THAD Courses
THAD W186-101
POPULAR AMERICA: CAPITALIZM, CULTURE & THE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN DREAM
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course examines 20th century American popular culture - both visual and material - in relation to American history in order to understand how it reinforces socio-political ideologies in everyday life. We will look at and learn to decode advertisements as key to the cultural meanings of objects and as propaganda in reinforcing and disseminating cultural values. Using pop culture objects/concepts such as Disney, Tupperware, Barbie dolls, cars, TV, and the American Dream, we will explore democracy, capitalism, and questions of "high" and "low" cultural artifacts.
Elective
THAD W241-101
PARADES AND PROCESSIONS IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE
SECTION DESCRIPTION
In 1400-1800 Europe, processions were ubiquitous and frequent. A whole city or single parties would take to the streets, marching in unison for multiple reasons. Such collective actions were often part of rites of passage for royals (birth, marriage, coronation, or death) but also marked commoners' lives with funerals or carnival. They could commemorate a saint's feast day, stage relic transfers, or celebrate the visit of a ruler or a dignitary to a city (the so-called triumphant entries). This course explores the performative aspects of such events, from their logistics (preparations, space, timing) to the part played by art and design. How were bodies disciplined and groups kept together? What was carried along and to what physical or emotional effects? Questions of group identity emerge; the distinction of actors/spectators blurs; religion and politics interweave; and the senses dominate. We will decode images of such ephemeral spectacles in, notably, paintings, individual prints, and festive books; and analyze processional objects, whether extant or not, highlighting the importance of their materiality and symbolism. Embodied experience is planned through a series of theatre exercises.
Elective
THAD W252-101
BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATE
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Chocolate started as a spicy, red-colored, Mesoamerican beverage and morphed into the sweet version created by Europeans in the 17th and 18th centuries until mechanization and industrialization launched it in the form of edible bars in the 19th century. This course examines this history through the lens of the visual and material culture of chocolate from the 16th to the 21st centuries. We will discuss the elite's taste for exotic goods in pre-industrial times, the impact of colonialism and global trading networks, Europeans' craving for sugar, drinking rituals, and issues of race. We will work on critically assessing images and objects, deconstructing, for example, the image of chocolate in past or current commercials or reflecting on the erasure of labor in artistic representations. We will trace associations of pleasure, eroticism, the female gender, and racialization while looking at the space and the equipment designed for the performance of chocolate consumption in different cultures. This course also has a strong sensory and ethical dimension. Students will make, from scratch and by hand, the kind of chocolate found in pre-industrial times, processing beans into a cacao paste to be whisked into hot water or milk. To this embodied experience of harsh labor, a tasting session will teach students how to distinguish low- from high-quality chocolate bars. Finally, students will communicate with professional companies to learn about responsible development in the chocolate world today.
Elective
THAD W259-101
A HISTORY OF ORNAMENT
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course explores the evolution of ornament across global and cultural spheres and in a variety of design media, including architecture, interiors, furniture, metals, ceramics, textiles, and wallpaper. The physical manifestations of ornament in forms and patterns and its metaphysical meanings in symbols and motifs will be the basis of deconstructing and analyzing it as a visual language. Gendered, hierarchical, and imperial typologies of ornament will be assessed as expressions of social, cultural, historical, economic, and political conditions. Students will learn how to identify ornament as a cross-cultural design process and a complex cultural expression.
Elective
THAD W302-101
ART & LIT: TROJAN WAR
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The Trojan War is one of the most influential stories in the history of Western culture. After a brief examination of the archaeological evidence for such an event, this course will focus on the art and literature inspired by the Trojan War from Ancient Greece through modern times. Readings will include selections from Homer, Virgil, Chaucer, and Shakespeare, and take into account return stories such as the Odyssey. Art with Trojan iconography will be explored from ancient vase-paintings and sculptures through Renaissance and Baroque depictions, up to a contemporary graphic novelization and a brief discussion of films on the subject. Major themes include the interaction of art and literature, and the mutability of an established narrative at the hands of subsequent creators.
Elective
THAD W320-101
BAROQUE ROME
SECTION DESCRIPTION
In this course, we will examine art in Rome from the end of the 16th century to the beginning of the 18th century, a dynamic period that shaped much of the fabric of the city as we know it today. While analyzing urbanism, architecture, sculpture and painting by many of the major artists of the period (Caravaggio, Bernini, Borromini, Artemisia, Pietro da Cortona), we will also discuss commemoration of the ritual and ceremonial life of the city portrayed in engravings, drawings, printed books and on film.
Elective
THAD W323-101
LIVES AS ART: WOMEN PAINTERS, PHOTOGRAPHERS, WRITERS, FILM DIRECTORS, AND PERFORMANCE ARTISTS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The course will examine how female painters, photographers, performance artists and film directors use their bodies and elements of their biographies to build their art upon. We will read interviews with them and analyses of their work, watch documentary films, study self-portraits in painting and photography. We will try to define the special attraction and therapeutic role autobiographic art has for women. Among the artists discussed will be: Claude Cahun, Cindy Sherman, Ana Mendieta, Faith Ringgold, Marina Abramovic, Shirin Neshat, Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Maya Deren, Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, Agnes Varda, and Francesca Woodman. Students will do readings for every class and write a final paper about a chosen artist. Active participation in class discussions is required.
Elective
THAD W410-101
THE ARTIST'S FIELD JOURNAL: INDIGENOUS AMERICAN SPINNING, DYEING, AND WEAVING
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course has two primary goals: cultivating an in-depth, hands-on knowledge of a topic in indigenous art history and developing a diverse set of writing tools for documenting lived experience. First, this course will explore the history, anthropology, and overall context of the development of traditional indigenous American textile production methods. Our examination of these textiles will involve critical readings of key texts, lectures and discussions. However, above all, we will be employing a hands-on approach to reproduce the process involved in making these textiles. Focusing on the specific example of Navajo blanket and rug weaving, together we will create our own woven tapestries, replicating traditional methods from cleaning wool straight off the sheep, to dyeing with natural dyes, to building and weaving on our own traditional-style Navajo tapestry looms. The second goal of this course is to explore a variety of approaches toward documenting through writing students' own experiences in the field - ranging from more creative and artistic approaches to more formal or technical descriptions. The intention is to expose students to a variety of writing methods that may come in handy in their professional careers, be they artists' statements or grant applications. To this end, students will be keeping a semester-long field journal detailing their hands-on experiences in this course, culminating in the production of a final presentation of their work.
Elective
THAD W463-101
SCIENCE OF ART
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course will examine scientific and technical applications developed by Western artists and visual theorists from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century. Concentrating on pictorial traditions, the course will address what artists, authors and artist/engineers have referred to as scientific, technical, mechanical, and purely mental solutions to optical, proportional and quantitative visual problems. General themes will be perspective, form, color, and mechanical devices, and will include discussions on intellectual training, notebooks, treatises, and collecting. The course will examine artists such as Masaccio, Leonardo, Piero della Francesca, D|rer, Serlio, Carlo Urbino, Cigoli, Rubens, Vel`zquez, Saenredam, Vermeer, Poussin, Andrea Pozzo, Canaletto, Phillip Otto Runge,Turner, Delacroix, Monet, and Seurat.
Elective
THAD W662-101
THE MYTH OF THE CITY IN 19TH AND 20TH CENTURY WESTERN ART
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course will examine the role played by urban mythology in 19th and 20th - century European and American art. We will study the late - 19th - century idea of the flaneur, which influenced both visual arts and literature. We will discuss the Futurists' fascination with machines and the Surrealists' concept of a city perceived as a human body. We will analyse the Impressionists' views of Parisian streets, Frans Masereel's woodcuts The City, de Giorgio Chirico's metaphysical paintings and Edward Hopper's nostalgic images of the American metropolis. We will study how the interest in urban reality has influenced the development of new art movements of the last two centuries.
Elective
THAD W682-101
LEONARDO DA VINCI DRAWINGS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The course will explore the approaches and contexts of Leonardo da Vinci's draftsmanship. Studying primarily some of his surviving 6000 drawings and notes, the course will locate his aesthetic and analytical processes and contexts for a broad range of projects, such as paintings, sculptures, treatise literature, machines, weapons, maps, festivals, built environments, and studies of natural philosophy. We will also examine theoretical pursuits in the liberal and technical arts by Leonardo and his contemporaries, and their assessments of visual art as a science, and studies of natural science as a systematic art. Particularly informative will be Leonardo's responses to contemporary trends, to artisanal traditions, to the antique, to members of princely courts and republics, and more generally to investigative and inventive strategies.
Elective