Art History 101: Intro to the Visual Arts
And An Examination of Power (Live, Online Course)
Art History 101: Intro to the Visual Arts
An Examination of Power (Live, Online Course)
Do you ever wish you’d taken an art history course? Do you miss the one you took? Experience the joy and discovery of a college art history class, minus the exams! This course fits into busy lives and offers accessible pricing, lectures scheduled during lunchtime, and registration for all or part of the semester.
Live, NOT prerecorded lectures
Affordable, convenient & online
University-level content & teaching : drawn from a decade of teaching art history at the University of Texas, University of Maryland, Baylor University & Austin Community College
Course Summary
Join art historian Dr. Hannah Wong, a frequent Blanton Museum of Art lecturer with over 10 years of college teaching experience, for this live, semester-long course modeled on the traditional “Intro to the Visual Arts” university survey. We’ll span time and cultures beginning with prehistoric cave paintings and ending with the Impressionists’ plein air sketches. (This particular course will also consider art in relation to the theme of power.) Let these fun, interactive lectures that take you beyond your ordinary four walls into new spaces for exploration and reflection--all from the safety of your home!
Note: This course is not intended to be fully comprehensive, but rather, a broad & engaging introduction to some of the major themes in global art history. This class purposely covers artwork and material not covered in Blanton Museum of Art classes (Blanton “Grand Tour” and How to Enjoy Modern and Contemporary Art).
Content Overview
Unit 1: The Human and Early Societies (c. 30,000 BCE-c.1,700 BCE)
Unit 2: Building Empires (c. 70 CE-c. 1460 CE)
Unit 3: Constructing Points of View (c. 1400 CE-c.1890 CE)
Course Schedule & Cost
Classes are 1.5 hrs/week; semester = 12 weeks ($300 total) or $125 for four classes)
Unit 1: Sept.
Unit 2:
Unit 3:
Stele of Ushumgal, Sumeria, 2900–2700 B.C., Metropolitan Museum of Art
UNIT 1: The Human and Early Societies (c. 30,000 BCE-c.1,700 BCE)
What is it to be human? How do communities form, and why did/do we gather in the first place? And how do we depict these individual and community identities visually? In this unit...
Interior view of dome, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey
UNIT 2: Building Empires (c. 70 CE-c. 1460 CE)
As much as the bricks, stone and mortar from which they’re constructed, large-scale architectural projects are built on societies’ values and structures of power. In this unit…
Vincent van Gogh, Houses and Figure, 1890, Barnes Collection.
UNIT 3: Constructing Points of View (c. 1400 CE-c.1890 CE)
Factors such as culture, place in time, ethnicity, religion, etc. intrinsically shape what we perceive and the manner in which we perceive it. In this unit…