M and W, 1-2, Meyerson Basement B-1
**F: NOTE: TWO FRIDAYS there will be LECTURES. Keep track!
Week III 25 Sept., IV 2 Oct., to swap for 2 Jewish
Holy Days, Monday 21 Sept. New Year, and M 28 Sept. Yom Kippur,
Readings: abbreviations, see Course Books
Additional focus readings will be posted by 2 weeks in advance.
H&F = Honour & Fleming
(F) N5300 H68 1995
Persp. = Perspectives in Western Art
(F) N 5303 W74 1987
Atlas = Anchor Atlas of World History I
K = Kubler
(F & R res. desk, as pamphlet)
Barnet:
(F reference) N 7476 B37 1989
Web texts: stored as texts link
Library Reserve: (F)=Fisher Fine Arts, aka Furness; (R)= Van
Pelt, Rosengarten Reserve
Honour & Fleming:
Wren, Persp.: (F res. desk)
Kubler:
"Read: H&F": scan carefully the sections in your textbook
that address the culture in that week's lectures. Occasional secondary
readings will be used for takehomes & recitation focus, , and web texts
will supply primary texts not in Persp.
"Look at:": skim to get an impression of; the Atlas references are
to orient you in the geographic and historical contexts that come up in
the lectures that week; the Perspectives references give primary texts
used as examples in lecture & recitation
Takehomes: see Course Components. These will be guided
looking & describing assignments mostly focussed on something physical
to see in Philadelphia, that take a contained time chunk of
2-5 hours, to fit into your schedule as you choose in the 5-7 days between
posting and turning in. Each will result in 1-2 pp. of unrevised brief
written responses to a series of specific questions. They will give
you practice in the analytic essys on exams, and in the sorts of analysis
you will do on the images & monuments on which you choose to write
a final paper.
WEEK I-II
SEPTEMBER
The first 3 lectures, Weeks I & II, orient you in the aims,
subjects and methods of 101; most images preview the substance lectures
of weeks III-XIV, but they will not be on the exam "memory list" unless
repeated.
Read: G. Kubler, The Shape of Time. Look hard at pp. 1-5,
123-130, and then riffle the rest - yes, I know it's 130 pages,
but they are very small - about 1 chapter of a biology textbook.
Look at: H&F introduction; your Atlas' opening sections.
I Orientation: What are we doing to you here?
9 W Pre-modern and Pre-"Western", "Art" and "Artifact": What is in ArtH 101? (And why is it different from 102?)
NO Recitation
II Orientation: Contexts and contents of patronage and art forms
14 M Primary Evidence: How do we know what we think we know?
Themes: Archaeology and the ancient and medieval Mediterranean:
- preservation, recovery, loss; landscape & geography;
the uses of texts; modern forms of graphic & verbal description
- tools and traps; original contexts and the culture of the museum.
16 W Society, Culture, Religion
A basic introduction to the physical, economic and social
contexts and belief systems which shaped the major categories
of ancient and medieval art (ritual, ceremonial, votive, funerary,
commemorative, triumphal, symposiastic), the status of artists,
and the purpose of artifacts.
Look at: See above.
FIRST Recitation:
To do: Pick a statement in Kubler that you like, dislike, or can't
understand. Xerox that page, scrawl your opinion at the top, make
15 copies, and bring it to section meeting with you.
III Cultures Grown by the Great Rivers: Egypt and Mesopotamia
[21 M NO CLASS JEWISH NEW YEAR]
23 W Egypt: monuments for gods
and kings
**25 F Sumer and Assyria: Visual language and urban
civilization; art and the theology of power
TAKEHOME I POSTED
Read: H&F ch. 2; web texts [excerpts from the
Story of Sinuhe, and the Gudea Temple Trilogy]; The Gudea Temple
Trilogy (F & R res., desk pamphlet)
Look at: Atlas 22-31; Persp. 3-9, 15-17, 21-7, 34, 36-8
Recitation 2
IV Empires of Land and Sea
[28 M NO CLASS YOM KIPPUR]
30 W The Bronze Age Aegean - Minoan and Mycenean Culture. Art
for house, palace and tomb in Crete, Thera, Mycenae.
TAKEHOME I HANDED IN AT CLASS
OCTOBER
**2 F Assyria and Iran: "Historical" art and imperial architecture
at Nineveh, Khorsabad, Babylon, Persepolis
Read: H&F ch. 3, to p. 84
Look at: Atlas 33-37, 47-57; Persp. 2-5, 13-19, 42-4,
55-56; web texts
Recitation 3:
V "Greece" Begins: City-States, Tyrants and Colonies
5 M Patterning the World I: The Archaic Greek Image. Art for contest
& memory.
7 W Patterning the World II: Archaic and Classical Architecture.
Canon, "order" and the rules of art & ornament.
TAKE HOME II POSTED
Read: H&F ch. 4 except 108-129.
Look at: Atlas 55-61, 73; Persp. 62-5, 68, 76-7, 85-6; web texts
Recitation 4
VI The "Classical" Paradigm
12 M Born from Victory? Art in the age of the Persian Wars
and the Athenian Empire: Aegina, Delphi, Olympia, Athens
TAKEHOME II HANDED IN AT CLASS
14 W Master Artists and Master Styles: Imitation and Invention in the
Age of Aristotle
Read: H&F ch. 4 again up to 125 (= adding 108-25).
Look at: Atlas 58-9, 61-63; Persp. 79-80, 101, 111,
103; web texts
Recitation 5
VII
[19 M NO CLASS FALL BREAK]
21 W ***************** MIDTERM ******************
VIII Hellenistic Culture and National Identity
26 M Between Greece and Asia: The Age of Alexander the Great.
The new royal arts and the export of Hellenism
27 W As Real as It Looks: Pergamon. The Hellenistic rhetoric of styles;
inventing history with visual culture; the idea of the museum.
Read: H&F ch. 5 to 156, and 171
Look at: Atlas 63-71; Persp. 95-6; web texts
Recitation 7
NOVEMBER
Final Paper: Topics & Format
IX The Making of Roman Art
2 M Making & Taking Culture in the Roman Republic - Romanitas and
Philhellenism at Rome, Praeneste, Delos, Sperlonga.
4 W The Roman Monument: Image, Place and Memory from Augustus'
Ara Pacis to the Arch of Constantine
TAKEHOME III POSTED
Read: H&F ch. 5 again at 154-64, 171-88, and
ch. 7 at 273-74
Look at: Atlas 73-105 at 75, 86-87, 105; 85,
97-103; Persp. 109-10, 115-16, 123-24, 130-31, 134-37; web texts
Recitation 8
X Shaping and Decorating Roman Spaces
9 M Art and the Roman House and Palace, from the Villa of the Mysteries
to the Great Palace at Constantinople
TAKE HOME III HANDED IN AT CLASS
11 W The Architectures of the Roman City
Read: H&F ch. 5 again at 154-70, 183-86, and ch. 7
at 277-83, 290
Look at: Persp. 126-29, 134-37; web texts
Recitation 9
XI The Worlds of Late Antiquity
16 M Icon and Image I: The Uses of Art in a Christian Roman Empire,
from Constantine to Heraclius
18 W Icon and Image II: The Uses of Art in an Islamic Empire.
Read: H&F ch. 7 to 282, and 291-96; ch. 8 to 316, and
327-29
Look at: Atlas 103, 107, 115-17, 139-41; 135-37; Persp. 151,
155-57, 162-63, 168, 172, 184-5, 178-79; web texts
Recitation 10
XII The Medieval World
23 M Byzantine and Islamic Architecture
25 W Court and Monastery Arts in the Ages of Charlemagne & Otto:
Revival, Imitation and Invention
Read: H&F ch. 7 at 281-89, ch. 8 at 332-38; ch.
7 at 296-308, ch. 8 at 317-26
Look at: Atlas 121-27, 135-39, 156-57, 175, 209;
Persp. 175-76, 197-98, 207, 237-39; web texts
Recitation 11
XIII Sacred Space
30 M Basilica to Cathedral: Romanesque and Gothic Sacred Architecture
DECEMBER
2 W The Medieval Image I: Stories in Stone and Glass,
Autun to Chartres
TAKEHOME IV POSTED
Read: H&F ch. 7 again at 304-5, ch. 9 at 335-68
Look at: Atlas 127, 139-41, 145, 148-49, 156-57, 181-85;
Persp. 211-12, 214-16, 234-35, 241-2, 249-50; web texts
Recitation 12
XIV Painting and the Pictorial
7 M The Medieval Image II: The Case of the Painted Book
9 W The Medieval Image III/ Where to Start the Renaissance:
Giotto, the Flemish Masters and the International Style
TAKEHOME IV HANDED IN AT CLASS
LAST DAY OF CLASS
Read: H&F ch. 9 again at 367-87, ch. 10 at 396-402, 415,
419
Look at: Atlas 212-17; Persp. 251-53, 266-69, 270-71;
web texts
Recitation 13
Reading Period: Dec. 12 Sat.- Dec. 14 M PAPER DUE
Final Exam Period: Dec. 15 Tues. - Dec. 22 Tues.
*This course is WATU-affiliated, and so fulfills half the Writing requirement. If you elect WATU enrolment, the credit will be earned by a formal draft and revision process for the final paper, overseen by designated teaching assistants.
Teaching Assistants: Jennifer Hallam, Sarah Jarmer, Nick Sawicki,
Julia Shear.
Section Times:
101 SECTIONS
B=Meyerson basement
J=Jaffe
Monday 3
B5 #201
Tuesday 12 B5
#209
Wed. 11
J113 #213
Wed. 12 J113 #202
Wed. 2
B5 #212
Thurs. 10:30 B2 #205
Fri. 10 B5 #210
Course Components and Requirements:
Grade Scheme (percentages are provisional, June 1998): midterm,
ca. 20%, end-of-term exam ca. 30%, paper ca. 30%, exercise portfolio ca.
20%.
Tests: two exams, one for each half of the semester. Format:
slide discussion and essays. The official final examination date
is 22 December.
Paper: one research essay, 10 page minimum, 15 page maximum,
topic to be arranged in consultation after the midpoint of the course,
due at the end of the term. If you would like to coordinate this
with a research project in another course (e.g., art history, history,
political science, philosophy, literature, communications, anthropology,
mythology and religious studies), contact Prof. Kuttner for an advising
session (jointly with your section leader) to set up permission and structure.
Exercises: brief response exercises 1-4 pp. Every one to two
weeks. In preparation for writing the exams and final paper, these
exercises will guide you in how to observe and describe, and how to assess
evidence in your own and other art historians' analyses. Each short
paper will analyze either a primary art source (a thing of art text) or
a secondary source (an article or a book excerpt); texts used make up part
of the week's reading. The exercises will receive editing and sample
marks from your section leaders; they will be handed in at the end of the
term as a collected portfolio, for a unitary component of the course grade,
in order to be able to credit your learning curve.
The research paper: Ca. 6 weeks before the end
of term, you will be given clear format instructions and guidelines
for topics and analysis by the professor and your TA.
Readings: will total ca. 20-40 pp. a week. The major readings
will be posted with the final syllabus at the beginning of the course,
supplementary excerpts on 2-4 weeks notice.
Sections: Lecture is 2 hours a week; the third (mandatory) hour
is a small-group discussion seminar with a TA section leader,
to complement the concepts and information in the lectures and readings.
Course textbooks: see below.
Looking at images: The images shown in lecture and section
can be reviewed in several sources: in the course textbook, on the
web, and in books on reserve in Furness (the Fisher Fine Arts Library).
Professor Kuttner will note in lecture when you are not required
to memorize supplementary monuments.
Looking at real things: At least a third of the sections and
writing tasks will take you to the art and architecture of our museums,
our campus and our city.
E-mail: After the end of drop period, the professor and
the TA will sometimes post information and assignments for you by
email as well as on the web, since this saves you from losing a single
master-copy. and can be re-printed at any time. The university makes
our listservers out of SAS' record of enrolment; students from Wharton,
outside of Penn, and auditors should give their email addresses to
their TA for inclusion on the list-server.
When you have questions , would like to discuss something,
or pass on something interesting or useful to the rest of the
class, email us, rather than leaving paper notes. (Tell us right
away, for instance, when reserve material is lost or mutilated!)
Professor Kuttner and the TAS
read their email at least twice a day, up to
at least 5 PM. For notifying us about late papers and exams and absences
(see below), email or have afriend do it for you if you can't reach a terminal
- we'll see and honor the date and time on the message.
Office hours and meeting appointments: All your instructors
set aside an official block of time reserved for meetings with students,
so that individual visitors won't be interrupted. Your TAs
will tell you their office hours and where and how they can be found.
Professor Kuttner's hours are posted above.
How to make an appointment
for Professor Kuttner: sign your name in the black appointment book
in my office hour section , at the reception window of the History of
Art office, or call in at 8-8327 to Darlene Jackson and her assitants
to enquire about putting yourself down
for free space. If you cannot make the scheduled hours or they
have filled up, just email and I will arrange an alternative meeting
time with you.
The Doom Section:
**Sports, performance and studio: I recognize that many
students may have unalterable obligations, imposed by official athletic
, drama and music calendars, and by the studio portfolio
and crit hours for major presentations in fine arts and architecture.
The professor and the TA will help you work around those schedules
IF you present your TA with those calendars at the very beginning
of term, checking them against this course's syllabus. We will collect
your names so that you know who has a shared problem, and can organize
yourselves to swap course notes for missed lectures and sections.
Attendance: You are required to attend discussion sections,
where attendance will be taken, and to accompany scheduled art trips.
Absence is excusable only with a signed note from your doctor or the dean's
office presented to your TA. More than 3 unexcused absences will lower
your grade by a full point or more at your TA's discretion. Your
TA will announce schedules for trips and occasional changed meeting
places, and you are responsible for keeping track even if absent
at the session
where schedule changes are announced.
Lectures: the course is too large to take attendance.
However, the meat of this course is in the lectures, not the books. You
are responsible in your exams and assignments for the information
and
methods presented in lecture as in section, which often supplements
and sometimes changes what is presented in your books. Since
Professor Kuttner does not speak from a prepared text, obtain notes
from your fellow students for sessions that you miss.
Late or missing work and exam make-ups: All exercises and papers
must be handed in to your TA in section. You MUST ask for extensions
BEFORE the due date, and notify your TA promptly , within three days
of its due date, about rescheduling late work. Extensions will
not normally be
granted for take-homes; for the research paper, you must tell your
TA about conflicts with other course's assignments well in advance.
Make a calendar table with paper and exam dates for all
your courses. If you see more than 2 papers due in the same two-day
span, ask to give one or
both supervisors a preliminary draft to leave yourself space
to finish the polished papers. Valid extension requests depend on
a verifiable medical excuse or extreme catastrophe. Incompletes
(permission to turn in work after the end of the course) will not normally
be granted.
Exams: To be allowed to take a make-up
with no grade penalty, you MUST inform your TA before the exam is
given that you will not be able to attend, in person or by email ,
and contact your TA for a make-up date immediately. Make-ups
will be granted only for a verifiable medical
excuse or a personal emergency guaranteed by the dean's office. Conflicts
with other courses and personal travel needs are not valid excuses;
make your end of semester travel plans far enough in advance to get
the ticket times you require. If you skip your scheduled make-up,
you may not request another one and will receive an F for that
course component.
Study tips: You will be told what books are good image
sources for the lecture material; start early to accumulate a xerox
portfolio , since there is always a rush on books around midterm time and
the end of the semester. When you come to start accumulating material
for your paper, the same applies.
The terror of image memorization for
exams is easy to soothe, if you take about an hour a week to
go over your notes next to the images discussed, flipping through
the textbook, course web-base, and your own xeroxes. It is helpful to
put reproductions up where you can see them in your room(s) (this will
help your paper also), and/or make reproduction flashcards
to riffle through as you would for a foreign language.
When you are trying to absorb your readings,
it is common for people to find that writing out notes rather than highlighting
on the page is a better memory tool, which will save cramming
hours even if it seems like more work at the time.
Drawing: when you are trying to understand
and remember how buildings and images are arranged, it is a great
help to trace or sketch objects and make rough placement diagrams,
and to draw over xeroxes with labels, composition lines, etc. Someof the
takehomes will show you how to experiment with these techniques. And a
diagram can be the clearest way to hold and convey information , about
causes and relationships in time and space.
Course books:
Course books will be supplied by Pennsylvania Book Center, Walnut
St. at 37th (3726 Walnut, south edge of campus quad), who are negotiating
a lease for 34th and Sansom. Tel. 222 7600.
All are required course aids. One is fat and more expensive, the others are small and cheap.
ART
H. Honour & J. Fleming. The Visual Arts: A History.
4th edition, 1995.
-This is our
basic art and architecture textbook reference; all monuments discussed
in class and section will be documented either in this book or on the course
Web base.
L.H. Wren ed., Perspectives on Western Art. Source Documents and
Readings from the
Ancient Near East through the Middle Ages. Repr. 1988.
-Texts are artifacts,
too. This is our basic single textbook for what survives in written
form, of the thoughts of the people who made and used the monuments covered
in 101. The weekly lectures and section discussions and the writing
assignments will use the brief translated excerpts compiled here, with
supplements on the course Web base.
G. Kubler, The Shape of Time, Remarks on the History of Things.
1962/1978.
-"The shapes pf time
are the prey we want to capture . . . Every important work of art can be
regarded both as a historical event and as a hard-won solution to some
problem." A book like a diamond - small, high density, brilliant.
Through out the course, we will use Kubler's essay to assist thinking about
how to constrct historical assessments of making and looking.
REFERENCE
H. Kinder and W. Hilgemann, The Anchor Atlas of World History.
Volume I: From the Stone Age to the Eve of the French Revolution. 1974
-Where and when was
that . . .? (And why don't art and architecture handbooks have maps?)
In this tiny atlas, texts and didactic maps explain ethnic and national
identities, and political, cultural and social events, habits, institutions
and chronology. Invaluable to own for many of your courses.
S. Barnet, A Short Guide to Writing About Art, 2nd ed. 1985
-Art history majors
may own already this useful introduction to finding words for visual qualities
and patterns. It is also a general guide about how to do research
for, write and document an analytic paper (like the one in this course).