Summer 2013

Equivalent to HUMA C1121 and F1121. Not a historical survey but an analytical study of masterpieces, including originals available in the metropolitan area. The chief purpose is to acquaint students with the experience of a work of art. A series of topics in the development of Western art, selected to afford a sense of the range of expressive possibilities in painting, sculpture, and architecture, such as the Parthenon, the Gothic cathedral, and works of Michelangelo, Bruegel, Picasso, and others. Space is limited. Columbia University undergraduates who need this course for graduation are encouraged to register during early registration.

Equivalent to HUMA C1121 and F1121. Not a historical survey but an analytical study of masterpieces, including originals available in the metropolitan area. The chief purpose is to acquaint students with the experience of a work of art. A series of topics in the development of Western art, selected to afford a sense of the range of expressive possibilities in painting, sculpture, and architecture, such as the Parthenon, the Gothic cathedral, and works of Michelangelo, Bruegel, Picasso, and others. Space is limited. Columbia University undergraduates who need this course for graduation are encouraged to register during early registration.

Coming on the heels of the MoMA's blockbuster exhibit, this seminar will trace the rise and fall of Abstract Expressionism, from its pre-World War II precipitates in Europe (Surrealism) and in America (Regionalism), to the crucial moment when, as scholar Serge Guilbaut has argued, New York "stole" the idea of modern art, and finally, through the decade when Pop Art rendered Abstract Expressionism obsolete. Although special emphasis will be given to Jackson Pollock, whose persona and work reside at the literal and figurative center of the movement, we will also look closely at works by Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Willem DeKooning, Lee Krasner, Louise Bourgeois, Helen Frankenthaler, Eva Hesse, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Cy Twombly. Class lectures and presentations will be supplemented with trips to New York's world-renowned museums.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cloisters, and the Morgan Library house medieval works of extraordinary interest from a wide range of periods and regions. Taking advantage of this opportunity, the course focuses on selected objects (as case studies) in these local institutions. We will examine medieval buildings, sculptures, reliquaries and manuscripts first-hand, investigating their original context, their later identity as collection pieces, and their place within the broader cultural background of art and architecture from Late Antiquity to the Gothic.

The adjudged authenticity of a work of art is fundamental in determining its value as a commodity on the art market or, for example, in property claim disputes or in issues of cultural property restitution. Using case studies�some straightforward and others extremely vexing--this course examines the many ways in which authenticity is measured through the use of provenance and art historical research, connoisseurship, and forensic resources. From within the broader topics, finer issues will also be explored, among them, the hierarchy of attribution, condition and conservation, copies and reproductions, the period eye and the style of the marketplace.