Art History (ARTH)

ARTH 400 - Topics in Art History

Credits: 4

Art History will be presented thematically. At least three distinct chronological periods will be treated; students will develop research skills and give oral presentations. Topics will vary: "Art Writers: Their Sources and Their Effects;" "Rome from Romulus to the Fascists;" "Cults of the Original and Cultures of the Copy." Repeatable up to a maximum of 12 credits with different topics. May count towards Architectural Studies Minor if papers take the appropriate emphasis.

Attributes: FinePerformingArts(Discovery); Writing Intensive Course

Repeat Rule: May be repeated for a maximum of 12 credits.

Equivalent(s): ARTS 400

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH 440A - From Digging to Digital: Preserving and Displaying the Past

Credits: 4

This course introduces the methods for the digital preservation of artifacts and the ethics of cultural conservation. Students will work with objects from the UNH museum to assess digital tools available to conservators, art historians, and archaeologists. We will explore photogrammetry, 3D modeling, virtual reality, web publishing software, and digital applications to study objects and preserve our cultural heritage. Discussion sections will address the social role of museums and international affairs.

Attributes: Environment,TechSociety(Disc)

Equivalent(s): ARTS 440A

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH 444 - Mona Lisa to Much Ado About Nothing: An Introduction to Renaissance Culture

Credits: 4

What did Michelangelo and Shakespeare have in common? This course will read primary sources about the period called the Renaissance, which looked back to Greek and Roman paganism but which also launched Europe toward modernity due to its new emphasis on individual ambition and civic pride.

Attributes: FinePerformingArts(Discovery); Inquiry (Discovery); Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 444

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH 444B - Art and Money

Credits: 4

This course explores the relationship between art and money from a variety of perspectives. Topics will range from the art market boom in seventeenth-century Holland, to money as subject matter in twentieth-century art. How do we determine the value of art? How do markets influence taste? How do we define authenticity? What is at stake in the opposition between art and money, and can they be reconciled?.

Attributes: FinePerformingArts(Discovery); Inquiry (Discovery); Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 444B

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH #444C - Seeing Gender: Feminist Art and Visual Culture

Credits: 4

What is the role of visual culture in our understanding of sex, gender and sexuality? What role do the history of art, art and film criticism, and philosophical aesthetics play in the creation, interpretation, and appreciation of feminist art? Through close analysis of key artworks, primary sources, and theoretical and literary texts, as well as discussion and writing, this course will explore topics including gender norms, the gaze, patriarchal/stake violence, transgender theory, and global feminism.

Attributes: FinePerformingArts(Discovery); Inquiry (Discovery)

Equivalent(s): ARTS 444C

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH 474 - Introduction to Architectural History

Credits: 4

Survey of representative buildings from the entire history of architecture with analysis of structure, form, and symbolic content, concentrating on major works such as pyramids, the Roman Pantheon, the Gothic cathedral, the Renaissance palace, the Baroque church, and the modern skyscraper. In addition to the overarching narrative of architectural history, further topics include materials and building technologies, design theories, aesthetic principles, and the role of the architect in society.

Attributes: Historical Perspectives(Disc)

Equivalent(s): ARTS 574

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH 480 - Introduction to Art History

Credits: 4

Analysis of the central forms and meanings of art history through intensive study of selected artists and monuments. Includes works of architecture, sculpture, painting, and the graphic arts. Topics will vary but might include the Parthenon, Chartres Cathedral, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling. Rembrandt's self-portraits, Monet's landscapes, Picasso's Guernica, Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling water, Georgia O'Keeffe's abstractions, ukiyo-e prints, and Benin sculpture.

Attributes: FinePerformingArts(Discovery)

Equivalent(s): ARTS 480

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH 485 - Introduction to Global Art History

Credits: 4

What is art? Or, what does art do? In this course we will try to answer these questions by surveying works of art from a range of different cultures across the globe that represent tens of thousands of years of human history. The majority of our time will be spent studying non-western art and art created by historically marginalized artists and communities. This class will be divided into modules centralized around important themes in art history that will allow us to consider why art is made, how art is made, and why art is so important to human history.

Attributes: FinePerformingArts(Discovery)

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

View Course Learning Outcomes

ARTH 501 - Introduction to Mediterranean Archaeology

Credits: 4

Survey of representative archaeological sites, architecture, and objects produced by the cultures surrounding the Ancient Mediterranean. The course will focus on the structure, form, and symbolic content, or sanctuaries, cities, tombs, housing, as well as material culture such as pottery and sculpture. In addition to the overarching narrative of the history of classical archaeology, further topics include cross-cultural influences, materials and building technologies, archaeological theory and practice, and aesthetic principles.

Attributes: World Cultures(Discovery)

Equivalent(s): CLAS 501

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH 502 - Ancient Pompeii and the Bay of Naples

Credits: 4

This course analyzes the cultural development of Pompeii and adjacent sites buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. The aim is to understand the architectural layout and material culture of the cities, their development over time, as well as understand how social norms, politics and cultural influences shaped the appearance and the built environment in the seven hundred years that Pompeii existed prior to its destruction. Through the lens of the surviving art, architecture, and material culture students will learn about everyday life in ancient Pompeii and how different social classes interacted in the city.

Attributes: World Cultures(Discovery)

Equivalent(s): CLAS 502

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

View Course Learning Outcomes

ARTH 583 - Baroque Art: Realism, Caricature, Shock

Credits: 4

The last period of Italian world prominence in the visual arts, the Baroque witnessed a shift of artistic power toward Spain, France, and the Netherlands. The private collecting of pictures, controversies over the legitimacy of religious images, the exploration of etching, pastels, and monotypes, and the serious pursuit of less august subject matter for the visual arts all served to separate Baroque art from its esteemed predecessor, the Renaissance. Bernini, Borromini, Caravaggio, Velazquez, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Poussin are among the artists to be studied.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTH 683

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH #587 - Art in an Age of Revolutions, c. 1715-1900

Credits: 4

This course surveys visual art made in Europe and North America in a period of profound change: from the dawn of Enlightenment, through the American and French Revolutions and their reverberations throughout Europe, to the eve of WWI. Topics will include the role of portraiture in revolutionary politics from Copley's Paul Revere to David's Marat; crises in modern history painting from Benjamin West to Goya; and the radical realisms of Courbet and the Pre-Raphaelites.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 687

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH #592 - Photography's Brave New Worlds

Credits: 4

Today, we are bombarded by photographs on the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Indeed, digital photographs seem to have created a "brave new world." However, throughout its history, photography's artistic innovations, technological developments, and creative new uses have transformed the ways in which we navigate the world. This course focuses on photography's game-changing impact on art, science, social reform, popular culture, globalization, and war propaganda from 1839 to the present.

Attributes: Historical Perspectives(Disc)

Equivalent(s): ARTS 592

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH #600 - Internship in Art History

Credits: 1-4

Elective only. Cannot be used to fulfill art history requirements.

Repeat Rule: May be repeated for a maximum of 8 credits.

Equivalent(s): ARTS 600

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH #654 - 17th and 18th Century American Architecture

Credits: 4

Chief architectural styles and significant buildings from the European colonization to the birth of the American republic. A study of religious, public, and domestic architecture and of the settlement patterns of the Spanish, French, Dutch, and English colonies, culminating in the revolutionary classicism of the new republic. Typical works include the California mission church, the New Orleans raised cottage, the Dutch farm house of the Hudson Valley, the plantations of Virginia, and the Boston State House. Field trips.

Equivalent(s): ARTS 654

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH #655 - Nineteenth-Century Architecture: The Architecture of Empire

Credits: 4

Architectural concepts and significant buildings in Europe and America from the Revolutions of the late eighteenth century to the First World War; this course covers religious, civic, commercial, and domestic theories of architecture as well as town planning and urban design during the rise of the modern nation-state and market capitalism. Connections between social and architectural history will be emphasized.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 655

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH #656 - Twentieth-Century Architecture: Modern and Contemporary

Credits: 4

From the turn of the century to recent commissions of living architects, this course provides a global view of twentieth-century architecture, covering the major movements along with more radical engagements with architecture. Important formal, technological, and theoretical debates surrounding Modernism will lead to consideration of Post-Modernity and contemporary values of architectural design. Connections between social and architectural history will be emphasized.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 656

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH 674 - Greek Art and Architecture

Credits: 4

Ancient Greece has long been a source of emulation and inspiration. From the legendary Bronze Age palaces of Mycenae and Knossos, through the classical ideas of the city state and its ultimate diffusion through Alexander the Great, this course explores ancient Greek culture through the lens of its art and architecture. We will consider the monuments and surviving artifacts that have influenced art and architecture through the ages and continue to shape the modern world.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 674

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH #675 - Roman Art and Architecture

Credits: 4

Starting as a handful of huts overlooking the Tibet River, Rome would grow into a vast empire spanning the Mediterranean. In the process the Roman world would absorb, adapt, and encompass a variety of ancient cultures to create vibrant works of art and architecture. This course will survey the artistic and architectural achievements of ancient Rome. Our aim is to understand the development of Roman material culture and consider its legacy in the modern world.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 675

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH #677 - Early Medieval Art

Credits: 4

Development of Christian art from 300 to 1000 A.D. Study of the formulation of a new visual language via the intersection of Mediterranean and northern European traditions. Major focus on early Christian catacombs, Byzantine mosaics, insular manuscripts, and Carolingian imperial art.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 677

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH 678 - Romanesque and Gothic Art

Credits: 4

From the fall of the Roman Empire to the fourteenth century, through plague and destruction, glory and honor, heaven and hell, this course tackles the culmination of medieval artistic development, focusing especially on major architectural monuments and their sculptural programs. Treating also the art of tombs, relics, manuscripts, and devotional painting. Connections between social, religious, and art history are emphasized.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 678

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH #679 - Northern Renaissance Art I

Credits: 4

Painting, sculpture, graphic arts, and manuscript illumination in France, Germany, and the Netherlands in the 14th and 15th centuries. Emphasis on the development of the traditions of Northern naturalism and the emergence in 15th-century Flanders of a distinct Renaissance consciousness, which runs parallel to contemporary trends in Italy. Major figures include the Limbourg brothers, Claus Sluter, Jan van Eyck, and Hugo van der Goes.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 679

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH #680 - Iconoclasm and Collecting: The Art of Early Modern Northern Europe

Credits: 4

The sixteenth century in northern Europe was a time of tumult, religiously, politically, and economically. We will study a formative early phase in the challenge to create an art during ideologically-fraught times (including amusing art), from Bosch's weird monsters to Bruegel's vast landscapes. Prints and drawings greatly expanded the market for art, its capabilities to explore new imagery, and its geographical reach. Lucas van Leyden, key predecessor of Rembrandt, Durer, an unusually well-traveled artist and ambitious to create an art theory for Germans, Holbein, one of whose portraits caused an international debacle, and Bruegel, who turns his back on traditional ambitions, were all valued for their works on paper as well as their paintings.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 680

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH 681 - Early Renaissance Art

Credits: 4

How did Europe recover from the Black Death in 1348? How was it possible for Florence to become the center of western creativity both before and after that catastrophe? How did Renaissance art develop elsewhere during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries? Was was "primitive" about Botticelli?.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 681

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH 682 - The High Renaissance

Credits: 4

Examines the trajectory from Leonardo to the deaths of Michelangelo and Titian: painting, sculpture, architecture, and works on paper.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 682

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH #684 - Baroque Art in Northern Europe

Credits: 4

Dutch and Flemish painting in the 17th century. Examination of such major figures as Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, and Vermeer. Attention is also given to the development of the genres and to the many little masters who practiced them.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 684

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH #685 - Graphic Art of the Renaissance and Baroque Periods

Credits: 4

The availability of paper and the invention of the printing press made it possible for drawings and prints to become fundamental elements in the western artistic tradition. Prints have been called major instigators of the production of secular art and of overtly experimental art. They were the first art made with an elite but relatively broad class of collectors in mind, and--in different examples--the first art that could be owned even by the poor. Examination of anonymous works, works by artists famous only as printmakers, and the printed work by or after Mantegna, Durer, Lucas van Leyden, Raphael, Michelangelo, Bruegel, and Rembrandt, as well as drawings of the period.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 685

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH 686 - Sex and Sensuality in 18th-Century Art

Credits: 4

European art of the "long" eighteenth century (1680-1815) experienced radical shifts in aesthetic, social, and political orientation: from the splendors of absolutism to the austere neoclassicism of revolutionary art. This course explores painting and sculpture (and works in other media) in relation to the development of a public sphere, the emergence of individualism, the invention of personal domestic comfort, the introduction of women to artistic power, the scientific revolution, and the birth of global consumer culture.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 686

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH 688 - Histories of Late 19th & 20th Century European Modernism

Credits: 4

An examination of European and American art from Symbolism to Surrealism, from the 1890s to World War II. The course focuses on a series of topics related to the political, social, scientific, and artistic upheavals of the era. Among the topics to be considered are Gauguin and "Primitivism"; Picasso, Cubism, and film; the Bauhaus and Utopian Architecture; Modernist Philosophy; Surrealism and Freud; and the fate of art under Hitler and Stalin.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 688

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH #689 - Contemporary Art and Theory: 1945-2000

Credits: 4

This course examines developments in the fine arts and art theory from 1945 to the present. Special emphasis will be on the issues of the construction of post-war national/culture identities, the relationship between aesthetics and politics, and globalization, in relation to various artistic movements, including Action and color Field Painting, Pop Art, Minimalism and Conceptual Art, Earthworks and Sited Sculpture, Feminist Art, and Digital Art.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 689

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH #693 - American Art

Credits: 4

A chronological survey of American painting and sculpture from the European colonization to the New York Armory Show of 1913, with emphasis on portraiture, narrative, still-life, and landscape painting. Examination of stylistic and thematic developments from the Puritan and Georgian New England portrait, the heroic narrative of the Revolutionary era, the romantic landscape to the realism of the post-Civil War era and the birth of modernism. Typical works include Copley's Portrait of Paul Revere, Cole's Course of Empire, Homer's Fog Warning, Cassatt's At the Opera, and Eakin's Max Schmitt in a Single Scull.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 693

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH 694 - Vision and Modernity: From Panorama to Early Film

Credits: 4

The course examines the emergence of modern visual culture between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 20th century. It tracks the development of new technologies and conditions of viewing—from the panorama to photography to early cinema—and situates those developments in relation to larger social, intellectual, and cultural shifts in our conceptions of subjectivity, collectivity, and the mechanics of optical perception. The visual material at the center of our discussions will include nineteenth- and twentieth-century photographs, as well as paintings, prints, film, and other forms of visual entertainment and ephemera.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 694

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH 695 - Topics in Art History

Credits: 4

Topics and prerequisites to be announces before registration. May be repeatable twice with different topics.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Repeat Rule: May be repeated for a maximum of 8 credits.

Equivalent(s): ARTS 695

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH #697 - Topics in Asian Art

Credits: 4

A thematic study of the major artistic achievements in India, China, and/or Japan from pre-history to the twentieth century. Works of art in various media, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, calligraphy, prints, architecture, and gardens, will be examined in relation to philosophical concepts and to their cultural/historical contexts. May be repeated twice with different topics.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Repeat Rule: May be repeated for a maximum of 8 credits.

Equivalent(s): ARTS 697

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH 699 - Museum Studies

Credits: 4

Introduction to the history and practice of American museums, including their purposes, organization, interpretation, policies and practices. Use of the UNH Museum of Art with occasional visits to other museums and art conservators. This course may not be used by studio art/art ed or B.F.A majors to fulfill the art history requirements.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 699

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH #700H - Honors Seminar in Art History

Credits: 4 or 8

The thesis course involves substantial research in an original problem in art history. A 1-2 page written proposal needs to be endorsed by a faculty member and the Department Honors Committee. The thesis proposal identifies the specific goals, methodology, anticipated outcome, and general timeline and must be submitted the semester prior to the start of the project. Upon completion, the student and faculty mentor will present the thesis project to the Honors-in-Major Committee.

Attributes: Honors course

Repeat Rule: May be repeated for a maximum of 8 credits.

Equivalent(s): ARTS 700H

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH 795 - Understanding Art History: An In-Depth Overview

Credits: 4

Art history is by its nature interdisciplinary, and so this course, while it is intended as the capstone for art history majors, also welcomes voices (and eyes) from other disciplines. We will look at a variety of case studies addressing works of art and architecture, and students will research their own topics, in an effort to understand better the strengths and weaknesses of art historical thought, both past and present.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Equivalent(s): ARTS 795

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH 796 - Independent Study: Art History

Credits: 1-4

Open to highly qualified juniors or seniors who have completed the advanced level courses. May be repeated for a maximum of 8 credits. Written proposal required and permission from supervising faculty member.

Repeat Rule: May be repeated for a maximum of 8 credits.

Equivalent(s): ARTS 796

Grade Mode: Letter Grading

ARTH 799 - Seminar in Art History

Credits: 4

Topics and prerequisites to be announced before registration. May be repeated with permission of instructor.

Attributes: Writing Intensive Course

Repeat Rule: May be repeated for a maximum of 8 credits.

Equivalent(s): ARTS 799

Grade Mode: Letter Grading