Time Schedule:
Anna D. Kartsonis
ART H 201
Seattle Campus
Major achievements in painting, sculpture, architecture, and the decorative arts in Europe, the Near East, and North Africa, from prehistoric times to the beginnings of Christianity.
Class description
Art History 201 - 2009 summer - Professor Anna Kartsonis
COURSE DESCRIPTION and OBJECTIVES
The course will offer a survey of major monuments and artworks that were produced by a variety of major civilizations that developed and flourished in the Mediterranean and the Near East from 3000 BC to 300 AD. The works of architecture, sculpture, painting, pottery, and decorative arts that were produced over those thirty three centuries largely embody and reflect the political, religious, and everyday concerns and attitudes of the different and interactive cultures of Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome that form the backbone and background of Western Civilization.
Beyond introducing students to some of the major artistic achievements of antiquity, the course aims to train students to analyze artworks, and understand how they express and serve the people, and institutions that produce them within the framework of their political, social and religious contexts. It also aims at tracing links between these cultures, and the transmission and evolution of their artistic and aesthetic tradition over time. This will, hopefully, raise students’ awareness of how the worlds of images that surround us and interact with us function in us and for us individually, as well as for our culture over huge expanses of time.
Last but not least, the artistic and material culture of the ancient world that will be surveyed in this course aims to provide a basic historical framework for this important period that may be further explored by students in other humanities courses offered on campus.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
