Contemporary Art in New York (AHIS 470)

*Undergraduate applicants only, graduate students are not eligible*

Syllabus

Program Information

This course explores the production, functions, and survival of works of art made in Europe between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, with brief forays into the preceding and succeeding centuries. How were works of painting and sculpture made? How did access to materials such as pigments, paper, linen, and metals affect what could be made? What techniques were developed, revived, or invented in the Renaissance? More expansively, how did Renaissance modes of image-making shape the period’s expanding worldview? Finally, how were/are Renaissance things preserved for future generations, and how should we responsibly display and preserve centuries-old objects now? After a week at the Getty Center, Norton Simon Museum, and LACMA in Los Angeles, we will head to Providence, Rhode Island where we will visit the print workshop at the Rhode Island School of Design, and then head on to the Boston area to make use of the Renaissance objects displayed in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Harvard Collection of Scientific Instruments, and the Harvard Art Museums. We will also be guests in Harvard’s Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Analysis and the MFA’s new conservation labs.

Contact Information

Faculty Director: Lisa Pon

Email: lisapon@usc.edu