This course introduces selected monuments produced by the civilizations of the pagan ancient Mediterranean and the Near East, medieval Christian Europe, and the world of Islam, from ca. 3000 BCE to ca. 1300 CE. The course examines a wide range of material - from colossal monuments built for the powerful to humble objects used by commoners, from works of awesome religious significance to lighthearted artifacts of the secular realm - to understand the role art played in the various societies of the ancient world. Emphasis is placed on how the monuments functioned within their cultural contexts and how they expressed political, social, and religious meanings. To facilitate the inquiry, the course also introduces terms and principal methods of art historical study.

This class introduces students to artistic works created in Western Europe and the Americas from circa 1300 to the present. Students will learn to discuss how art communicates, while pursuing larger questions of meaning related to the social, cultural, and artistic context in which the works were created. While students will learn to identify stylistic characteristics, particular emphasis is given to how the works complement and/or reflect particular political, spiritual, scientific, or philosophical issues. Discussion and writings stress the interpretive methods of the discipline of art history.

This course is a survey of the major artistic traditions of Asia, primarily of China, India, and Japan, from prehistoric times to the turn of the twentieth century. It examines important monuments and emphasizes the interaction of art and society, specifically, how different artistic styles are tied to different intellectual beliefs, geographical locations, and other historical contexts. The course includes a field trip to the Seattle Asian Art Museum.

This course introduces the arts of Mesoamerica and Mexico from 1200 BCE to the present. Architecture, sculpture, pottery, textiles, and painting of the pre-Columbian, Viceregal, and modern periods are examined with their ritual functions in mind, focusing on the political and religious contexts of the works. Style is analyzed throughout the course as a product of cultural intersection and transmission, reflecting ongoing adaptation and assimilation rather than the hegemonic expression of one particular culture. Readings and discussions on art and material culture from the 16th century to the present include the reception of "New World" images and objects by European and North American audiences, as well as a fundamental investigation of the power of art to create, confirm national and local identity, or reject views of other cultures. Counts toward Latin American Studies minor.

This course investigates women as creators, patrons, and subjects of art from the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries. We will study individual histories of female artists alongside some critical theories around gender, sexuality and representation, in order to explore the gendering of artistic practice and the practices of representing gendered subjects. The course explores questions like: How does gender change our understanding of art and the meanings associated with art? Did women's artwork or commissions differ from those of men, and if so, in what ways? What were the range of meanings for woman as subject matter? What do these images tell us about women's changing positions and roles in family and society? What different positions have women adopted in relation to representing, looking and being represented? The course approaches this history chronologically and thematically, covering themes like patronage, markets, portraiture, the craft-art separation, and modernism; and in order to widen our perspective and achieve broader conclusions, we will consider case studies of women as artists, patrons, and subjects in India, China, Japan and the Ottoman Empire. Class sessions will combine short lectures with in-depth discussions of readings and images, student presentations, and film viewings/discussions.

This course explores the artistic trends in the West from 1900 to the present focusing on the relationship of artists and movements to historical and cultural events that shaped the period. Theoretical readings inform the study of painting, architecture, sculpture, photography, printmaking, installation and performance art from the modernism of the early twentieth century to current artistic movements.

This course offers an overview of works created throughout the Italian peninsula, from Naples to Genoa, and Venice to Rome from the thirteenth through the fifteenth century. In addition to the well-known artists who generally define the period (Giotto, Donatello, Botticelli) the course covers a variety of artists, media, and sites that broaden students' understanding of the early Renaissance, examining formal transformations within social, political, and religious contexts. Students focus particularly on how art was used in the civic structure of both republics and courts, and how individual patrons shaped the visual arts in Italy from the early fourteenth-century innovations of Giotto to the late fifteenth-century innovations of Leonardo and Michelangelo. In addition to understanding how visual images communicate by developing skills of formal analysis of art and architecture, students focus on the interpretation of how and what particular styles conveyed in society. Writing assignments include the critical analysis of art historical writing, analysis of style, and a research paper.

Islamic culture is truly global, encircling the planet from the Islamic Center of Tacoma, WA to the Kaaba in Mecca, to the myriad mosques of Xinjiang Province in China. The history of the Islamic world is equally vast, spanning over a millennium. This course focuses on the history of Islamic visual culture from the 7th through the 17th century and explores works of art in a variety of media (e.g., architecture and monumental decoration, book illuminations, ceramics, metal-works, textiles, etc.) both from the religious and the secular realms. Artworks are examined with particular attention to their original function, context, and intended audience, and are presented from a range of methodological perspectives. Topics of special interest include: formation of Islamic art; function and decoration of Islamic religious artifacts and architecture; development of regional styles; interactions of text and image; visual expressions of power and authority; reflections of gender; garden culture.

The civilization of ancient Greece has an important place in the formation of Western culture and in the development of Art History as a discipline. This course examines the art produced in Greece and the Greek world from the Early Bronze Age through the Hellenistic period (ca. 3000 BCE to 1st c. BCE), with particular emphasis on artistic production of the 8th through the 1st century BCE. Works of art are examined with particular attention to their original function, context, and intended audience, and are presented from a range of methodological perspectives. Topics of special interest include: gender and the body; images of women; power and visual propaganda; function and decoration of painted pots; narrative strategies; architecture and decoration of sanctuaries; votive statues; funerary monuments; art of the domestic sphere; the history of the study of Greek art.

This course introduces selected monuments of the Etruscan and Roman civilizations from ca. the 8th c. BCE to the 4th c. CE. Through careful analysis of artworks, the course traces the emergence, flourishing, and eventual disappearance of the Etruscan civilization in Northern Italy in the 8th-3rd centuries BCE and follows the spectacular development of the city-state of Rome into the vast Roman Empire dominating the Mediterranean and Western Europe. Works of art are examined with particular attention to their original function, context, and intended audience, and are presented from a range of methodological perspectives. Topics of special interest include: interactions between the Greek, Etruscan, Egyptian, and Roman artistic traditions; copying; imperial art and visual propaganda; images of women; art of the non-elite; material culture of urban amenities (e.g., baths, arenas); material culture of religion; art in the domestic sphere; funerary monuments; development of Roman painting and mosaic styles; art of the provinces.

This course explores the artistic traditions of the Late Antique and Byzantine periods from the earliest surviving monuments of Christian art of the mid-3rd century to the monuments of the Late Byzantine Empire up to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The course examines how the interactions between the Greco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian traditions produced the art of Late Antiquity and Byzantium, and accentuates the visual, social, and religious continuities and ruptures between these traditions. Works of art are examined with particular attention to their original function, context, and intended audience, and are presented from a range of methodological perspectives. Topics of special interest include: the formation of Christian art; images of power and authority; representations of gender; the function and decoration of liturgical spaces; icons, image theory, and the Iconoclastic Controversy; depictions of the secular world; Byzantine art beyond the borders of the empire.

This course introduces the art of Medieval Western Europe from the Period of Migrations through the Gothic Era (7-14th century.) A fundamental social and cultural transformation of Western Europe followed the end of the Roman Empire characterized by the increasing dominance of the Christian Church, the interaction of various cultural and ethnic groups, the development of feudalism, and the eventual renascence of the Western Roman Empire. The intermingling of the Germanic, Greco-Roman, Early Christian, and Byzantine pictorial traditions produced a distinct visual culture that developed separately from the artistic tradition of the Byzantine East. Works of art are examined with particular attention to their original function, context, and intended audience, and are presented from a range of methodological perspectives. Topics of special interest include: the role of relics and pilgrimage; the visual expression of imperial and monastic ideology; revival and rejection of the classical style; function and decoration of liturgical spaces; the role of words and images in illuminated books; and representations of gender.

The period between 1780 and the end of the nineteenth century is marked by myriad social changes and scientific innovations, from revolutions across Europe and the Americas, enlightenment thought, and increasing emphasis on human rights, to the innovation of photography, steel construction, and paint in tubes. This course studies how artists and architects responded to these developments, focusing particularly on the shift from academic works to the rise of modernism and the avant-garde.

This course is an introduction to the foundations of Chinese art from the Neolithic period to the present. It covers the arts of ceramics, bronze, jade, painting, calligraphy, sculpture, and architecture. Emphasis is placed on the relationship of art forms and the socio-political forces and intellectual discourses that shaped them. Each class combines lecture and discussion. The course includes two hands-on sessions of Chinese calligraphy and ink painting.

This course is a survey of the visual arts of Japan from the Neolithic period to modern times. The course also examines the social, political, and philosophical atmosphere that shaped these arts. Architecture, sculpture, ceramics, and decorative arts are discussed, but painting and woodblock print is emphasized in the later periods.

This course examines Chinese art in the socially and politically tumultuous twentieth century, which has witnessed the end of Imperial China, the founding of the Republic, the rise of the People's Republic, and the impact of the West throughout the period. The focus is on the art and society from the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) to the 21st century.

This course is an introduction to the major monuments and movements of Buddhist art in Asia, including China, Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, and Tibet. Emphasis is placed on the interaction of different Buddhist concepts/schools and diverse visual forms that represented them. Issues of examination include the evolution of the Buddha's image from aniconic to iconic representation, the development of Buddhist iconography in relation to other religious iconography and secular imagery, the role of patronage, and the relationship of pilgrimage and art production. Each class combines lecture and discussion.

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the history and techniques of East Asian calligraphy as one of the supreme artistic accomplishments in China, Japan, and Korea. It combines the historical study of this art form with its hand-on practice as an art performance. Emphasis is put on the understanding of the multi-function of calligraphy in East Asian society.

In architecture, the concepts of "type" and "module" are often used to analyze the process of building (an idea, a structure, an argument). These ideas are particularly potent tools in getting at the deeper structures of "traditional Chinese architecture" in which both are pushed to brilliant and complex extremes.The course uses the route and history of the China's Grand Canal as a structure for exploring design achievements and intentions at both ends of this critically important man made waterway.

This course explores the history of museums, collecting and theories and practice of contemporary curating. Students learn the history of different types of exhibitions of material culture--both art and artifacts and objects/displays of the natural world. The class includes visits to regional museums, proper handling of art and artifacts, and guest presentations by professionals in the field. Students study the politics and ethics of collecting and curating and for the final project, plan an exhibition.

This course explores the history of the discipline of art history from the 16th through the 21st century and serves as an introduction to fundamental art historical methods. The development of art history as a discipline--whose foundational thinkers were overwhelmingly white European men of the middle and upper middle classes--is implicated in European colonial and imperialist practices. The course lays bare how imperialism, colonialism, and the identity of its founders shaped the development of the discipline and the formation of the art historical canon. The course interrogates the systematic marginalization and/or exclusion of women and non-European (and later non-Euro-American) artists and artistic traditions in/from the history of art and critiques the Eurocentric and colonialist heritage of the discipline. The course explores what is accepted as "legitimate knowledge" in the field, who is entitled to produce and communicate it, and what institutions maintain and bolster this system. The course further examines recent art historical approaches (e.g., postcolonial, intersectional, decolonizing) that critique the narrowly defined parameters of the field and offer effective interventions that reconfigure the exclusionary practices of the discipline and aim to reshape its institutional system. Students develop and refine their analytical and research skills through discussions, response papers, presentations, and a substantial research project; as part of this work, students regularly examine the positionality of the scholars and artists whose work forms the content of the course and reflect on how their own social position impacts their learning and scholarly practices. The course prepares students for more advanced courses in art history, including the capstone seminar, ARTH 494.

This seminar is designed to allow in-depth examination of selected topics from the history of art. The course may focus on a region, time period, artistic movement or a single artist, yet it may also cover the thematic study of artworks from multiple regions or periods. The course explores relevant art historical research and methodologies on the selected topic. A different topic is chosen by faculty each time the course is offered. The different content of the course varies with the instructor and may have Ancient or Medieval European, Modern European, American, or Asian emphasis.

This semester-long course allows students to work with an art history professor on a project related to the history of art or visual culture. The work may include: the planning and implementing of an exhibition in Kittredge Gallery or another venue on campus; cataloging and researching works of art belonging to the Puget Sound art collection; art education or other initiatives that connect the community and visual arts on the Puget Sound campus. Students develop research and writing skills that aim to provide a context for artistic works and make them accessible to the public. This course is designed for second year students and above.

The course is a reading and writing intensive seminar, required for all art history majors, which focuses on research methods and approaches in the field of art history. Students culminate their disciplinary studies with a substantial thesis/research paper. Open only to art history majors in the senior year of study.

Independent study is available to those students who wish to continue their learning in an area after completing the regularly offered courses in that area.

Independent study is available to those students who wish to continue their learning in an area after completing the regularly offered courses in that area.

This scheduled weekly interdisciplinary seminar provides the context to reflect on concrete experiences at an off-campus internship site and to link these experiences to academic study relating to the political, psychological, social, economic and intellectual forces that shape our views on work and its meaning. The aim is to integrate study in the liberal arts with issues and themes surrounding the pursuit of a creative, productive, and satisfying professional life. Students receive 1.0 unit of academic credit for the academic work that augments their concurrent internship fieldwork. This course is not applicable to the Upper-Division Graduation Requirement. Only 1.0 unit may be assigned to an individual internship and no more than 2.0 units of internship credit, or internship credit in combination with co-operative education credit, may be applied to an undergraduate degree.

This course introduces two-dimensional art making approaches and concepts through drawing and painting. Color, form, distinct processes, and attuned engagement with materials will drive this course's focus on formal, expressive, and conceptual understandings of two-dimensional drawing and design. This course will focus on enhancing perceptual awareness, analytical thinking, and relational understandings that underlie composition, spatial illusion, and expressive content. Students will explore and develop facility with a range of drawing materials and water-based pigments.

This course is a comprehensive investigation of contemporary and traditional three-dimensional concepts and processes. Students develop a working understanding of the visual and conceptual vocabulary needed for making and critically assessing three-dimensional form. Projects are designed to provide each student the opportunity to fully develop an understanding and envisioning of space, the autonomous object, the effects of scale, and the relationship of the body to the built environment. The student gains experience in handling both plastic and rigid materials while employing additive and reductive forming practices. In addition to "making," students engage in research pertaining to the historical development of three-dimensional art and present findings through writing and oral presentation. Critiques also serve as a vehicle to help students learn to critically evaluate their work and that of their peers.

This course introduces approaches and concepts for two-dimensional contemporary art making through drawing and printmaking. Through visual, tactile, and expressive means, this course focuses on using drawing and graphic media to develop ideas, heighten perceptual awareness, and explore visual language. Direct drawing media such as graphite, ink, and cut paper are explored, as well as indexical and stencil-based approaches such as frottage, pochoir, screenprint, and relief. In addition, students engage in thematic research and inquiry into various artwork formats such as singular, multiple, and serial work.

This course provides a foundational introduction to artmaking through the use of digital media. We will discuss the history, practice, and current trends in digital art through a blend of theoretical and project-based learning. Through weekly examples and projects, we will create virtual and physical artworks that explore visual relationships, heighten perceptual awareness, and forge pathways to a practice of interdisciplinary making. To navigate the expansive and ever-evolving world of digital art, our work will be oriented by four guideposts: Image (photography/videography, image processing & compositing), Graphic (graphic design, typography, generative art), Form (3D modeling and rendering, virtual and interactive worlds), and Object (CAD, CAM, and digital fabrication).

This course explores drawing and painting as a means of seeing more acutely, examining cultural narratives, and experimenting with a range of materials. Technical skills are fused with conceptual inquiries and critical analysis. This course emphasizes the interplay between intellectual, expressive, and material aspects of the creative process as they relate to recording and relating visual relationships, expressing spatial and temporal phenomena, and critically engaging with art historical, contemporary, and personal issues and narratives relating to the figure and/or body. The course will begin with explorations of different drawing media and approaches and then shift to painting processes. Additionally, an examination of contemporary trends in art informs the themes and approaches explored in this course.

This course introduces students to significant developments and works in printmaking. Students are exposed to the craft and function of printmaking through exploring its historical foundation and contemporary applications. Printmaking's potential for visual communication is considered through readings, research, writing, creative projects, discussion, class presentations, studio and museum visits. Students have the opportunity to gain both hands-on experience with materials and build skills for analyzing art and print media.

This course presents students with the spectacular possibilities of functional ceramic vessels as formed on the wheel. Students start the course by learning the fundamentals of throwing. These basic skills provide the groundwork for the creation of more elaborate and complex forms as the course progresses. In tandem with these assignments, students also explore high temperature glaze formulation. Historical and contemporary examples of ceramic vessels are presented to students throughout the duration of the course. As a result, students acquire an appreciation for historic and contemporary ceramics and become able to critically discuss a myriad of ceramic artwork. Along with regular lectures, students are required to research and present on a contemporary ceramic artist.

This course presents students with the spectacular possibilities of handbuilding techniques used to create ceramic objects. Different methods of creation are introduced throughout the duration of the course culminating in a final project that incorporates knowledge of these fundamental techniques. In tandem with these assignments, student also explore low temperature glaze formulation. Historical and contemporary examples of ceramic art are presented to students throughout the duration of the course. As a result, students acquire an appreciation for historic and contemporary ceramics and become able to critically discuss a myriad of ceramic artwork. Along with regular lectures, students are required to research and present on a contemporary ceramic artist.

This course explores identity and cultural values through landscape painting and drawing. Technical skills are fused with conceptual inquiries and critical analysis, emphasizing the interplay between conceptual, expressive, and material aspects of the creative process. Course content critically engages with landscape traditions as well as contemporary artists. Environmental concerns, visualizing ecological and place based thinking inform considerations of landscape. This course fulfills the ENVR elective.

Students master basic skills in paint application and in rendering volumes and their environments. They learn the practical application of color theory to the visual analysis of particular light situations and to the mixing of pigment. ARTS 251 also emphasizes the notion of artistic intention. Students will be encouraged to make personal, conscious choices about subject matter, composition, lighting, and paint application. Ultimately, students will explore how such decisions infuse paintings and other forms of visual art with expressive and conceptual content. In addition to studio work, this course examines historical and contemporary art through lectures and readings. Students will also present their work and participate in regular critiques and discussions of reading assignments.

An exploration of form, mass, structure, surface and scale using steel as the primary medium. Welding construction, forging and shaping are introduced and put into practice through problem solving assignments.

This course explores mass, structure, surface and scale using wood as the primary medium. Construction, carving, bending and joinery are introduced and put into practice through problem solving assignments.

This beginning printmaking class introduces students to basic relief and intaglio printing techniques, in addition to a history of the media. Drawing is an important aspect of the two processes that are explored. Relief processes include transfer methods, safe use of carving tools, black and white and color printing. Intaglio processes include plate preparation, the application of grounds, methods of biting the plates with acids, chine-collé, and printing.

This beginning printmaking course introduces students to technical aspects and creative possibilities of lithography and screen printing. Planographic processes that are introduced include stone lithography and plate lithography. Students learn several non-toxic screen print procedures, including paper and fluid stencils, reduction printing and crayon resists. There is an overview of historical and contemporary works in each area.

This course explores the use of computer code as a form of creative practice and artmaking. Students discuss the history, practice, and current trends in computational art through a blend of theoretical and project-based learning. Through weekly examples and projects, students learn core concepts of computer science and apply them to the creation of digital artworks. Creative coding, the practice of writing computer programs for creative purposes, is practiced in many different domains of art and design. These include graphic design, generative art, interaction design, digital fabrication, data visualization, and installation art. To explore these different applications of creative coding, this course is oriented around four core topics: generative design, interaction design, data-driven art, and virtual environments. Prior experience with computer programming is not required.

In this course students will combine two forms of creative practice: installation art and machine art. In doing so we will learn to construct environments that transform the spaces we inhabit and make site-specific artworks that reimagine the way we interact with our world. We will develop a creative practice of machine art--where we design and interact with technology to create dynamic and interactive installations. We will learn how to program and control physical systems such as lights, motors, sensors, and computer-numerical control (CNC) machines. The course is oriented around three units: conceptualizing space, physical computing, and building "poetic machines".

In this upper-level studio course, students engage in art practices that explore distinct forms of research, reflection, and making to address overarching themes and concepts. Student art making will be informed by shared readings, discussion, and explorations of familiar and new forms and formats. Students will explore a range of criteria for making, critiquing, and sharing artwork with audiences in different settings. Students will also document, reflect, and present their own artistic practices using autoethnographic research methods.

This advanced studio course is designed to help students develop a coherent body of artwork, and culminates in an exhibition in the Kittredge Gallery.

Independent study is available to those students who wish to continue their learning in an area after completing the regularly offered courses in that area.

Independent study is available to those students who wish to continue their learning in an area after completing the regularly offered courses in that area.

This scheduled weekly interdisciplinary seminar provides the context to reflect on concrete experiences at an off-campus internship site and to link these experiences to academic study relating to the political, psychological, social, economic and intellectual forces that shape our views on work and its meaning. The aim is to integrate study in the liberal arts with issues and themes surrounding the pursuit of a creative, productive, and satisfying professional life. Students receive 1.0 unit of academic credit for the academic work that augments their concurrent internship fieldwork. This course is not applicable to the Upper-Division Graduation Requirement. Only 1.0 unit may be assigned to an individual internship and no more than 2.0 units of internship credit, or internship credit in combination with co-operative education credit, may be applied to an undergraduate degree.