A series of team-taught workshops designed to sharpen skills in the observation, analysis, and historical interpretation of works of art and architecture.
Enrollment open only to incoming graduate students in History of Art and Architecture.
“Something New, Something Old: A Marriage Made in Hell”
This seminar will examine how the new is rendered as something known. This conundrum is, in and of itself, an unprecedented problem. As such, the seminar will examine the relationship between differing theoretical approaches to urban spaces, architecture, pictorial production and consumption, and the historical investigation of colonial Latin American art and architecture in the 16th and 17th centuries. Some questions to be explored through...
Practicing art history in today’s increasingly mobile art world—whether as a field curator, academic researcher, critic, or other professional specialism—requires museum literacy, intellectual empathy, and the ability to work in multiple voices and mediums, in addition to art historical expertise. To understand the curator’s place in contemporary cultural institutions, this class will explore a series of theoretical concepts such as author, connoisseurship, taste and visual culture, along with a...
Graduate seminar exploring the intersection of the field of art history with the globalized art world. What is "contemporary art" - in theory, in practice, and in history?
This graduate seminar (qualified undergraduates will be admitted after interview), will investigate the complex relationships between painterly practices and mass cultural formations (photography, advertisement, television) from 1955 – 1965. The limited focus on two American and two European artists, and on one specific decade will allow us not only to study individual works in greater detail, but it will also provide time to pursue parallel readings in historical contextualization. These would include not only the study...
This course, designed as a graduate level seminar, has as its focus the question of transnational exchanges in architecture and urbanism. Themes of reception, transaction, technology transfer, the flows of capital and resources, professional networks and expertise are intrinsic to the seminar. Australian architecture is seen as a complex amalgam of traditions, that, like the United States, does not carry the weight of British and European traditions, but instead, as a welcome receptor, become a fluid setting for...
This is a seminar for advanced graduate students in East Asian art (and adjacent fields) focusing on reading secondary and primary sources in Japanese, as well as recent scholarship and theoretical texts in English. The topic will change each semester to accommodate the research projects, general exam fields, and interests of the participants. In addition to examining the state of the field of East Asian art history, the goal is to provide instruction in practical areas such as deciphering calligraphic texts (...
Critically explores the historiography and interpretations of Islamic ornament. Themes include ornamentality and abstraction, theories of perception, orientalist discourses on the so-called "arabesque," resonances of non-figural abstraction with modernism and postmodern aesthetics.
This seminar explores the history of painting during Japan’s Edo period (1615-1868). Along with an introduction to major artists and schools, the course will examine themes such as the formats and materiality of Japanese painting, aesthetics and connoisseurship, display practices, seasonality, the relationship to poetry and literary traditions, the influence of European pictorialism, and the status of the painter. There are no prerequisites. Offered concurrently with the major exhibition of Edo painting from the Feinberg...
The course explores the history of Indian painting based on the collections of Harvard Art Museums and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. We will investigate the theory of pictorial form in India and its relationship to the society at large against the historical currents by probing the development and changes in artistic styles and material culture of painting production. We will pay particular attention to the role of media, such as palm-leaf, birch bark, paper, and pigments, along with consideration of changing symbolic and...
We are told that print is dead. But the codes and processes of printmaking continue to shape contemporary art, culture, and technology in powerful ways. The most basic physical fact of printing -- its use of pressure in the creation of images and texts -- makes it an ideal tool for confronting questions of oppression and resistance. The collaborative qualities of printmaking are models for new understandings of distributed creativity and intelligence. The image reversals that occur in all print processes open...
The course explores cultural and artistic engagement with the trope of the “other” in 18th- and 19th-century France, Britain, and elsewhere. Paintings, prints, travel and costume books, architecture, and design will be discussed in broader social and cultural contexts. While considering different interpretive paradigms, we’ll focus on the most recent approaches that depart from fixed binary oppositions and monolithic treatment of the “Orient” versus the “Occident.” Special emphasis...
Harvard Square has a rich history; under its earlier name of Newtowne (founded in 1630), it was once the site of the Massachusetts capital. Much has changed. This class looks back on the many changes Harvard Square has undergone, recent challenges it has faced, and asks class members to think forward about how it might be re-envisioned. This class will combine work in local archives on issues related to history and policy, meetings with local Cambridge officials, and an array of local design and drawing assignments. Learn how...
The seminar examines cities and monuments built in Greater Iran and Central Asia from the 11th through 15th centuries spanning three principal dynastic periods (Seljuqs, Mongols, and Timurids). Various functional types—mosques, madrasas, minarets, tombs—, urban systems, and spatial organization are studied including the cities of Baghdad, Bukhara, Herat, Isfahan, Mashhad, Nishapur, Rayy, and Samarqand. We will examine the materials, construction and design processes of buildings, their...
Jinah Kim, Gulru Necipoglu-Kafadar, Melissa M. McCormick
Tuesday, 9:45am - 11:45am
This course introduces sophomore concentrators to on-site study of art and architecture through the case study of a particular geographic and cultural area. This year: India.
Excursion is optional; not a requirement. Open only to HAA Concentrators.
