Course Outline for Art History 5
Art History - Renaissance to Modern-Day

Effective: Fall 2022
SLO Rev: 09/12/2021
Catalog Description:

ARTH 5 - Art History - Renaissance to Modern-Day

3.00 Units

This course presents a chronological history of the West using iconic works of art and architecture that embody the conditions and values of the people who created them. We begin as Humanism cleaves the Early Renaissance away from a Medieval mindset, and conclude in recent times, as art is radically redefined by modern and contemporary artists to evocatively reflect our unpredictable, challenging times. This course is especially appropriate for visual learners.
1002.00 - Art
Optional
Type Units Inside of Class Hours Outside of Class Hours Total Student Learning Hours
Lecture 3.00 54.00 108.00 162.00
Total 3.00 54.00 108.00 162.00
Measurable Objectives:
Upon completion of this course, the student should be able to:
  1. identify and establish an argument for the cultural significance of, and historical values embodied in, artwork from the proto-Renaissance through the Modern period;
  2. identify and establish an argument for the cultural significance of, and historical valued embodied in, artwork from the Modern and Contemporary periods;
  3. identify and establish an argument for the cultural significance of, and historical values embodied in, original artwork viewed in museums (in person or virtually).
Course Content:

1. Introduction: Setting the 14th Century Stage

A. the philosophy of Humanism

B. pandemic!

C. rise of city-states

2. Renaissance 1: Early

A. key ideas

a. Humanism and the human image in art

b. aesthetic and philosophical precepts of representationalism and abstraction

B. key artists

a. Cimabue

b. Giotto

c. Duccio

3. Renaissance II: High

A. key ideas

a. humanism bridges faith and realism

b. illusionism and linear perspective

B. key artists and architects

a. Leon Battista Alberti

b. Filippo Brunelleshi

c. Leonardo da Vinci

d. Michelangelo

4. Renaissance: Northern

A. key ideas

a. Humanism beyond Italy

b. Protestant Reformation

B. key artists

a. Jan van Eyck

b. Albrecht Durer

c. Pieter Brueghel the Elder

5.   Baroque I: Italy

A. key ideas

a. Counter-Reformation

b. dramatics of chiaroscuro and tenebrism

c. Church and State

B. key artists and architects

a. Caravaggio

b. Artemisia Gentileschi (breaking the gender barrier)

c. Gianlorenzo Bernini

6.   Baroque II: Northern

A. key ideas

a.  Protestant Reformation

b.  art and society in the Dutch Golden Age

B. key artists

a.   Rembrandt

b.   Johannes Vermeer

c.   Judith Leyster

7. Rococo

A. key ideas

a. Monarchy and Absolutism

b. French court culture and Versailles

B. key artists

a. François Boucher

b. Jean Antoine Watteau

c. Jean-Honoré Fragonard

8.  Neoclassicism

A. key ideas

a. Enlightenment

b. French Revolution

B. key artists and architects

a. Jacques Louis David

b. Antonio Canova

c. Thomas Jefferson

9.   Romanticism

A. key ideas

a. Romanticism in philosophical and literary thought

b. rise of the anti-hero

B. key artists

a. Francisco Goya

b. Theodore Gericault

c. Eugene Delacroix

10.   Realism

A. key ideas

a. industrialization

b. the writings of Baudelaire

c. invention of photography

B. key artists

a. Gustave Courbet

b. Edouard Manet

c. Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre

11.  Impressionism

A. key ideas

a. art and science

b. Franco-Prussian war

c. Japonisme

B. key artists

a. Claude Monet

b. Edgar Degas

c. Mary Cassatt

12. Post-Impressionism

A. key ideas

a. fin de siècle European culture

b. rise of artistic individualism

B. key artists

a. Paul Cezanne

b. Paul Gauguin

c. Vincent van Gogh

d. Henry Ossawa Tanner (breaking the race barrier)

13. Expressionism

A. key ideas

a. World War I

b. Scientism and Existentialism

c. Theosophy

d. rise of Nazism (and Social Realism) and “Degenerate Art” iconoclasm

B. key artists

a. Hilma af Klint (pioneering non-representationalism)

b. Wassily Kandinsky

c. Franz Marc

d. Egon Shiele

14. Cubism

A. key ideas

a. Cezanne’s example

b. Analytic and Synthetic Cubism

B. key artists

a. Pablo Picasso

b. George Braque

15. Dada

A. key ideas

a. World War I

b. Dada as political and cultural protest

B. key artists

a. Marcel Duchamp

b. Hannah Hoch

16. Surrealism

A. key ideas

a. Sigmund Freud and the unconscious

b. Surrealist methods

i.  automatism

ii. dreams

iii. juxtaposition

B. key artists

a. Salvador Dali

b. Meret Oppenheim

c. René Magritte

17. New Modern Voices

A. key ideas

a. Harlem Renaissance

b. Mexican Muralism

B. key artists

a.  Aaron Douglas

b.  Carl van Vechten

c.  “Los Tres Grandes” (Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, David Siqueiros)

18. Abstract Expressionism

A. key ideas

a. Post-war freedom and Existentialism

b. Action and Color Field Painting

c. Pollock and Krasner: a mid-century gender dynamic

B. key artists

a. Jackson Pollock

b. Lee Krasner

c. Mark Rothko

19. Minimalism

A. key ideas

a. Essentialism

b. Japanese Zen philosophy

B. key artists and architects

a. Donald Judd

b. Agnes Martin

c. Ellsworth Kelly

d. Landscape architecture and Isamu Noguchi

20. Pop Art

A. key ideas

a. post-war consumerism

b. commodity culture

B. key artists

a. Andy Warhol

b. Roy Lichtenstein

c. Marisol

21. Post-Modernism

A. key ideas

a. late capitalism

b. critical theory: race, gender, and queer orientation

B. key artists

a. Cindy Sherman

b. Barbara Kruger

c. Richard Prince

22. Contemporary art

A. topics could include:

a. the margins define the mainstream

b. art and the climate crisis

c. art and Black Lives Matter

d. art and #MeToo

B. artists could include:

a. Sadie Barnette

b. Damian Hirst

c. David Hammons

Methods of Instruction:
  1. A museum/gallery/site-specific visit with an appropriate exhibition
  2. Lecture/Discussion
  3. Distance Education
  4. Videos
Assignments and Methods of Evaluating Student Progress:
  1. Choose a work of art on view at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco, and write a four-page essay correctly identifying the art movement it belongs to based on its style and subject matter.
  2. Define the following concepts and cite specific artworks in which they can be found: linear perspective, Humanism, chiaroscuro, Japonisme, "Degenerate Art", Action Painting, critical theory.
  1. Exams requiring slide identification, short and long essay answers
  2. Written assignments
  3. Art Museum visit assignment
  4. Research Projects
  5. Final Examination or Project
Upon the completion of this course, the student should be able to:
  1. identify and establish an argument for the cultural significance, and historical values embodied in, artwork from the proto-Renaissance through the pre-Modern period;
  2. identify and establish an argument for the cultural significance, and historical values embodied in, artwork from the Modern and Contemporary periods;
  3. identify and establish an argument for the art style, cultural significance, and historical value of original artwork viewed in museums (in person or virtually).
Textbooks (Typical):
  1. Robertson, Jean; Hutton, Deborah; Colburn, Cynthia; Harmansah, Omur (2021). The History of Art: A Global View: Prehistory to the Present Thames and Hudson.
  • When taken online, students will require a computer with internet access, and they must be registered for the Canvas MLS, which is provided free for students.
Abbreviated Class Schedule Description:
This course presents a chronological history of the West using iconic works of art and architecture that embody the conditions and values of the people who created them. We begin as Humanism cleaves the Early Renaissance away from a Medieval mindset, and conclude in recent times, as art is radically redefined by modern and contemporary artists to evocatively reflect our unpredictable, challenging times. This course is especially appropriate for visual learners.