course is twofold: a body of image-text art from the mid-1960s and 1970s and the transformation of the human senses ushered by automotive movement taking form in a prosthetics of mobile perception. Students will read texts by Peter Galison, Reyner Banham, Jeff Wall, Robert Smithson, Peter Wollen, Marshall McLuhan, Jonathan Crary, Mitchell Schwarzer, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, John Brinckerhoff Jackson, Dolores Hayden and Robert Bruegmann.
5380. Seminar on Portraiture. A study of portraiture from different periods of history and an investigation of the culture and stylistic reasons for the shift in portraiture from façade to psyche.
5382. Museums and Collecting. The history of great collections and the foundation of art museums as public institutions, the role of museums today and possibilities for the future. Field trips, guest lecturers.
5383. Connoisseurship. Focusing on three major categories (style, quality and authenticity), the student will be taught to discriminate between real and false works, evaluate media use, judge relative aesthetic and historical qualities and assess condition and degrees of restoration.
5390. Spanish Art in the Meadows Museum. Intensive study of original works of Spanish art (14th century to the present) in the world-renowned collection of the Meadows Museum. Discussion and oral and written reports will focus on issues of style, iconography, connoisseurship and historical context. Visits to local public and private collections. Reading knowledge of Spanish is recommended.
6350. Modern Art and Media Culture 1789-1870. The emergence of a public sphere and a culture of looking in the 19th century. European visual art will be discussed in relation to the rise of museum and gallery culture, journalistic illustration, the department store display window, photography and the panorama.
6351. History of Modern Sculpture. A survey of the development of modern European and American sculpture from the late 19th century to the present. The course will also attempt to relate stylistic changes in sculpture to major trends in other mediums of expression and to art theory and criticism.
6352. Impressionism, Symbolism and the Deviant Body: Making a Difference. Impressionist and symbolist art in relation to the emergence of the modern metropolis and the concept of modernity in Europe from 1848 to 1914. The discourse of deviance and degeneration that emerged in the context of nineteenth-century racial theory, criminology and medical science will form the framework for our discussion. (also SMU-in-Paris)
6356. Modern Architecture. Western architecture from the late 19th century to the present, focusing on the proto-modern trends of the late 19th century and the major masters of the “modern” movement: Sullivan, Wright, Gropius, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe.
6357. Women Artists. A study of notable women artists from the Renaissance to the 20th century. Introductory lectures on women artists of the past viewed in their cultural and political context. Student reports on more recent women artists.
6358. Women in the Visual Arts: Both Sides of the Easel. An in-depth study of women in the visual arts in Europe and the Americas. Though introductory lectures will examine the historical exclusion of women from the canon, most of the class will look at images produced by and of women from 1850 to the present. The topics covered include feminist challenges to the history of art, abstraction and the female nude, the use of one’s “self” as material for art and feminist filmmaking.
6364. History and Theory of Prints. Students are surrounded by printed things: newspapers, postage stamps, maps and works of art. This course offers a chance to be more attentive to how prints are made and how they can function, while providing an overview of the history of printmaking. Students will survey some established and emerging printmakers and major printmaking techniques from the 15th through 21st centuries. They will also consider some fundamental issues regarding originality/copying, uniqueness/multiplicity, display and collecting as raised by the medium of print. First-hand experience of prints, through visits to and looking assignments in local collections as well as in-class exercises, is a vital part of this course.
6367. History of Photography. A survey of the evolution of
photography from its beginnings in the early 19th century. The course will
focus on the closely interwoven threads of technological and aesthetic developments
in photography.
6368. Contemporary Art and Architecture I, 1945-1965. The
first of a two-part lecture course that focuses on the history of art and architecture
after WW II. The period of focus for this portion of the course is the first
20 years after the war, from 1945 to 1965. In this short span of time, students
will see radical transformations in art and architecture: from the triumphalist
bravado of the prewar avant-garde to the existential crises of mid-century
abstractionists; from Cold War-era American suburbanization to student riots
in the streets of Paris in May 1968. Students will investigate the greater
political economy of individual objects, buildings and events of the recent
past, with the goal of understanding how they are constitutive of the greater
political, social and economic network of forces in which they live today.
6369. Contemporary Art and Architecture II, 1965-Present. The second of a two-part lecture course on contemporary art and architecture. It focuses on the history of art and architecture in Europe, the United States and Japan, 1965 to the present. Topics include: the transformation of art as a result of Roland Barthes’ “Death of the Author” and Michel Foucault’s “What is an Author?,” theory and conceptualism in art and architecture, the politics of the body and spatiality, gender and sexuality in the 1970s and 1980s, postmodernism in art and architecture, the philosophy of deconstruction and its effects on art and architecture, video, installation art, British art in the 1990s, the death drive of painting, painting in the new millennium and the new flatness.
5360. Seminar in British Art. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructor.
5361. Seminar in American Art of the 19th Century. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructor.
5362. Seminar in American Art of the 20th Century. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructor.
6370. British Architecture. Developments, architects and buildings in Great Britain from the late Middle Ages through the middle of the 19th century, emphasizing Smythson, Wren, Hawksmoor, Adam, Soane and Pugin.
6371. British Art: Elizabethan through Victorian. The landscape traditions, portraiture and genre painting in England from 1740 to 1860 and their relationship to the literature and politics of the period.
6372. American Architecture. A survey of building types and styles from the first European settlements to postmodernism, emphasizing the Mexican baroque, the American wooden vernacular, Richardson, Sullivan and Wright.
6373. American Art and Architecture to 1865. A survey of American painting, sculpture and architecture from the Colonial period through the Civil War.
6374. American Art and Architecture, 1865-1945. A survey of American painting, sculpture and architecture from the Civil War through World War II.
6375. Arts of the American Southwest. An overview of the visual culture of the region, defined as Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and California. Focuses on the region’s cultural landscape, its identity past and present as an art colony, art subject and art center. Looks at works produced by indigenous inhabitants, later arrivals and visitors; at cross-cultural connections and disconnections; at the roles played by the arts and tourism in the region’s development; and at the validity of regionalism as a category of investigation.
5366. Seminar in Pre-Columbian Art. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructor.
5368. Seminar on the Maya City: Art and Culture. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructor.
5369. Seminar on the Art of the Inca. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructor.
5391. Seminar in Asian Art. Specific topics for investigation chosen by the instructor.
6376. Latin American Art. A survey of art and architecture in Latin America from the initial contacts between European and American civilizations until the 20th century.
6380. Native American Art: The Southwestern Traditions. Surveys, through field trip and lecture-discussion, two major traditions, Native American and Hispanic, which flourish in the American Southwest.
6381. American Indian and Eskimo Art. The ritual and everyday objects of the native inhabitants of North America and the architecture of the Mound Builders and the Southwestern Indians.
6382. Arts of the Ancient Andean Tradition: Chavín to Inca. A survey of the major arts produced between about 1200 B.C. and A.D. 1530 by the indigenous peoples of modern western South America with greatest emphasis on the many successive art-producing cultures of Peru.
6383. The Ancient Maya: Art and History. An introduction to the art and history of the Maya of Central America. The course will address the principal sites and monuments of the ancient Maya civilization, impart a working understanding of the Maya hieroglyphic writing system and survey the political history of the fractious ancient Maya cities.
6385. The Aztecs Before and After the Conquest: Mesoamerica, 1400-1600. The art and cultural history of Mexico in the centuries immediately before and after the Spanish arrival in Mesoamerica. Topics include the art and ceremony of the imperial Aztec state; the nature of the conflict, between 1519 and 1521, that ended in the fall of the Aztec capital to the Spanish; and the monuments of Spanish conquerors, missionaries and native elite in Mexico’s early colonial period.
6390. Traditional Arts of Africa. A survey of the art produced in traditional African societies with special emphasis on the sculpture of West and Central Africa.
6392. (CFA 3313) Islamic Art and Architecture: The Creation of a New Art. Issues significant to the creation and expansion of Islamic art from the seventh to the 15th centuries. Topics include the cultural and political exchange and conflict between Muslims and Christians, religious concerns and the artistic forms created to meet them, the importance of the book in Muslim culture, the distinctions between religious and secular art and the appropriation of sacred space in Muslim architecture.
6394. Art and Architecture of Japan. Survey of religious and secular arts from prehistoric times through the Edo period. Field trips to Kyoto and Nara. (also SMU-in-Japan)
6395. Art and Architecture of India. An introduction to the major artistic expressions of India from the Indus Valley civilization through the time of the Mughals.
6396. Art and Architecture of China. The important monuments in China, ranging from 2000 B.C. to the present day, in a variety of media: cast bronze, stone, sculpture, painting on silk and paper, porcelain and wooden architecture, among others. Selected objects and sites will illuminate the concept of “monument” from differing perspectives of technology, aesthetics, labor, religion, ethnicity and politics. Also comparisons to analogous monuments outside China and visits to collections of Chinese art in Dallas-Fort Worth. (also SMU-in-China)
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