The material on this page is from the 2000-01 catalog and may be out of date. Please check the current year's catalog for current information.

Professor: Corrie; Associate Professors: Harwood, Chair, and Rand (on leave, 2000–2001); Assistant Professors: Johnson and Nguyen; Mr. Feintuch, Mr. Nicoletti, Mr. Heroux, Ms. Morris, Ms. Jones, and Ms. Bessire The department offers courses in the history of art and in studio practice. The history of art is a field of cultural study in which works of art, other forms of visual culture, and related documents are studied for the purpose of understanding visual culture from the distant past to the present. This study also provides insights into the intellectual currents, religious doctrines and practices, and social institutions of the past, with attention to issues of class, gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. A concentration in studio art involves the integration of traditional disciplines and methods with contemporary practices and the study of visual culture. The major combines work in both the history of art and studio art. Students emphasizing art history and studio art take many of the same courses but fulfill different requirements. Students intending to study abroad must discuss fulfillment of major requirements with their advisor and the department chair in advance. Students planning graduate study in architecture, landscape architecture, or design are advised to confer with the department chair early in their college career in order to plan appropriate undergraduate programs. Major Requirements for Studio Art. Majors emphasizing studio art must take a minimum of three courses in the history of art distributed across a variety of cultures and time periods. Studio majors are encouraged to enroll in at least one studio course each semester, and are required to take a minimum of five studio courses and one Short Term studio unit. It is strongly advised that studio majors enroll in Art 350 (Visual Meaning) in the second semester of their junior year. Studio majors are also encouraged to take Art s23 (Art and Artists in New York) in advance of the senior thesis. Studio majors are required to take Art 457 and 458 (Senior Thesis) consecutively in the fall and winter semesters of their senior year. The opportunity to do an honors thesis is completely at the discretion of the departmental faculty. Major Requirements for History of Art. Majors emphasizing the history of art must take one studio course (any studio course or Short Term unit in studio is acceptable; art history students are advised to take their studio course before their senior year); Art 374 (art history majors are advised to take 374 by the end of junior year if possible); and eight additional courses in the history of art for a total of at least ten courses. The courses must be distributed across a variety of both cultures and time periods. Adequate distribution will be determined in conjunction with the departmental advisor, who must approve each student's course of study. Art history Short Term units are not counted among these ten courses and are optional. In addition, students are required to write a senior thesis (457 or 458). Topics for theses are subject to departmental approval. The opportunity to do an honors thesis is completely at the discretion of the departmental faculty. Students who wish to continue in the history of art on a graduate level should obtain a reading knowledge of French and German, and are strongly advised to include additional courses in art theory such as Art 226 and an upper-level seminar such as 375, 376, 377 or 390. Pass/Fail Grading Option. Pass/fail grading may be elected for courses applied toward the major except for Art 360, 457 and 458. General Education. Any one art Short Term unit may serve as an option for the fifth humanities course. Courses 100. Introductory Studies in Art. A survey of Western art with emphasis on the development of the student's ability to "see" art and of his or her critical judgment in interpreting the form and content of a work of art. Enrollment limited to 15 per section. E. Harwood. 202. Color/Painting Fundamentals. An examination of color theory and its application to the art of painting. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 15. P. Jones. 203. Ceramic Material and Techniques. Designing and sculpting of objects in clay, using such traditional techniques as slab construction, casting, and throwing on the potter's wheel. Students work with clay, plaster, paper, and found objects to solve problems in figurative and abstract design. Drawing is part of some assignments. The course serves as an introduction to ceramics, and is a prerequisite for Studio Pottery (Art 217). Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 15 per section. P. Heroux. 205. Figure Sculpting with Clay. A study of the figure through the understanding of anatomy and the use of a model. Reliefs, fully dimensional heads, and other figurative sculpture in clay are based on preliminary drawings. The special problems of firing ceramic sculpture are covered. Prerequisite(s): Art 203 or 212. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 15. P. Heroux. 212. Drawing I. This course is a study of drawing through process and analysis. Emphasis is placed on drawing from observation using traditional techniques and materials as preparation for visual study in all media. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 18 per section. J. Nicoletti, P. Jones, P. Johnson, R. Feintuch. 213. Painting I: Color and Form. An investigation of traditional painting materials, techniques, methods, and supports. Emphasis is on observation and perception. Prerequisite(s): Art 212. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 10. Staff. 214. Painting I: Pictorial Structure. Problems in representation and pictorial structure. The student learns about painting by concentrated study of the works of painters from the past and present and by painting from nature. Prerequisite(s): Art 212. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 10. J. Nicoletti. 217. Studio Pottery. An introduction to the ceramic process covering the nature of clay, application of glazes, firing procedures, wheel- and hand-formed work, design, and aspects of the history of pottery. There is a laboratory fee. Prerequisite(s): Art 203 or s25. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 12. P. Heroux. Course prerequisites changed beginning winter semester 2001. 218. Photography I. A study of the camera's use for observation and expression of experiences. In this introductory course the student learns concepts and techniques of basic black-and-white photography and its expressive possibilities. There is a laboratory fee. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 12. E. Morris. 219. The Digital Image. An introduction to the computer as a tool for making art. Students work with image processing software (e.g., Adobe Photoshop) to produce and manipulate images. While basic technical skills are taught, assignments and discussions stress the conceptual possibilities of the medium. Recommended background: Art 100 and Art 283. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 12. E. Morris. 225. Iconography: Meaning in the Visual Arts from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance. Unraveling political, sociological, religious, and philosophical messages is an intriguing process essential to the study of art history. The course focuses on a selection of iconographic problems including the political content of Late Roman sculpture, the use of the body in religious images depicting figures such as Adam and Eve, and the depiction of women such as the Virgin Mary and female saints, and ends with the study of classical subjects in Renaissance painting, such as Venus and Mars, and the political content of Elizabethan portraits. Traditional and recent modes of analysis are investigated. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 25. R. Corrie. 226. Philosophy of Art. An introduction to the major problems of the philosophy of art, including a discussion of attempts to define art, a treatment of problems concerning the interpretation of individual works of art, and a discussion of recent theories of modern and postmodern art. This course is the same as Philosophy 241. Open to first-year students. D. Kolb. 232. Pyramid and Ziggurat. A survey of the art and architecture of the ancient worlds of Egypt and the Near East, with attention given to topics including women in ancient Egypt, the Kingdom of Kush, and current developments in archeology. Open to first-year students. R. Corrie. 241. The Art of Islam. Art of the Islamic world from its roots in the ancient Near East to the flowering of Safavid Persia and Mughal India in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Developments are traced through architecture, painting, ceramics, textiles, and metalwork. Consideration is given to the continuity of the Near Eastern artistic tradition and Islamic art in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Open to first-year students. R. Corrie. 243. Buddhist Visual Worlds. The course examines the history and basic teachings of Buddhism from perspectives of visual culture. It provides an introduction to a broad spectrum of Buddhist art, beginning with the emergence of early Buddhist sculpture in India and ending with Buddhist centers in the United States. Topics covered include the iconography of principal members of the Buddhist pantheon, the effect of social and political conditions on patronage, and two important schools of Buddhism: Ch'an/Zen and Pure Land. This course is the same as Asian Studies 243. Open to first-year students. T. Nguyen. 245. Monuments of Southeast Asia. This course examines the arts of Southeast Asia by focusing on significant monuments of the countries in the region. It examines the architecture, sculpture, and relief carvings on the monuments and their relations to religious, cultural, political, and social contexts. Sites covered include Borobudur, Angkor, Pagan, and the Hue Citadel. This course is the same as Asian Studies 245. Open to first-year students. T. Nguyen. 246. Visual Narratives: Storytelling in East Asian Art. This course examines narrative art of East Asian traditions and reviews the important artistic tradition of the narrative paintings in China and Japan. Through selected studies of visually narrative presentations of religions, historical, and popular stories, the course explores different contexts in which the artworks-tomb, wall, and scroll paintings-were produced. Emphasis is also given to the biographical and social contexts of the Japanese narrative scrolls. The course introduces various modes of visual analysis and art historical settings both in lectures and through reading assignments. Topics include: narrative theory, text-image relationships, elite patronage, and gender representation. Recommended background: History 171, 172, and Japanese 240. Open to first-year students. This course is the same as Asian Studies 246. T. Nguyen. 247. The Art of Zen Buddhism. The art of Zen (Ch'an) as the unique and unbounded expression of the liberated mind has attracted the Westerners since mid-twentieth century. But what is Zen, its art and its culture? This course takes a broad view of Zen art, its historical development, and considers its use in several genres within monastic and lay settings. It also examines the important Buddhist concepts underlined by the production of Zen art. The course aims to help students understand the basic teachings and historical development of Zen with a strong emphasis on the appreciation of the Zen art expressed through architecture, gardens, sculpture, painting, poetry, and calligraphy. Readings focus on a number of different perspectives, including important Buddhist sutras, Zen literature, and art history. Recommended background: Art 243, Religion 208, 209, 250, or 309. This course is the same as Asian Studies 247. Open to first-year students. Enrollment is limited to 30. T. Nguyen. 251. The Age of the Cathedrals. An investigation of medieval architecture from the Early Christian era to the end of the Gothic period in Europe, including Russia and the Byzantine East. Emphasis is placed on the development of Christian architecture and the emergence of the Gothic cathedral in the context of European political and social history before 1500. Open to first-year students. R. Corrie. 252. Art of the Middle Ages. In Europe from the Early Christian era to the end of the Gothic age, from 300 to 1450 C.E., precious objects, manuscripts, wall paintings, and stained glass were produced in great quantities. The course traces the development of these and other media, including tapestry and sculpture. Emphasis is placed on the changing images of men and women in medieval art. The roles of liturgy, theology, and technological and social changes are stressed. Open to first-year students. R. Corrie. 265. The Early Renaissance: Interpreting European Art, 1250–1450. This course investigates the art and architecture of Northern and Southern Europe between 1250 and 1450. Students analyze the impact of theology, liturgy, social change, urbanism, gender, and social class on visual culture. Artists considered include Cimabue, Duccio, Giotto, Fra Angelico, Donatello, Brunelleschi, Jan van Eyck, and Rogier van der Weyden. Not open to students who have received credit for Art 263. Open to first-year students. R. Corrie. 266. The High Renaissance and Mannerism: Interpreting European Art, 1450–1600. This course concerns the art and architecture of Northern and Southern Europe between 1450 and 1600, with emphasis on art in the court and the city. Students study several methods of analysis as they investigate the impact of religion, technology, urbanism, gender, sexual orientation, social class, and national identity on the visual arts. Artists discussed include Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Bronzino, Giovanni Bologna, Titian, Palladio, Dürer, Grunewald, Holbein, Breughel, and Bosch. Not open to students who have received credit for Art 264. Open to first-year students. R. Corrie. 271. Italian Baroque Art. A survey of painting, sculpture, landscape and urban design, and architecture in Italy during the seventeenth century. Artists studied include Caravaggio, the Carracci, Guercino, Bernini, and Boromini. Recommended background: Art 266. Open to first-year students. E. Harwood. 279. Abstract Expressionism. The ideas, forms, and practices that form the basis of abstract expressionism evolve clearly from earlier movements in twentieth century art such as cubism, dada, and surrealism. It is also a movement essentially intertwined with the broader culture of its time, from politics to psychoanalysis. The course examines the emergence of abstract expressionism and its subsequent influence over the art of the 1950s and 1960s. Open to first-year students. Enrollment is limited to 40. E. Harwood. 281. Realism, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism. An intensive investigation of French painting from 1850 to 1900. Artists studied include Courbet, Manet, Degas, Monet, Cézanne, Seurat, Van Gogh, and Gauguin. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 50. E. Harwood. 282. Modern European Art. This course concerns European art from 1900 to 1940, with special attention to Cubism and Surrealism. While the course surveys art of the period, its primary goal is less to provide a comprehensive historical overview than to examine the various interpretive strategies that have been used both to develop and to understand these apparently radical innovations in visual representation. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 50. E. Rand. 283. Contemporary Art. This course concerns contemporary art, with a focus on art of the United States created in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Topics to be discussed include: changing definitions of art; the relation of art production to the mechanisms for exhibition, criticism, and sale; the contentious interaction of form and content; and the increased attention of artists and critics to matters of class, race, gender, and sexual orientation. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 30 per section. E. Rand. 285. Renaissance and Post-Renaissance Gardens and Landscape Architecture. The course examines the development and transformation of a major art form, the landscape garden, from its beginnings in fifteenth-century Italy through its later manifestations in seventeenth-century France and eighteenth-century England. While the garden provides the visual and historical framework for the course, the pervasive theme is humanity's changing attitudes toward and interpretations of nature and the world. Open to first-year students. E. Harwood. 286. Romantic Landscape Painting. The importance of landscape painting in the Romantic period is a clear reflection of complex cultural change. The course examines the forms and meanings of the varied approaches to landscape painting in England, Europe, and the United States, between 1750 and 1850. Artists and groups considered may include Constable, Turner, Friedrich, the Pre-Raphaelites, and the Barbizon and Hudson River schools. Open to first-year students E. Harwood. Course reinstated for 2001-2002. 287. Women, Gender, Visual Culture. This course concerns women as makers, objects, and viewers of visual culture, with emphasis on the later twentieth century, and the roles of visual culture in the construction of "woman" and other gendered identities. Topics include: the use of the visual in artistic, political, and historical representations of gendered and transgendered subjects; the visualization of gender in relation to race, ethnicity, nationality, class, age, sex, and sexuality; and matters of censorship, circulation, and resources that affect the cultural production of people oppressed and/or marginalized by sex and/or gender. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 50. E. Rand. 288. Visualizing Race. This course considers visual constructions of race in art and popular culture, with a focus on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. General topics to be discussed include the role of visual culture in creating and sustaining racial stereotypes, racism, and white-skin privilege; the effects upon cultural producers of their own perceived race in terms of both their opportunities and their products; and the intersections of constructions of race with those of gender, class, ethnicity, and sexuality. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 30 per section. E. Rand. 289. Hate, the State, and Representation. This course examines the representational strategies that the state employs to establish and maintain a stable identity among its constituencies by identifying and disciplining "deviance." Possible topics include: body politics in the French Revolution; race and role models in contemporary culture; nationalism and sexuality in Western Europe; citizenship, "rootlessness," and the Roma (Gypsies) in Eastern Europe; and race, disease, and genocide in the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. This course is the same as Political Science 289. Enrollment limited to 54. Not open to students who have received credit for Rhetoric 289. C. Nero, J. Richter, E. Rand. 291. Representations of Africa/Africa Representations. The course examines photography in Africa through two distinct lenses: that of the nonindigenous outsider and that of the African insider. The first half of the course is devoted to photographic representations of Africa by European and American explorers, missionaries, colonial officials, and tourists from the nineteenth century to the present. In the second half of the course, the works of African photographers from the nineteenth century to the present are examined, as well as the interface/distance between these photographers and their nonindigenous counterparts. Enrollment is limited to 25 per section. Open to first-year students. A. Bessire. 292. Royal and Religious Arts of Africa. This course examines the royal and religious arts of sub-Saharan Africa. The arts commissioned by African kingdoms and royal individuals to define royal identity are explored, as well as the ways in which these arts have been interpreted by the populace. In addition, the course addresses the arts related to religion, many of which interface with arts in the royal context. This includes discussions of divination and religious belief systems, arts related to spirit possession, the role of art in communicating with another realm, and the ways that religious arts have been affected by missionaries, colonialism and postcolonialism. Open to first-year students. A. Bessire. 312. Drawing II. Continued study in drawing, emphasizing drawing from the human figure, the development of conceptual drawing attitudes, and drawing as a medium of lyric expression. Prerequisite(s): Art 212. Enrollment limited to 18. J. Nicoletti. 314. Painting II. An opportunity to combine experience from introductory painting courses with post-1945 painting practices. Students are encouraged to develop individual responses to thematic material. Consideration of the interaction of image, process, and meaning. Prerequisite(s): Art 202, 213 or 214. Enrollment limited to 10. R. Feintuch, P. Johnson, J. Nicoletti. 316. Etching Workshop I. Students develop images using intaglio printmaking processes including drypoint, etching, softground, aquatint, sugar-lift, photo-transfer, multiple plate, and color printing. Emphasis on development of sustained independent projects and critical thinking. Prerequisite(s): Art 212. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 10. P. Johnson. 317A. Etching Workshop II. Students develop images using intaglio printmaking processes. Emphasis on development of sustained independent projects and critical thinking. Prerequisite(s): Art 316. Enrollment limited to 10. P. Johnson. 317B. Etching Workshop III. Students develop images using intaglio printmaking processes. Emphasis on development of sustained independent projects and critical thinking. Prerequisite(s): Art 317A. Enrollment limited to 10. P. Johnson. 318. Photography II. Continued study in photography, offering refinement in technical skills as introduced in Art 218 and exposure to additional photographic image-making techniques. The further development of perception and critical analysis of images is emphasized. There is a laboratory fee. Prerequisite(s): Art 218. Enrollment limited to 15. E. Morris. 350. Visual Meaning: Process, Material, Format. This course reflects the changing concerns in the contemporary art world. Working in various media of their choice, students share a common investigation of the process of making meaning, and the impact material has on visual thinking/visual product. Consideration of the potential of format, with emphasis on processes that balance critical thinking with creative generation. Prerequisite(s): two previous studio art courses. Majors should enroll in this course prior to or concurrent with senior thesis. Enrollment limited to 10. P. Johnson. 360. Independent Study. Independent study for individual students, under the direction of a member of the department. Permission of the department is required. Students are limited to one independent study per semester. Staff. 361. Museum Internship. Students who have arranged to participate in a volunteer internship at the Bates College Museum of Art may receive one course credit by taking this course at the same time. Depending on the needs of the museum, internships may involve gallery lecturing or research. The same arrangement is possible for students who obtain internships at the Portland Museum of Art. Students may have internships throughout their college careers, but may receive credit for one semester only. Written permission of the instructor is required. R. Corrie. 365. Special Topics. A course or seminar offered from time to time and reserved for a special topic selected by the department. 374. Seminar in the Literature of Art. This course considers the history and methodology of art history, with an emphasis on recent theoretical strategies for understanding visual culture. Topics to be discussed include stylistic, iconographic, psychoanalytic, literary, feminist, Marxist, historicist, lesbian/gay/queer, and postmodern approaches to the study of art. Prerequisite(s): two advanced courses in the history of art. Enrollment limited to 15. Written permission of the instructor is required. E. Harwood. 375. Issues of Sexuality and the Study of Visual Culture. This course considers issues of sexuality as they affect the study of visual culture, with a focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and other queer sexualities. Topics include: the value and politics of identifying artists and other cultural producers by sexuality; the articulation of sexuality in relation to race, ethnicity, class, and gender; and the implications of work in sexuality studies for the study of art and other forms of visual culture in general. Enrollment limited to 15. Written permission of the instructor is required. E. Rand. 376. Seminar in Medieval and Renaissance Art. This seminar examines the visual culture of Europe and the Mediterranean basin in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In different years the seminar focuses on specific subjects, which may include manuscript illumination, regional architecture, Crusader art, and medieval urbanism. 376B. Kiev to Palermo: Art of the Byzantine World, 843–1453. The resurgence of the visual arts following the end of iconoclasm in the Byzantine empire in 843 saw the production of works in an immense range of media: icons, mosaics, fresco painting, ivory carving, metalwork, textiles, and manuscript illumination. This seminar studies the history of these media in their social, political, and religious contexts within the Byzantine empire and in areas such as Russia, Italy, Central Europe, and the Crusader states. Prerequisite(s): an advanced (200-level) course in the history of art. Enrollment limited to 15. Written permission of the instructor is required. R. Corrie. 376C. Siena: Art and Social Memory. At the height of its power Siena, Italy, bankrolled much of Europe and from 1250 to 1450 produced images that influenced painting from England to the Islamic world. Studying the work of Sienese artists including Duccio, Simone Martini, and the Lorenzetti, this course investigates the ties between visual culture (including sculpture and architecture) and politics, economics, religion, urban structure, and social identity. Recommended background: at least one 200-level course in the history of art or the equivalent, or a course in medieval or Renaissance history. Open to first-year students. Enrollment is limited to 15. R. Corrie. 376D. Crusader Art and Architecture. This seminar investigates the visual and material culture of the Crusader states found between 1099 and 1500 from Jerusalem to Syria, Constantinople, Greece, and the islands of the Aegean. Focused on manuscript and icon painting, sculpture, and church and military architecture of the Frankish states, it also addresses the related production of Armenian Cilicia, the Byzantine empire, Cyprus, Greece, the Balkan kingdoms, Europe, and the Islamic Near East and North Africa, concluding with a consideration of the nineteenth-and twentieth-century fascination with the Crusades and the recent flowering of scholarship on Crusader art. Recommended background: at least one 200-level course in art history or in a related field such as history or religion. Enrollment is limited to 15. R Corrie. New course for 2001-2002. 377. Seminar in Architectural History. The seminar considers selected topics in the history of architecture, urbanism, and landscape design. Possible subjects include Versailles, the English landscape garden, the Periclean building program, Rome in the Baroque, the architecture and landscaping of worldÕs fairs, and the domestic architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. 377A. Picturesque Suburbia. The seminar focuses on the interconnections among conceptions of nature and the city, emergent middle-class social practices, and developments in the design of single-family houses in the United States between 1830 and 1930. Particular attention is paid to A.J. Downing, the garden city movement, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Recommended background: a 200-level course in the history of art. Enrollment limited to 15. E. Harwood. 377B. The Chateau and Gardens of Versailles. Beginning in the 1630s as a modest hunting lodge for Louis XIII, Versailles evolved over the next two centuries into a monumental palace and garden complex. This seminar considers the design and building history of the chateau and its gardens. Particular attention is devoted to their use both as the physical setting for the court, and as the staging area for, and the embodiment of, an idea of a magnificent, national monarchy and its attendant culture. Recommended background: two 200-level courses in the history of art. Enrollment is limited to 15. E Harwood. New course for 2001-2002. 378. Issues in Contemporary African Popular Culture. The seminar offers the opportunity for an intensive study of contemporary African visual arts, film, popular music, and literature. The urban and rural popular cultures within distinctive national and cultural regions are highlighted, with particular attention to the signs, text, and picture language of daily life; novels; soap operas; popular music; and film. Topics discussed may include globalization, commercialism, racial and gender stereotypes, visual appropriation, and the hybridity of contemporary "traditions." Enrollment limited to 15. A. Bessire. 380. Stupas: Forms and Meanings. Stupas are the most pervasive and symbolic form of Buddhist architecture in South, Southeast and East Asia. Buddhist stupas serve as the symbols of illumination, repositories for the relics of revered persons. They also serve as a universal symbol, embodiments of metaphysical principles and multivalent meanings. This seminar not only examines different architectural forms of stupas, but also studies religious concepts and symbolic meanings expressed in stupas in Buddhist Asia. Prerequisite(s): one of the following: Anthropology 244, Art 243, Asian Studies 243, Religion 250, 251, 308 or 309. Enrollment is limited to 15. T Nguyen. New course for 2001-2002. 390. Seminar in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Art. The seminar offers the opportunity for an in-depth consideration of a significant artist, critic, movement, or aesthetic current in the nineteenth and/or twentieth century. 390A. Claude Monet. Monet's work is so often before our eyes today in exhibitions and reproductions, and so popular, that it is easy to lose sight of the complexities of both his career and his work. The seminar offers an overview of these, but focuses especially on recent efforts to contextualize and interpret them. Recommended background: two courses in the history of art. Enrollment limited to 15. E. Harwood. 390B. Pre-Raphaelitism to Modernism. Through the second half of the nineteenth century, the stated goals of progressive painting evolve away from a commitment to pursue an objective, visual realism and toward artists' recreation on their canvases of determinedly personal and subjective responses to the material world. This seminar traces that transformation, through a focus, though not an exclusive one, on developments in the English art world. Topics and artists covered include Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Whistler, the Arts and Crafts Movement, post-Impressionism, aestheticism, and symbolism. Prerequisite(s): one course in the history of art. Enrollment limited to 15. E. Harwood. 457, 458. Senior Thesis. Guidance in the preparation of a) a project in studio art accompanied by a short essay and culminating in an exhibition presented in conjunction with the Museum of Art or b) an essay in the history of art concerned with original works of art. Students register for Art 457 in the fall semester and for Art 458 in the winter semester. Staff. Short Term Units s18. The De/Op Pressed Muse: Creating and Reading Images. This unit combines visual art and feminist philosophy. Students read and analyze contemporary visual texts and, in the studio, develop images using alternative printmaking and artists' bookbinding techniques. Topics may include: $Body, the manufacture of desire, construction/enforcement of gender, the Museum of Bad Art, commodity CULTure, pornography, power, and true-lies. Some of the questions the unit raises include: How do you create desire? How do you sell an idea, rather than a product? What norms and assumptions shape visual propaganda, including advertisements and political campaigns? This unit is the same as Philosophy s18. Enrollment limited to 18. S. Stark, P. Johnson. s21. Soda Firing. This unit explores traditional and new techniques in hand-building with clay. Emphasis is on the vessel as a sculptural form, relief tiles, and installations for public space. Soda firing glaze the work in a unique way that enhances every surface. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 15. P. Heroux. s23. Art and Artists in New York. Works of art often have a sensuous presence that is not revealed in slides or other reproductions, but that is central to the works' meanings. In this unit students spend five weeks in New York looking at modern and contemporary art in museums, galleries, alternative spaces, and artists' studios. Issues of making and meaning are addressed and art is discussed in terms of formal, psychological, cultural, philosophical, and political ideas. Enrollment limited to 10. Written permission of the instructor is required. R. Feintuch. s24. What Are You Wearing? This unit considers clothing in terms of the production of goods, markets, and meanings. Topics may include the Nike boycott, outsourcing, and the Clean Clothes Campaign; the function of clothes in the construction of cultural, social, and personal identities; the regulation of clothes to enforce behavioral standards, such as gender normativity; selling, advertising, shopping, and acquisition, with attention to issues of class, race, gender, nationality, sex, and sexuality in the making of markets for particular products; "ethnic" dress, queer fashion, and other clothes that may raise issues of appropriation, allegiance, and cultural theft. Enrollment limited to 25. E. Rand. s25. The Japanese Tea Bowl. Tea and Zen Buddhism came to Japan from China in the twelfth century. The tea ceremony developed from these imports and many schools have been formed since then, but all have kept the ceramic tea bowl as one of the most important focal points. In this unit, students study the history of the ceremony by making tea bowls and other related utensils. Various clays, forming methods, and styles are explored. Enrollment limited to 15. P. Heroux. s26. The Museum. A study of the emergence of the modern museum. The unit traces its development from the private collections of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to its present role as a public institution. Discussion in the second half of the unit focuses on the administration of the museum. Topics include acquisitions and the development of collections, care and installation of works of art, and recent developments in the construction and architecture of museums. Day trips are planned. Enrollment limited to 15. Written permission of the instructor is required. R. Corrie. s27. From Antiquity to Renaissance in Florence and Rome. In Florence and Rome, students investigate the persistence of the classical aesthetic in Italy through the centuries from ancient Rome to the Renaissance. Enrollment limited to 10. Written permission of the instructor is required. R. Corrie. s28. Desiring Italy. For four centuries Italy and Italian art have drawn artists, writers, and scholars from America and transalpine Europe. This unit focuses on the literature, art, and art history that has emerged from this encounter, stressing the work of such writers as Stendhal, Hawthorne, James, Forster, Mann, and the Brownings, and artists including Mengs, West, Turner, and Hosmer. It investigates the manner in which the nature of that encounter shaped the practice of art history form Winkelmann and Ruskin to Berenson and van Marle, and even the political life and material survival of Italy itself, and concludes by considering the recent spate of films that seek to evoke this now nearly-lost expatriate world, including Room With a View and Tea with Mussolini. Open to first year students. Enrollment is limited to 30. R. Corrie. s29. Just View It: Popular Culture, Critical Stances. Although many people view popular culture as an entertaining escape from serious matters, others consider such products as movies, television, magazines, music videos, romance novels, and the world of Barbie worthy of serious critical study. This unit considers popular culture and recent critical approaches to it. Issues discussed include the validity of distinctions among "high," "popular," and "mass" cultures and the ideological messages and effects of popular culture. Enrollment limited to 25. Written permission of the instructor is required. E. Rand. s30. Arts of the African Diaspora. This unit examines the arts of the African diaspora with particular focus on the Caribbean and the Americas from the eighteenth century to the present. Through commerce and the slave trade, African arts and culture traveled to these areas and were negotiated in unique ways by artists. In exploring the arts of the diaspora, the course considers and challenges constructions of race, ethnicity, and Africanicity from insiders' and outsiders' perspectives. Open to first-year students. Enrollment is limited to 15. A. Bessire. s31. Museum Internship. Students who have arranged to participate in a non-paid internship at the Bates College Museum of Art may receive one Short Term credit by taking this unit at the same time. Permission may be given for internships carried out at other institutions, including the Portland Museum of Art, upon petition to the Department of Art in advance. Students may have internships throughout their college careers, but may receive credit for one Short Term unit only. Not open to students who have received credit for Art s38. Enrollment limited to 30. Written permission of the instructor is required. R. Corrie. s32. The Photograph as Document. Documentary photographs generally describe human social situations that aim to be objective transcriptions of events into images. This unit examines changes in style and methodology from classical documentary approaches of the 1930s and 1940s to contemporary modes of documentary photography. Using either traditional darkroom or digital imaging techniques, students produce projects that address the photograph's function as a document. Concepts of documentary photographs as witness and testimony are analyzed as is the issue of how these notions are challenged and manipulated by many contemporary artists. Prerequisite(s): Art 218 or 219. Enrollment limited to 15. Written permission of the instructor is required. E. Morris. s33. The Fine Arts in England, 1550–1900. The unit examines the bountiful English art world from the rise of the Elizabethan "prodigy houses" through the Arts and Crafts Movement. Particular attention is devoted to the architectural history of London after 1666; the country house: its architecture, art collections, and landscape gardens; the Gothic Revival; and the flowering of Romantic landscape painting. Enrollment limited to 10. Written permission of the instructor is required. E. Harwood. s35. Materials and Techniques of Drawing and Painting. Guided individual research into various drawing media including etching, as well as consideration of the problems of landscape painting, figure drawing, and similar genres. Each Short Term focuses on one of the above categories. The Short Term registration material includes a description of the particular focus for the Short Term at hand, including specific prerequisites. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 10. Written permission of the instructor is required. Staff. s36. Buddhist Objects and their Contexts. This unit has two purposes: to study selected Buddhist artwork at museums in Maine and the Boston area, and to examine and experience religious objects in their religious settings. Prior to the field trips to study the collections, students are assigned art catalogs and articles to read. Issues of aesthetic and devotional "art" objects, their functions and meanings, are addressed and discussed in terms of religious, social, and cultural contexts. Students then visit a few selected Buddhist centers to observe and experience the devotional objects arranged in their traditional religious environment. This approach compares and evaluates the objects within two different settings, aesthetic and devotional, and from two different points of view, east and west. Recommended background: Art 243, Art 247, Religion 208, 209, or 309. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 10. T. Nguyen. s37. Landscape Drawing and Painting in Italy. The unit consists of field trips in and around the provinces of Tuscany and Umbria, and takes full advantage of the unique landscape and cultural opportunities of the region. Studio work alternates with regular visits to regional cities (Florence, Siena, Perugia, Assisi et al.) to study painting, sculpture, and architecture. Prerequisite(s): two studio courses. Recommended background: Art 212, 213 or 214, 265, 266. J. Nicoletti. s38. Museums: Practice and Theory. This unit combines debate and discussion about museums with practical application through internships at regional museums in southern Maine. Participants focus on several questions: What is the purpose of a museum? How does a museum know if it is accomplishing its purpose? Could another institution achieve the same goals at a lesser cost? Not open to students who have received credit for Art s31. Enrollment limited to 12. Written permission of the instructor is required. Staff. s39. Drawing and Intention. Guided individual and collaborative research into various drawing methods including systemic approaches, off-press printing processes, mechanical reproduction, drawing as ritual, and perceptual drawing. Consideration of the relationship between function, form, image, and idea. An opportunity to respond to an expanding definition of drawing that could include text, movement and sound. Coursework culminates in a site-specific drawing installation. Prerequisite(s): Art 212 and one additional course in either studio art, music composition, theater design, playwriting, directing, contemporary performance, theater production, dance composition, fiction writing, poetry writing, or documentary video. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 18. P. Johnson.