College Bulletin 2022-2023 
    
    Mar 28, 2024  
College Bulletin 2022-2023 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

ARTH 001C. First-Year Seminar: Making Art History


Are works of art direct extensions, pure reflections, or unique expressions of an individual artist’s genius, fragile by implication and susceptible to destruction from over analysis? Or are works of art (as well as the definition just offered) cultural artifacts produced under specific material and social conditions, and fully meaningful only under extended analysis? Must we choose? And are these questions themselves, and the talk they generate or suppress, yet another manifestation of the Western European and American commodification of art, its production, and its consumption? Such questions will underlie this introduction to the goals, methods, and history of art history. Focusing on works drawn from a variety of cultures and epochs, as well as on the art historical and critical attention those works have attracted, students will learn to describe, analyze, and interpret both images and their interpretations and to convey their own assessments in lucid writing and speaking.
Humanities.
Writing course.
1 credit.
Catalog chapter: Art and Art History: Art History  
Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/art


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