2024-2025 Art History Courses

An introduction to the study of art, architecture, and material culture from a global perspective, including Asia, Europe, Latin America, and Africa. Organized around themes, parallels and connections will be drawn between artistic objects and buildings from across history and around the world. Case studies consider art and architecture’s relationship to religion, monarchy, colonialism, indigeneity, missionization, cultural appropriation, commodification, and self-representation. Others will consider medium, technique, perspective, composition, and art’s relationship to narrative and meditation. 

[Note: Effective 2024-2025, both ARTH121 and ARTH122 replace ARTH120 as required courses for all ARTH plans. Students must take EITHER ARTH121 or ARTH122 to declare an ARTH plan, and BOTH must be completed in order to graduate with an ARTH plan. Students are advised to take both in their first year.]

Looking into a painting’s genesis: Technical Art History looks closely at the materials and techniques used to create art -- from Early Italian panel paintings to Piet Mondrian's abstract canvases -- and better understand when, how, why and by whom these works were created.

We explore the pivotal period of European, North African, and Middle Eastern art history between c. 300-1400. This period not only brought forth our dominant systems of faith and their related artistic traditions (the mosques of Islam, the churches and chapels of Christianity), but also many of our institutions (monarchy, the earliest universities), and gave shape to many of our cities (Paris, London, Rome, Istanbul, etc). This course reframes the period through careful contextual analyses of major monuments and argues for the importance of the medieval world for shaping world art.

This course examines the histories, meanings, and sites of modern arts in a globalizing world. Students become familiar with key art works, transnational and global networks of art, shifts in critical conceptions, and art historical problems surrounding modernity, modernisms, and modern arts.

From the earliest Indigenous mark-makers, through settler colonialism, and into the modern world, this course introduces you to Canada’s diverse artistic movements and currents. You will connect the creation and circulation of visual to historical, cultural, and social contexts, while questioning the very premise of a “Canadian” art history.

This online course is an introduction to the social conditions and cultural movements that shaped nineteenth-century European visual arts in their global context. Two main themes will be stressed:  1) the tension between modernity and anti-modernism and 2) competing views on the very nature of the visual arts.  The dramatic social and political developments of the period were reflected in diverse cultural movements, some of which embraced change while others rejected it and looked to the past for artistic models.  Closely related to these cultural movements was the fundamental question of what comprised the visual arts.  For example, increased exposure to non-Western visual culture challenged European assumptions about art.

Explores the art and architecture of Latin America, from Argentina to the Caribbean and Southeastern United States, from ca. 1200 BCE to the present. The course will look at the great civilizations of pre-Hispanic America (Olmecs, Maya, Aztecs, Moche, Inca and others), colonial Latin America (Spanish America, from New Mexico to Patagonia, and Portuguese Brazil), and the arts from Independence in the early 19th century to the present, including a consideration of figures such as Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Wifredo Lam, and Tarsila do Amaral.

Focusing on a selection of thematic studies from across history, from the Indus Valley Civilization to the present day, this course examines a range of artistic and artisanal works across South Asia including painting, architecture, arts of the book, sculpture, textiles, metalwork, and ceramics, as well as theories of aesthetics and craftsmanship. 

The period we now call "Gothic" was one of the most vibrant in the entire history of art. Covering all of Europe and the Mediterranean, parts of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia (via the Silk Roads), the Gothic might have been the first "international style" in art history. This course looks at the period anew through its art but also its literature.

How can it be that the mysterious works that Jheronimus Bosch created 500 years ago are still puzzling art historians today? Why was Pieter Bruegel the Elder so fascinated with Bosch that he set out to emulate him, 50 years after the death of his famous predecessor? This course surveys painting in the Low Countries between c. 1500 and c. 1570. Triggered by the Reformation and the advent of Humanism, this period is characterized by major political upheaval and military conflict, resulting in important changes in the patronage, production, marketing, and function of art. 

This course examines the city—past, present, and future—and its ability to be ecologically sustaining. We will focus on the design of cities—their buildings, streets, public spaces, communities—as well as on the confluences of nature, culture, technology, and economics in those spaces.

Forgeries have an incredible allure.  As with a conjuring trick, we are bemused when we are fooled, especially when our own finances and reputations are not involved.  However, on a societal level, rarely do we investigate this phenomenon in more than a superficial manner resulting in little understanding of the depth of a fake’s impact.  This class will delve more fully into the world of art forgeries to provide a more detailed and comprehensive understanding of their history, production, identification, and reception.  In order to encapsulate the nuances of this phenomenon, this class will take an interdisciplinary approach, including guest lectures, to foster discussion about the impact of art forgeries on a wide range of disciplines including art history, finance, law, museology, and conservation.  Through interdisciplinary dialogue, students will attempt to form their own philosophical approach to forgeries based on their fields of study in combination with art history.

Education in practice: Art History and Fine Art students can apply for a practical internship at a museum or gallery, taking on research or curatorial activities. Applications must be approved in advance by the Undergraduate Chair. 

An investigation of how cultural heritage has been preserved in different parts of the world in the past and the present, focusing on methods used to ameliorate or prevent damage and destruction caused by the environment, war, looting and restoration. Case studies will be drawn from the UNESCO World Heritage list.

Anthropology’s focus on the social practices of everyday life and the cultural meaning of everyday objects can inform art history's investigations into social identity, material culture, authorship, reception, and the traditional hierarchies of media. This course will examine a range of anthropological theories and will assess their potential roles in art historical analysis.

Want experience in curation and a digital publication?  Collaborate with your peers to carry out original research and co-curate a digital exhibition that demonstrates that Italian Renaissance sculpture is not just a series of white marble statues by revealing the variety of multimedia works made in the period.

Each week, students will work on learning a craft while also reading theoretical and historical texts on knowledge, craft, and the body. Our goal will be to understand how theory and practice, the head and the hand, and making and knowing relate to each other, and how making might be used as a research process.  

As a subject of inquiry, “cultural heritage preservation” involves the damage and destruction of cultural heritage as a result of wars, natural disasters, and other circumstances, and human attempts to protect and conserve artistic and creative works. The topic also encompasses the critical issue of the theft and restitution of artistic, cultural and ethnographic materials. In this seminar, we will focus on several major case studies from different parts of the globe in the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries. Three of the cases to be explored are: the salvage of the Abu Simbel temples in Egypt when the Nile was deliberately flooded (1960s-70s); the destruction and looting of ancient Khmer temples in Cambodia during the terrorist rule of the Khmer Rouge (1969-79) and the later restoration of temples and restitution of temple sculptures; the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban government in Afghanistan in 2001 and some gestures to recreate the missing figures. We will move fairly slowly through each example, and begin by reading about the contextual environment, before turning to the more specific heritage circumstances. It is important to understand the context – for instance, the reason why the banks of the Nile in Egypt and Sudan were deliberately flooded – before embarking on a consideration of the heritage events. In addition, current and close-by examples may be included. For instance, I am thinking that it would be important to investigate how parts of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris were recently destroyed by fire, before turning to explore the fire in June in Toronto that devastated St. Anne’s Church and its irreplaceable mural paintings.As a subject of inquiry, "cultural heritage preservation" involves the damage and destruction of cultural heritage as a result of wars, natural disasters, and other circumstances, and human attempts to protect and conserve artistic and creative works. The topic also encompasses the critical issue of the theft and restitution of artistic, cultural and ethnographic materials. In this seminar, we will focus on several major case studies from different parts of the globe in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Three of the cases to be explored are: the salvage of the Abu Simbel temples in Egypt when the Nile was deliberately flooded (1960s-70s); the destruction and looting of ancient Khmer temples and restitution of temple structures; the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban government in Afghanistan in 2001 and some gestures to recreate the missing figures. We will move fairly slowly through each example, and begin by reading about the contextual environment, before turning to the more specific heritage circumstances. It is important to understand the context - for instance, the reason why the banks of the Nile in Egypt and Sudan were deliberately flooded - before embarking on a consideration of the heritage events. In addition, current and close-by examples may be included. For instance, I am thinking that it would be important to investigate how parts of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris were recently destroyed by fire, before turning to explore the fire in June in Toronto that devastated St. Anne's Church and its irreplaceable mural paintings.

This course provides an overview of several interdisciplinary theories and fundamental concepts in the study of images and visual culture. Useful for students of art history as well as students across the university, ARTH 101 will guide students in developing visual literacy and critical analysis skills that are vital for living in the contemporary world.

This course will thematically introduce students to several subfields of visual culture studies with the aim of developing skills in image description and analysis. This semester, students will encounter a selection of imagery, topical examples, and visual methods relating to fine art, illustration, fashion, music, and non-visual art. Through a series of interpretative writing projects, they will apply the tools and techniques of visual studies to personally resonant images and hone their abilities of communication and analysis.

What is an "art world"? Is there just one, or are there many?  How might you engage with "art worlds" as an audience member, artist, historian, curator, administrator, educator, fundraiser, dealer, board member, or collector? This course prepares you for a career as an arts professional, providing you with tools to understand and demystify  “art worlds,” introducing you to key challenges and problems facing art institutions today to help you become a more empowered, engaged, and critical thinker.

[Note: Effective 2024-2025, both ARTH121 and ARTH122 replace ARTH120 as required courses for all ARTH plans. Students must take EITHER ARTH121 or ARTH122 to declare an ARTH plan, and BOTH must be completed in order to graduate with an ARTH plan. Students are advised to take both in their first year.]

What does The Matrix Trilogy have to do with critical theory? What does Harry Potter tell us about our fascination with the Middle Ages? What is “camp” and what does it have to do with queer culture and representation? As art is freed from the confines of the gallery where it is conventionally located in Western art history, it potentially becomes a “popular”, even democratising medium accessible to anyone with access to television, radio, urban space, and the internet.

From the ancient world to Syria and Ukraine today, we examine the impact of military conflicts on art and architecture over the centuries and from a global perspective. Among the topics are: art looting during war, the restoration of damaged monuments, and attempts to protect heritage from destruction. 

Offers a critical assessment of the relationship between imperialism and architecture with a focus on the European empires in Asia, Africa, and Latin America from the 15th to 20th centuries. Using case studies organized chronologically and by empire, this course will look at the architecture of European colonies not just from the viewpoint of the colonizer but also from that of the colonized. It will consider how architecture functions as an image of power and nostalgia for the colonizers but how strategies used by colonized people preserved their own architectural traditions and iconography in the architecture and subverted imperial goals.

An examination of architecture as it has developed in relation to the economies, technologies, and social practices of the modern world. Our focus will include architectural aesthetics, materials, structures, technologies, and spaces.

This course examines modern German architecture as an important part of social practice. Buildings and monuments of modern Germany will be understood according to the values they expressed and perpetuated, through their aesthetics, their materials, and their spaces.

This course examines connections between art, art history and intersectional feminisms from the 1960s to the present day. Weekly classes are organized thematically to introduce you to many of the key issues and critical frameworks that have informed diverse, transnational feminist approaches to art and art history, and to give you an understanding that this is a varied and sometimes conflicting field of cultural production that is still being shaped and debated today.

Strong occasionally violent women, blushing men, monstrous demons, and genderless angels – sculpted bodies inhabited Renaissance cities. Read treatises on how to be a good wife and bawdy stories and learn about how people behaved and misbehaved with these living statues!

Why is it that Jan van Eyck’s astonishingly realistic paintings still stun us today? And what are the qualities of Rogier van der Weyden’s paintings that still move many museum visitors to tears today? This course surveys painting in the Low Countries between c. 1400 and c. 1500. This period is characterized by major changes in the patronage, production, marketing, and function of art works, triggered by the rapid growth of cities such as Bruges and Ghent. The religious, political, and socio-economical contexts for these changes will be discussed, and new scholarly approaches such as technical examinations will be introduced. 

This course explores new materials, new processes, and new meanings in craft and design in the early twentieth century with a focus on issues in ecology, colonialism, race, and gender.  

Education in practice: Art History and Fine Art students can apply for a practical internship at a museum or gallery, taking on research or curatorial activities. Applications must be approved in advance by the Undergraduate Chair. 

Most paintings are complex layered structures that were produced with a broad range of materials in distinct stages. This seminar will teach you how to use X-rays, UV, and infrared to study the genesis of these works. It will focus on the materials and techniques of Early Netherlandish painters such as Jheronimus Bosch (d. 1516), but these techniques can also be applied to examine paintings from other regions and time periods. 

From the Gothic novel of the eighteenth century to Scooby Doo in the twentieth century and Cabin in the Woods in the twenty first, the haunted house is a central construction of modern architecture and of modernity itself. Architecture was variously “haunted” by ghosts (as in the film The Ghost Goes West—see image) or by repressed trauma (as in Hitchcock’s Psycho), thus creating double lives for many of our most famous buildings. This course explores the haunted house in architecture, literature and cinema and of course considers aspects of modern psychology and the paranormal. 

Explores the art and architecture that resulted from the interaction between European and non-European civilizations from the 15th-20th centuries. This period involved an age of global encounter between the widest spectrum of peoples, representing different ethnicities and religions, as well as political, social, economic, and cultural systems. We will explore the reception of European art and architecture in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, with focuses on Mughal India, Goa, Ming & Qing China, Momoyama Japan, the Nahua (Aztecs), the Quechua (Incas), Paraguay, Ghana, Senegal, Haiti, and Madagascar, among others.

How do art historians put method and theory into practice? In this exploratory class, we read widely in iconography, formalism, biography, semiotics, post-structuralism, Marxism, social history of art, psychoanalysis, theories of gender and race, postcolonial and decolonial theory, seeking to experiment with the methods and theories most suited to the research questions that fuel our academic and creative interests