Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Art and Architecture

Department Faculty

Liliana Leopardi, Associate Professor, Chair
A. E. Ted Aub, Professor
Lara C. W. Blanchard, Luce Professor of East Asian Art
Jeffrey Blankenship, Associate Professor
Michael Bogin, Professor Emeritus
Christine Chin, Professor
Elena Ciletti, Professor Emeritus
Gabriella D’Angelo, Associate Professor
Mark Jones, Associate Professor Emeritus
Meghan L. Jordan, Clarence A. Davis ’48 Visual Arts Curator
J. Stanley Mathews, Associate Professor Emeritus
Max Piersol, Assistant Professor
Nicholas H. Ruth, Professor
Angelique Szymanek, Associate Professor
Michael Tinkler, Associate Professor
Phillia Changhi Yi, Professor

The Department of Art and Architecture provides students with the opportunity to delve deeply into visual culture and the built environment. Broadly speaking, students study the role of art and architecture in shaping, embodying, and interpreting human experience. Some students may focus on creative discovery and expression or the design process, with the opportunity to explore perceptual and conceptual problem solving. Others may study formal analysis and research methods within an interdisciplinary approach to understanding historical context. All of our students are encouraged to take advantage of opportunities to study studio art, art history, and architecture and design on semester abroad programs, to do internships in the field, and to do independent work at an advanced level. All three areas of study are designed to prepare students for continued education at the graduate school level.

In studio art, students study painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and imaging (photography, video, and new media). The major begins with rigorous introductory courses and quickly moves on to more focused intermediate and advanced offerings. Studio art courses at all levels are designed to help each student to explore a broad range of concepts, methods, and materials while developing individual ideas and a personal voice. Consistent throughout the studio art experience is attention to craft, development of a refined understanding of formal relationships, exercise of a rigorous practice of art making, and exposure to a broad range of historical and contemporary examples. As part of a liberal arts education, studio art is one of the few places where students can creatively engage in the development of a visual language, and this study prepares them for further study in graduate programs as well as a wide range of careers. Students often enrich their interests in studio arts with both similar and dissimilar majors and minors, including Economics, Architectural Studies, Writing and Rhetoric, Media and Society, and many more.

In art history, students choose from an array of courses covering all periods of the art and architecture of America, Europe, Asia, North Africa, and the Islamic world. Advanced courses focus more intensively on specific disciplinary and interdisciplinary issues: artistic practice and patronage, the history of an important movement, gender in art, texts and images, historiography and theory, and exhibit planning and design. Art history students learn how to analyze visual culture and become adept at writing, research, and critical thinking, making them well prepared for careers in museums, art galleries, and auction houses; graduate study and a variety of careers that require these skills. Coursework in programs such as Critical Museum Studies, Media and Society, European Studies, Asian Studies, Women's Studies, English, Philosophy, Religious Studies, History, Anthropology, Economics, and Sociology complements the study of art history.

In architectural studies, students pursue a rigorous introduction to design thinking, embracing a liberal arts philosophy based on the belief that roundly educated individuals make the best architects. Interdisciplinary coursework informs students about the complex relationship between environmental sustainability and human habitation. Students become visual communicators, creative problem solvers, non-linear thinkers, and collaborative learners. The architectural studies major prepares graduates to enter a number of different fields in design, including architecture, landscape architecture, industrial design, urban design, interior design, and historic preservation. Our students minor and double major in a range of areas across the Colleges to complement their design education in programs such as Environmental Studies, Urban Studies, Art History, Philosophy, Studio Art, and a host of other programs.

Students are encouraged to pursue study abroad opportunities for one semester during their junior or senior years. Courses offered on these programs can supplement or be substituted for program requirements. Professors from the department frequently lead semesters abroad in Rome, Italy. Majors are also encouraged to study in Aix-en Provence, France; Bath and Norwich, England; Prague, Czech Republic; or Valparaiso, Chile. Art history students seeking graduate degrees in European or American art history would benefit from language study in Aix-en-Provence, Rome, or Berlin, Germany; those interested in graduate degrees in Asian art history would benefit from language study in Taipei, Taiwan, or Hikone, Japan. Architectural studies majors can pursue design studio-based programs in Berlin; Copenhagen, Denmark; Perth, Australia; and Seoul, South Korea.

Mission Statement

The Department of Art and Architecture believes making and interpreting art, shaping and experiencing space, are fundamental parts of human life. The Studio Art program focuses students on formal and conceptual approaches to making and vigorously analyzing art practices. The Art History program educates students in visual and historical analysis of art and architecture across different regions and periods, developing students’ ability to think rigorously, write effectively, and communicate articulately. The Architectural Studies program practices iterative design and interdisciplinary work to guide students to experience, understand, and explain the power of the built environment to shape lives and embody social values. As a liberal arts department our goal is to help our graduates bring to bear their experiences in the visual world on the contemporary milieu, whether or not they pursue our fields in their careers.

Offerings

The Department of Art and Architecture offers three independent but strongly integrated areas of study: studio art, art history, and architectural studies. Studio art and art history offer majors and minors; architectural studies offers a major only.

Students in all areas have the opportunity to culminate their undergraduate careers with a highly rewarding honors program. The honors program consists of a yearlong course of study, which is developed and pursued in close collaboration with a faculty mentor.

Art History Major (B.A.)

disciplinary, 12 courses

Learning Objectives:

• Students will be able to complete a formal or visual analysis of works representing a diverse and inclusive range of visual and material culture.
• Identify the formal and material particularities of various different media.
• Explain the impact of historical context, sociopolitical context, and cultural context on the production, display, and circulation of art as well as processes of meaning-making.
• Develop research and writing skills that are relevant to the discipline, including crafting and arguing a thesis, as well as drafting catalog essays and wall texts appropriate for museums and galleries.
• Recognize and explain significant themes, stylistic features, and genre conventions associated with art over a range of historical periods and geographical regions, including the artwork of historically underrepresented groups within the US and global areas outside of North America and Europe.

Requirements:
Two courses from ARTH 101, ARTH 102, ARTH 103, or ARTH 110; at the 200-level or higher, one course in ancient or medieval art, one course in Asian art, one course in Renaissance or Baroque art, one course in American or modern art, a 300-level course, a 400-level capstone course, two art history electives, and two studio art courses. All courses must be passed with a grade of C- or higher. Credit/no credit courses cannot be counted toward the major.

Art History Minor

disciplinary, 6 courses
Requirements:
One from ARTH 101, ARTH 102, ARTH 103, or ARTH 110; one studio art course; and four additional art history courses. All courses must be passed with a grade of C- or higher. Credit/no credit courses cannot be counted towards the minor.

Studio Art Major (B.A.)

disciplinary, 12 courses

Learning Objectives:

• Produce work that demonstrates an ability to take creative and intellectual risks.
• Develop a sensitivity to visual relationships in the pursuit of effective formal and expressive coherence.
• Demonstrate a high degree of technical competency in studio art media.
• Integrate the ways in which materials, techniques, and subjects generate meaning.
• Differentiate between artistic styles and the diverse populations and communities from which works of art are made.
• Apply critical thinking to analyze and contextualize their artistic intentions in group critiques, written assignments, and through artworks.

Requirements:
Three 100-level courses representing three different groups from the following choices: ARTS 105; ARTS 114 or 115; ARTS 125; and ARTS 165 or 166; four 200-level studio art courses; two 300-level studio art courses; ARTS 480 Studio Art Senior Seminar; and two art history courses. All courses must be passed with a grade of C- or higher. Credit/no credit courses cannot be counted toward the major.

Studio Art Minor

disciplinary, 6 courses
Requirements:
Two 100-level courses representing two different groups from the following choices: ARTS 105; ARTS 114 or 115; ARTS 125; and ARTS 165 or 166; two 200 or 300-level studio art courses; one art history course; and one additional studio art course. All courses must be passed with a grade of C- or higher. Credit/no credit courses cannot be counted toward the minor.

Architectural Studies Major (B.A.)

interdisciplinary, 13 courses

Learning Objectives:

• To support the development of critical thinkers who engage in the design process as an investigative, iterative, and layered activity that works toward identifying conceptual and formal approaches to guide creative problem solving.
• To engage with a broad and inclusive range of histories and theories of design and other forms of cultural production to inform and support the design process.
• To build a foundation of skills necessary for contemporary design practice in areas including research, analog and digital representation and fabrication, and written and oral communication.
• To emphasize the importance of knowledge-building through public engagement and community outreach.
• To engage in the design of creative and informed responses to critical contemporary issues—especially the complex and interrelated challenges of climate change and social justice.
• To interrogate the potential for design to create spaces that support social diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Requirements:
One Introduction to Architectural Studies course; two 100-level studio art courses, ARTS 125 and either ARTS 115 or 114; three architectural history and theory courses; two 300-level architecture design studios; two courses which substantially focus on cities, landscapes, or environmental studies; three electives at the 200-level or higher (other than Math/Physics, which may be taken at the 100-level) selected in consultation with an advisor in the program; and one 400-level capstone experience to be satisfied by one of the ARCS/ARCH courses used within the 13 for the major. All courses must be passed with a grade of C- or higher. Credit/no credit courses cannot be counted toward the major.

Course Concentrations

Art History

ARTH 101 Introduction to Art: Ancient and Medieval
ARTH 102 Introduction to Western Art: Renaissance through Modern
ARTH 103 Introduction to Asian Art
ARTH 110 Visual Culture
ARTH 201 Black Arts in America
ARTH 202 Art Internship: Catalog
ARTH 203 Art Internship: Exhibition
ARTH 204 Art Internship: Acquisition
ARTH 205 Gender and Display
ARTH 206 Revivals of the Classical Tradition in Architecture
ARTH 208 Greek Art and Architecture
ARTH 209 Chinese Pictures: 1000 Years
ARTH 210 Women Artists in Europe and Asia, 1300-1750
ARTH 212 Arts of Modern China
ARTH 218 Gothic Art and Architecture
ARTH 221 Early Italian Renaissance Painting
ARTH 230 The Age of Michelangelo
ARTH 237 Princely Art: Renaissance Court Art and Culture of Mantua, Milan, Ferrara and Rome
ARTH 240 European Painting in the 19th Century
ARTH 241 A Global History of Performance and Installation
ARTH 248 Love and Death in Ancient Egypt
ARTH 249 Islamic Art and Architecture
ARTH 250 Modern Art
ARTH 252 Japanese Art and Culture
ARTH 253 Buddhist Art and Architecture
ARTH 254 Islamic Art at the Crossroads: the Western Mediterranean 12th to 16th Century
ARTH 270 Early Medieval Art
ARTH 282 20th Century American Art
ARTH 300 Michelangelo, Caravaggio and Bernini
ARTH 303/403 Gender and Painting in China
ARTH 305/405 Women and Men: Constructing Gender in the Renaissance
ARTH 306/406 Telling Tales: Narrative in Asian Art
ARTH 308/408 Art and Censorship
ARTH 315/415 Art and the Senses: High Renaissance Art and Arch in Venice in 15th and 16th Century
ARTH 332/432 Roman Art, Architecture, and Power
ARTH 333/433 Art Since 1960
ARTH 336/436 Arts of the Landscape and the Garden in China and Japan
ARTH 380/480 Art of the Pilgrimage Roads
ARTH 450 Independent Study
ARTH 495/496 Honors
CMST 214 Introduction to Critical Museum Studies

Studio Art
ARTS 105 Color and Composition
ARTS 114 Introduction to Sculpture
ARTS 115 Three-Dimensional Design
ARTS 125 Introduction to Drawing
ARTS 165 Introduction to Imaging
ARTS 203 Representational Painting
ARTS 204 Abstract Painting
ARTS 207 Image Exploration in Photography and Printmaking
ARTS 209 Watercolor
ARTS 214 Metal Sculpture
ARTS 215 Sculpture Modeling
ARTS 225 Life Drawing
ARTS 227 Advanced Drawing
ARTS 245 Photo Silkscreen Printing
ARTS 246 Intaglio Printing
ARTS 248 Woodcut Printing
ARTS 261 Physical and Material
ARTS 262 Experimental Animation
ARTS 272 Visualizing Oral History
ARTS 274 Photographic Book Design
ARTS 305 Painting Workshop
ARTS 315 Sculpture Workshop
ARTS 345 Printmaking Workshop
ARTS 365 Imaging Workshop
ARTS 450 Independent Study
ARTS 480 Studio Art Senior Seminar: Theory and Practice
ARTS 495/496 Honors

Architectural Studies
Required courses:
ARCH 110 Introduction to Architectural Studies
ARCS 300 Introduction to Architectural Design (taken twice)
ARTS 115 Three-Dimensional Design or
ARTS 114 Introduction to Sculpture
ARTS 125 Introduction to Drawing
ARCS 405 Portfolio Design (Satisfies capstone requirement)

Architecture history/theory elective choices
ARCH 202 Radical Ecology: Designing With
ARCH 313 History of Modern Landscape Architecture
ARCH 450 Independent Study
ARCH 495/496 Honors
AMST 312 Architecture, Space and Social Justice
ARTH 206 Revivals of the Classical Tradition in Architecture
ARTH 208 Greek Art and Architecture
ARTH 218 Gothic Art and Architecture
ARTH 237 Princely Art: Renaissance Court Art and Culture of Mantua, Milan, Ferrara and Rome
ARTH 249 Islamic Art and Architecture
ARTH 250 Modern Art 1900-1960
ARTH 252 Japanese Art and Culture
ARTH 253 Buddhist Art and Architecture
ARTH 270 Early Medieval Art
ARTH 332/432 Roman Art, Architecture, and Power
ARTH 333/433 Art Since 1960
ARTH 336/436 Arts of the Landscape and the Garden in China and Japan
ARTH 380/480 Art of the Pilgrimage Roads
CMST 200 Indigenous Arts of the Americas in the Museum

Architecture studio elective choices:
ARCS 204 Intro to Digital Design
ARCS 405 Portfolio Design
ARCS 450 Independent Study
ARCS 495/496 Honors

Cities, landscapes or environmental studies elective choices:
AMST 202 Drawing for Study and Storytelling
ANTH 206 Early Cities
ANTH 326 Meso-American Urbanism
ARCH 313 History of Modern Landscape Architecture
ECON 212 Environmental Economics
ECON 213 Urban Economics
ECON 344 Economic Planning Development
ENV 110 Topics in Environmental Studies
ENV 201 Community and Urban Resilience
ENV 205 Introduction to Environmental Law
GEO 140 Introduction to Environmental Geology 
GEO 182 Introduction to Meteorology
GEO 184 Introduction to Geology
HIST 215 American Urban History
HIST 246 American Environmental History
HIST 264 Modern European City
PHIL 154 Environmental Ethics
REL 226 Religion and Nature
SOC 210 Gentrification
SOC 251 Sociology of the City
SOC 353 Global Cities
SOC 290 Sociology of Community

Art History Course Descriptions

ARTH 101 Ancient to Medieval Art  This course offers a chronological study of principal monuments and developments in paintings, sculpture, and architectures from prehistoric to medieval times in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Islamic world. (Tinkler, offered annually)

ARTH 102 Renaissance to Modern  This course is a chronological study of principal monuments and developments in painting, sculpture, and architecture from Renaissance Italy to contemporary America. (Leopardi, Szymanek, offered annually)

ARTH 103 Introduction to Asian Art  This course presents a topical study of the arts and architecture of East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. We will examine developments in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, architecture, ceramics, prints, and installations, through a series of case studies. Broad topics will include connections between art, politics, philosophy, and religion; text-image relationships; artistic practice, patronage, and collecting; and international art movements in the 19th and 20th centuries. In addition, students will learn to analyze two- and three-dimensional works of art and architecture. (Blanchard, offered annually)

ARTH 201 Black Arts in America  Using a loosely chronological framework, this course presents a series of topics on Black American art and its crucial role in the shaping of the history and development of American visual arts and culture. Beginning with the Harlem Renaissance, we will study the discourse around so-called 'New Negro' art as it was formulated throughout the 1920s and the rise of the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s through contemporary practice. Importantly, this course will simultaneously engage with questions pertaining to the very category of 'Black Arts.' In our study of arts made by artists of the African and Caribbean diaspora in the U.S., we will be careful to consider the politics of identification across race as well as class, sex, and gender difference. (Szymanek, offered occasionally)

ARTH 202 Art Internship: Catalog  This curatorial practicum will involve choosing and researching pieces in the Colleges' permanent collection of art and developing research components necessary for adequate publication, whether in a formal catalog or in an internal record. Research into various types of metadata and museum best practices of documentation will be included. Choices of works will be linked to gallery topics, and curated by the interns. Interns will be involved in documenting, conserving, and researching these works over the course of a term. This is a half-credit course. (Jordan, offered occasionally)

ARTH 203 Art Internship: Exhibition  This internship involves studying chosen pieces from the Colleges' permanent collection of art and developing components necessary for adequate exhibition of those art works. Interns will be involved in designing the exhibition from hanging to labeling over the course of the term. The term will result in an exhibition of these works from the collection. This is a half credit course. (Jordan, offered every Spring)

ARTH 204 Art Internship: Acquisition  This practicum involves choosing a section of the Colleges' permanent collection of art and developing an analysis of its strengths and weaknesses providing a knowledge base to justify any acquisitions decisions. Interns will develop an overview of the period of art chosen and compare it to our collection over the course of a term. The term will be used to identify and purchase a work which enhances the collection in the chosen section. This is a half credit course. (Jordan, offered occasionally)

ARTH 205 Gender and Display  Through an examination of both media and art production from the late twentieth-century until the present, this course will ask students to critically engage with questions of how visual culture works to either confirm or reject the often violently oppressive concepts of masculinity and femininity that have come to shape Western ideology and lived experience. As they are inextricably linked to multiple formulations of masculinity and femininity, issues surrounding race, class and sexuality are also taken into account as we consider not only how images reflect gender norms but how, as viewers, we are continued to view them as such. (Szymanek, offered occasionally)

ARTH 206 Revivals of the Classical Tradition in Architecture  In this course students will study the Classical tradition in its Greek and Roman contexts, examining both free interpretation of models and rigid following of rules - whether authentic or imagined - of an always contested Classical tradition. The course will spend significant time on the introduction of the Classical tradition into German, Russian, British, and American settings where it had never existed before. Issues of historical preservation will be examined. (Tinkler, offered alternate years)

ARTH 209 Chinese Pictures: 1000 Years  This course will explore a thousand years of Chinese pictorial arts, from 907 to the end of imperial rule in 1911, focusing on painting, calligraphy, and printmaking. Calligraphy (which has a pictorial component) and painting are regarded as the highest art forms in the earliest Chinese histories of art, while prints are often connected to the publishing industry. Material will be presented chronologically, but broader topics will include why calligraphy is regarded as art; subject matter in Chinese pictorial arts, including figural topics and landscapes; art criticism and theories on painting; social classes of artists; and artistic patronage and collecting. No prerequisites or co-requisites. (Blanchard; offered alternate years)

ARTH 210 Women Artists in Europe and Asia, 1300-1750  Written histories of art before the modern era have too often overlooked or marginalized women artists, even though they worked in the same media as men (painting, printmaking, illustration, calligraphy) and depicted similar subjects (portraits, religious themes, still lifes, and nature). This course examines European and Asian women artists between 1300 and 1750, with particular attention to the cultures of Italy and China after 1500. Topics will include the reasons for women's omission from the canon of art history; women's status as amateur or professional artists; and their identities as court artists, members of artistic families, courtesans, or nuns. (Blanchard, offered alternate years)

ARTH 212 Arts of Modern China  This course will explore the tensions between tradition, modernity, and globalization in Chinese arts from 1912 (marking the overthrow of imperial rule and the establishment of a republic) to the present, examining how visual media reflect the Chinese people's understanding of China's position in the world in the 20th and 21st centuries. Material will be organized chronologically, but broader topics will include art criticism and movements in art; social classes of artists; artistic patronage; art and politics; and gender in the arts. Media to be considered include painting, printmaking, photography, video, installations, sculpture, and architecture. No prerequisites or co-requisites. (Blanchard; offered alternate years)

CMST 214 Introduction to Museum Studies  This course is an introduction to the history and theory of museums, and to institutional collecting and the interpretation of culture. The focus will be on the role of museums in colonization and nation building, involvement in globalizing processes as well as the opportunities museums offer for social advocacy. Aiming to provide a wide-ranging and challenging introduction to the theoretical issues involved in contemporary museum practice as a sociologically-informed and socially-situated discipline, this course will encourage the development of critically aware perspectives on professional practice and research processes. The aim of this course is to familiarize students from a range of subject specialisms with current issues in museology, and the ways in which museums have been developing from storehouses of culture and centers of authority to flexible places which engage with communities and invite audiences to author their own museum experiences. This course will be offered every spring.

ARTH 221 Italian Renaissance  This course is an exploration of the extraordinary flowering of the arts in 14th and 15th century Florence. Artists include Giotto, Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Botticelli, and Leonardo. The course considers the development of individual styles, the functions of art, the culture of humanism, and the dynamics of patronage. (Leopardi, offered alternate years)

ARTH 230 The Age of Michelangelo  This course is dedicated to the art of the High Renaissance and Mannerism in Florence, Rome, and a few North Italian cities. Students explore the evolution of the two styles in the work of painters and sculptors, such as Raphael, Pontormo, Correggio, Cellini, and Anguissola, with special emphasis on Michelangelo. Attention is also given to the new ideologies of art as Art and to the cult of genius, as well as the propagandistic aesthetics of the court of Cosimo I de' Medici in Florence. (Leopardi, offered alternate years)

ARTH 237 Princely Art: Renaissance Court Art and Culture of Mantuna, Milan, Ferrara and Rome  This course will focus on the Renaissance Court Culture of the cities of Milan, Mantua, Ferrara and Rome. The course is meant to examine art production within the strict confines of noble patronage by Italian princes. Particular attention will be paid to female patronage of Italian duchesses. All media will be taken under consideration - painting, sculpture and architecture - while paying particular attention to the ways in which artists responded to their patrons and introduced innovations eventually imitated by the merchant middle classes throughout the Italian peninsula. (Leopardi, offered alternate years)

ARTH 241 Live Art: A Global History of Performance and Installation Art  This course is an introduction to histories and theories of performance and installation art of the 20th-21st centuries. As a global phenomenon, the practice of using bodies, space, and time as mediums for the production of art requires a critical examination of the socio-cultural and political context within which a work is produced. Through a survey of art from China, Japan, Europe, and the Americas, this course considers how histories of industrialization, colonization, and migration have shaped the production of art as well as the constructions of space, time, and bodily subjectivity with which performance and installation art engage. Focusing on international movements such as Futurism, Fluxus, and Gutai, as well as Body and Process art, this course focuses on artists whose work poses questions regarding how meaning is produced, whose meaning matters, and how bodies, space, and time become raced, classed, and gendered. (Szymanek, offered occasionally)

ARTH 248 Love and Death in Ancient Egypt  This course explores Egyptian paintings and reliefs from temples and tombs to reveal the strong sensual qualities encoded in the symbolism and iconography of funerary art. A careful analysis of artifacts will help us understand how encoded images were seen as a form of power and a means to obtain immortality. While the course will provide a chronological survey of Egyptian art, it will mostly focus on the New Kingdom period because most of the tomb wall paintings to have survived belong to that specific period. (Leopardi, offered alternate years)

ARTH 249 Islamic Art and Architecture  Students examine Islamic art and architecture from its beginnings in classical Mediterranean media and forms to the expression of autonomous stylistic developments and the impact of colonialism and post colonialism. They consider the myth that Islam prohibits imagery and examine the use of the abstract decorative technique often dismissed in western criticism as the "arabesque." The western colonialist response to the Islamic world, the subsequent Islamic response to western art styles, and the contemporary search for an authentic Islamic style in art and architecture conclude the course. (Tinkler, offered occasionally)

ARTH 250 Modern Art 1900-1960  This course is a study of the history of Western art produced from 1900 until 1960. Loosely chronological, this course examines various stylistic movements and the political and social factors that shape each successive era of avant-garde art including Expressionism, Surrealism, Dada, and Constructivism, among others. Every week we will cover a significant period in the history of modern art and study the ways in which both the principal figures from each period and the corresponding movements challenged the limits of art as it is shaped by and through modern life. We will study how the form, material, and contents of art reflect or communicate the political, philosophical, and personal implications of 'modernity' as it is taking shape in parts of Europe and the U.S. throughout the 20th century. (Szymanek, offered alternate years)

ARTH 252 Japanese Art and Culture  This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to the arts and culture of Japan from the Neolithic period through the twentieth century. Students consider examples of visual media in the context of Japanese literature, history, society, and religions. Topics include Shinto architecture, Buddhist art (including Pure Land and Zen), narrative picture scrolls, traditional and western-style paintings, shoin architecture, gardens, tea ceremony ceramics and ukiyo-e prints (pictures of the floating world). Students read primary sources in translation, including Shinto myths, Buddhist texts, and selections from literature. (Blanchard, offered alternate years)

ARTH 253 Buddhist Art and Architecture  This course will examine Buddhist architecture, painting, and sculpture from South Asia, Southeast Asia, The Silk Road, and East Asia. We will consider five important movements in Buddhist practice: Theravada, Mahayana, Pure Land, Esoteric, and Zen. Topics will include images of the life of the historic Buddha and tales of his previous lives; the role of the stupa on Buddhist worship; the expansion of the Buddhist pantheon; associations between art and patronage; representations of multiple realms of existence; the development of the mandala; the role of mediation in artistic practice. When appropriate, students will read Buddhist texts in translation. (Blanchard, offered alternate years)

ARTH 254 Islamic Art at the Crossroads: The Western Mediterranean 12th to 16th Century  This course examines the artistic production of Islamic culture in the Western Mediterranean throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance by taking into account cross-cultural exchanges. Themes under consideration will include: the relationship between art and literature; the rise of court culture; women's role in Islamic art, and Venice and Islam. (Leopardi, offered occasionally)

ARTH 282 20th Century American Art  This course traces the history of American art as it developed throughout the first half of the 20th century. Using a loose chronological framework, the course is a study of a series of major stylistic, technological, and ideological developments within American art and visual culture including those precipitated by the shift of the Western avant-garde art world from Paris to New York City with the onset of WWI. Spanning half of the century as well as a vast array of mediums such as painting, sculpture, photography, and architecture, the aim of this course is to familiarize students with notable movements and art world figures as well as the socio-political contexts that both made their innovations possible and expanded the field of possibilities for the very definitions of art and authorship as they continue to develop into the 21st Century. (Szymanek, offered regularly)

ARTH 305 Women and Men: Constructing Gender in the Renaissance  This course examines gender construction in the Early Modern period. Through a careful examination of images of women and men and their clothing or lack thereof - this course takes into account cultural context, function, intention, and meaning of these images - the course will establish the various ways in which gender identity was performed during the Italian Renaissance. Painted marriage furniture, male and female portraiture, female nudes and figures of saints will all be critically examined to better understand how gender was constructed in the early modern period. (Leopardi, offered occasionally)

ARTH 308 Art and Censorship  This course will explore the issue of censorship as it has persistently shaped the production and exhibition of art in the Western world, particularly in Europe and the U.S. Beginning with the Salon des Refuses, the infamous exhibition of Impressionist works rejected from the official Parisian Salon in 1863 and the Degenerate Art Show organized by Adolf Ziegler and the Nazi Party in Munich in 1937, we will trace a lineage of institutional and political censorship that often functioned under the banner of "decency" or "morality" which, ultimatel, served to police the content and political power of the visual arts. These early precedents will help contextualize more contemporary debates about the role of art and the regulation of its contents which reached a particularly feverish pitch in the U.S. during the age of the so-called "culture wars" of the 1980s. In the ensuing years, the history of censorship has taken on new meaning as various new means of making and exhibiting art through digital technologies and the internet have made the ability to regulate images increasingly difficult. This course is a study of the history of modes of censorship utilized within/against the art world and artistic response to state, religious, and/or socially mandated forms of regulation. (Szymanek, offered occasionally)

ARTH 315 Art and the Senses: High Renaissance Art and Architecture in Venice in 15th and 16th Century  "Michelangelo for form and Titian for colour" is a classic trope that has its origin in Renaissance culture and that has led numerous historians and critics to note and comment on the heightened sensual qualities of Venetian art. With this in mind, this course will examine the development of venetian art during its golden age, 1500-1600. The course is designed to examine all manners of visual production of that period covering artists like Bellini, Titian, Jacopo Sansovino and Andrea Palladio, yet the course will greatly focus on paintings since this genre distinguished itself for its emphasis on pictorial light and tactile values. Particular attention will be paid to the representation of the reclining female nude, a typology that found great fortune with patrons throughout Italy and beyond, and influenced generations of artists afterwards. Such representations will further be analyzed by examining renaissance conceptions of beauty, eros and gender construction. (Leopardi, offered occasionally)

ARTH 333 Art Since 1960  This course engages with the histories and theories of art produced from1960 until the 2000s. Structured in a loosely chronological order, this course we will study a variety of stylistic movements and the political, artistic, social, and intellectual stakes that are claimed with each successive and simultaneous evolution that pushed/s forward the history of art. The innovative and often critical deployment of particular mediums and forms will be examined within the broader context of social histories that give these practices impact while also looking to the institutions that help shape these histories. Moreover, a critical examination of the parameters of art and its publics will be housed within the frameworks provided by a number of artists and theorists. This course will ask not only what is created and/or reformulated within the discourses of art production but, perhaps more tellingly, what those processes erase or marginalize in their pursuits. (Szymanek, offered occasionally)

ARTH 336 Arts of the Landscape and the Garden in China and Japan  In China and Japan, the natural landscape becomes a primary theme of artistic expression, as revealed in two-dimensional works of art and architectural sites. This course will examine East Asian traditions of landscape painting, pictorial representations of gardens, and the historic gardens of Suzhou, Beijing, and Kyoto, from the premodern era through the present. We will explore how these diverse representations of landscape play upon the dichotomy between nature and artifice and consider their social, political, and religious implications. Students will read landscape and garden texts in translation, as well as selections from the secondary literature dealing with these themes. (Blanchard, offered occasionally)

ARTH 405 Women and Men: Constructing Gender in the Renaissance  This course examines gender construction in the Early Modern period. Through a careful examination of images of women and men and their clothing or lack thereof - this course takes into account cultural context, function, intention, and meaning of these images - the course will establish the various ways in which gender identity was performed during the Itlaian Renaissance. Painted marriage furniture, male and female portraiture, female nudes and figures of saints will all be critically examined to better understand how gender was constructed in the early modern period. (Leopardi, offered occasionally)

ARTH 408 Art and Censorship  This course will explore the issue of censorship as it has persistently shaped the production and exhibition of art in the Western world, particularly in Europe and the U.S. Beginning with the Salon des Refuses, the infamous exhibition of Impressionist works rejected from the official Parisian Salon in 1863 and the Degenerate Art Show organized by Adolf Ziegler and the Nazi Party in Munich in 1937, we will trace a lineage of institutional and political censorship that often functioned under the banner of "decency" or "morality" which, ultimatel, served to police the content and political power of the visual arts. These early precedents will help contextualize more contemporary debates about the role of art and the regulation of its contents which reached a particularly feverish pitch in the U.S. during the age of the so-called "culture wars" of the 1980s. In the ensuing years, the history of censorship has taken on new meaning as various new means of making and exhibiting art through digital technologies and the internet have made the ability to regulate images increasingly difficult. This course is a study of the history of modes of censorship utilized within/against the art world and artistic response to state, religious, and/or socially mandated forms of regulation. (Szymanek, offered occasionally)

ARTH 415 Art and the Senses: High Renaissance Art and Architecture in Venice in 15th and 16th Century  "Michelangelo for form and Titian for colour" is a classic trope that has its origin in Renaissance culture and that has led numerous historians and critics to note and comment on the heightened sensual qualities of Venetian art. With this in mind, this course will examine the development of venetian art during its golden age, 1500-1600. The course is designed to examine all manners of visual production of that period covering artists like Bellini, Titian, Jacopo Sansovino and Andrea Palladio, yet the course will greatly focus on paintings since this genre distinguished itself for its emphasis on pictorial light and tactile values. Particular attention will be paid to the representation of the reclining female nude, a typology that found great fortune with patrons throughout Italy and beyond, and influenced generations of artists afterwards. Such representations will further be analyzed by examining renaissance conceptions of beauty, eros and gender construction. (Leopardi, offered occasionally)

ARTH 436 Arts of the Landscape and the Garden in China and Japan  In China and Japan, the natural landscape becomes a primary theme of artistic expression, as revealed in two-dimensional works of art and architectural sites. This course will examine East Asian traditions of landscape painting, pictorial representations of gardens, and the historic gardens of Suzhou, Beijing, and Kyoto, from the premodern era through the present. We will explore how these diverse representations of landscape play upon the dichotomy between nature and artifice and consider their social, political, and religious implications. Students will read landscape and garden texts in translation, as well as selections from the secondary literature dealing with these themes. (Blanchard, offered occasionally)

ARTH 495 Honors Art History 

ARTH 499 Internship Art History 

Studio Art Course Descriptions

ARTS 105 Color and Composition  A perceptual approach to the study of color interaction and compositional dynamics, students work through a carefully structured series of problems designed to reveal empirically the nature of color interaction and relatedness and the fundamentals of good visual composition. Projects range from narrowly focused color problems to ambitious, expressive compositional inventions. (Ruth, offered each semester)

ARTS 114 Introduction to Sculpture  A broad introduction to sculptural processes and principles. Traditional and experimental approaches to creative artistic expression in a variety of media are investigated, including carving, clay modeling, casting and construction. Materials may include plaster, wood, clay, metal, and mixed media. The history of modern sculpture is incorporated into the course through readings and discussion, as well as image and video presentations. (Aub, offered annually)

ARTS 115 Three Dimensional Design  An introduction to three-dimensional concepts, methods, and materials with an emphasis on design. Project assignments involve investigations of organization, structure, and creative problem solving. Materials generally used in the course include cardboard, wood, metals, fabric, and plexiglas. This course is offered primarily, but not exclusively, for students with an interest in the architectural studies program and they are given first priority with enrollment. (Aub, Blankenship, D'Angelo, Piersol, offered each semester)

ARTS 125 Introduction to Drawing  A basic course in visual organization and visual expression, students focus on drawing from observation and the relational use of visual elements to create compositional coherence, clear spatial dynamics, and visually articulate expression. Students experiment with a range of drawing materials and subject matter. (Aub, Yi, Ruth, offered each semester)

ARTS 165 Introduction to Imaging  In this studio-based course in photography, students will explore the camera as a medium for artistic expression while building a foundation of photographic skills. Topics covered include camera controls, natural and studio lighting, photographic composition, wet darkroom and digital darkroom techniques. As inspiration and to broaden our understanding of the medium, we will look at a wide range of photographic practices from the camera obscura to the photographs of living, working artists. Through discussion and critique of creative projects, we will discuss how a photographic image works to communicate visual and conceptual ideas. (Chin, offered each semester)

ARTS 203 Representational Painting  A sequel to ART 105, this course focuses on the problems of painting from a source, including still life, figure, and landscape. Students work to reconcile the insistent presence of objects with the need to create pictorial lights, space and compositional and expressive coherence. Prerequisite ART 105 (Ruth, offered alternate years)

ARTS 204 Abstract Painting  A sequel to ARTS 105, this course focuses on the generation of an abstract pictorial vocabulary and on the investigation of a range of compositional and expressive possibilities for the pictorial use of that vocabulary. Prerequisite: ARTS 105. (Ruth, offered alternate years)

ARTS 209 Watercolor Painting  An exploration of the fundamentals of painting with translucent color media. Western and Eastern traditions, as well as more experimental approaches, are investigated. Use of Gouache (opaque watercolor) may also be explored. Subject matter involves still life, figure, and landscape with excursions to rural and urban settings. Prerequisite: ARTS 105. (Yi, offered alternate years)

ARTS 227 Advanced Drawing  A course based on the premise that every drawing, even the most meticulously representational, is an invented. We will explore ways of generating visual forms and visual relationships with an emphasis on the imaginative use of materials. Collage in various guises will be a regular part of the processes of invention in this course. Prerequisite: ARTS 125 (Ruth, offered annually)

ARTS 231 You Are Here: Mapping a Sense of Place  All art is a product of its time and place. But what happens when you make art not just in a place and time, but about it too? How do you describe/map/represent a place, and decide what to include, or what it means to the people who live there and what to leave out? How do you express what is important about a place to you? In this course, we will use a variety of approaches to painting, drawing, and image making in order to creatively study, interpret, and express different aspects of our place, Geneva, NY. By exploring traditions of representation and abstraction, working with a wide range of materials, considering conceptual approaches, studying the work of artists who deal with place, and focusing on this place where we are living students will develop new ways of seeing all places and new ways of expressing yourself as an artist. (Ruth, offered alternate years)

ARTS 246 Intaglio Printing  An exploration of the basic techniques of intaglio printing, including drypoint, etching, and aquatint. Equal attention is given to composition and the effective use of visual form. Prerequisite: ARTS 125. (Yi, offered alternate years)

ARTS 248 Woodcut Printing  An introduction to the fundamental processes of woodcut printmaking. Traditional and experimental techniques are investigated. Formal dynamics and visual expression are the most important emphases of this course. Prerequisite: ARTS 125. (Yi, offered alternate years)

ARTS 261 Physical and Material: Photographic Explorations with Film, Paper, Light and Chemistry  This studio course in photography will be an exploration of the physicality and materiality of light-based image-making. We will use hand coated processes as well as traditional darkroom photography and utilize cameras of various formats as well as camera-less processes. We will look at how artists use the physicality of the photographic medium to express visual and conceptual ideas and consider how surface and light can be used to create our own artistic arguments. What happens in the translation of the physical world into photographic images, and how can this be used to question, critique, and subvert what the audience experiences? How do scale, surface, and substrate affect the reading of a work of art? (Chin, offered alternate years)

ARTS 263 Light, Story, Construct: Fact and Fiction in Photography  This studio course in photography will explore photography's complicated relationship to reality. We will learn to use the controlled light setting of the photographic studio to explore light's ability to both illuminate and obscure through exercises and creative work. Conceptually, we will consider how photography both ties us to a real moment in time and space and creates an illusion of truth that can be controlled to tell the narrative of the photographer/author. Using techniques learned through hands-on workshops, students will create original photographically-based artwork that will be developed and refined through the process of critique. This course will build on previous knowledge of camera  controls and editing skills and explore both digital and hand-coated darkroom processes. (Chin, offered alternate years).

ARTS 272 Visualizing Oral History  Feminist oral history is a course concerned with how we narrate life stories and how we represent their narration in text, sound and image. This course operates as a methods workshop, investigating the theory underlying feminist oral history while putting the methodology to work through a class interviewing project using audio recording and image capture technologies. Students will learn how to develop interview questions, gather material and then put these into context to narrate and represent life stories. The workshop will develop interviewing skills as well as visual and audio artistic abilities. Students will learn the critical and analytical skills necessary to prepare life history for presentation to general audiences (such as museum exhibitions) and to prepare materials for deposit in an archive. (Chin, Bayer, offered alternate years)

ARTS 274 Photographic Book Design: Handmade and Self-Published Forms  Students will create original photographic books from projects which will be conceived, developed and captured during the course. Photographic techniques used will include both direct printing on light sensitive materials and lens-based digital photography. Book making will include the physical skills of cutting, sewing, and gluing as well as the use of digital design tools and archival inkjet printing. Throughout the course, the interrelation between photography and the book as a historical and artistic form will be considered through readings and artist examples. Projects for the course will teach skills in composition, sequencing, and aesthetics and the effective communication of concepts and ideas. DSLR cameras will be provided. (Chin, offered every three years)

ARTS 305 Painting Workshop  For advanced students, the focus of this workshop is on the generation and development of individual painting ideas. Emphasis is on the creation of a process of painting that draws on a multitude of sources, inspirations, influences, and ideas and the way that work emerges from this matrix of pictorial possibilities. Students will study both Modernist and Postmodern approaches to image making through painting. Prerequisite: ARTS 203, ARTS 204, ARTS 209, ARTS 231, or permission of the instructor. (Ruth, offered annually)

ARTS 315 Sculpture Workshop  An open studio for a small, independent group, this course includes individual problems and criticism as well as group discussions. All media and processes may be investigated, including modeling, carving, welding, and plaster or bronze casting. Prerequisite: ARTS 214 or 215 or permission of instructor (Aub, offered alternate years)

ARTS 345 Printmaking Workshop  This workshop is for students who have taken either ARTS 245, ARTS 246, or ARTS 248. It is designed to enable students to do more advanced work in a chosen area of printmaking as well as explore new related areas of printmaking. Prerequisite: ARTS 245, ARTS 246, or ARTS 248. (Yi, offered alternate years)

ARTS 365 Imaging Workshop  This is a concept based course in which the student is encouraged to employ a variety of imaging media to fully explore their creative potential in a workshop environment. Projects using large and medium format film cameras, alternative processes and digital image capture and output are required. Students may expand their exploration into more conceptual, process-oriented, video or web-based art. Prerequisite: ARTS 265 or ARTS 268. (Chin, offered alternate years)

ARTS 480 Studio Art Senior Seminar: Theory and Practice  This course seeks to provide students with a grounding in studio art theory as it pertains to the origins of modernism, the advent of postmodernism, and the development of a wide array of contemporary studio art practices. It will also provide specific skills training in aspects of professional practice important to studio artists, including such topics as documentation of artwork, exhibition strategies and techniques, development of a portfolio, the writing of artist statements, and the delivery of artist talks. (Chin, Ruth, offered annually)

ARTS 495 Honors Studio Art 

ARTS 499 Internship Studio Art 

Architectural Studies Course Descriptions

Architectural History and Theory
ARCH 202 Radical Ecology: Designing With  This course will provide a heightened context and exploration of the history/theory and design connections linking together architecture and ecology. Considering our focus through an interdisciplinary lens, this class will investigate architectural proposals from the 20th and 21st centuries that examine groundbreaking, experimental ecological approaches to designing a more sustainable Earth. From technologies to the imagination, the Anthropocene to the Chthulucene, we will question our built environment as it relates to the greater health, endurance, and vitality of our ecosystem. Creating space for discussion, analysis, and hands on design investigations, students will gain greater insight into how designing with creates new relationship and opportunities in our built environment that empowers, restores, and replenishes our natural world.

ARCH 110 Introduction to Architectural Studies  An introduction to architecture and design culture, this course introduces students to the aims, methods, and issues of the design and planning disciplines with architecture at the core of our studies. This course also encourages students to think, look, and read critically about designed objects, places, and spaces through drawing, although no prior experience with sketching is expected. With these tools, the student will have a basic understanding of design, and will be prepared to undertake more specialized study. (Blankenship, Piersol, offered each semester)

ARCH 312 Contemporary Theories of Modern Architecture and Urbanism  This course investigates the role that ideas can play in the making and interpretation of the built environment. Lectures, readings, discussions, and hands-on projects combine to cover a broad range of topics from basic definitions of terms and concepts to an overview of the significant theoretical positions that have been used to lend authority to form making. Emphasis is placed on buildings and ideas that are crucial to the important theoretical debates of the 20th and 21st centuries. The course specifically aims to present the material in a manner that aids students in clarifying their own values and intentions. (Blankenship, Piersol, offered occasionally)

ARCH 313 History of Modern Landscape Architecture  This course presents a survey of landscape design from the 19th century to the present with an emphasis on the 20th century. Lectures, readings, and discussion will present and analyze specific parks, gardens, roads, planned communities, and other sites of invention. Works of landscape design will be physically contextualized through consideration of contemporary and allied humanities, especially philosophy, literature, painting, and architecture. The relationship of individual landscape projects to their topographic and social contexts will emerge as a central theme of the course. Students will learn to see, analyze, and appreciate works of landscape design, and also the historical trends and cultural forces that have shaped them. (Blankenship, offered annually)

ARCH 495 Honors 

ARCH 499 Internship 

Architecture Design Studio Courses
ARCS 204 Introduction to Digital Design  ARCS 204 is a digital design studio that challenges students to think critically and creatively about the design process as it relates to digital design software and fabrication. Exploring analytical, generative and representational opportunities within digital design applications and methodologies, students will gain foundational proficiency in a variety of digital languages through direct and hybrid design approaches. Design projects will range in scale and content each semester, and will evolve through a process of exploration, critique, revision and refinement. Prerequisites for the course include ARTS 114 or 115 and ARTS 125. (D'Angelo, Piersol, offered occasionally)

ARCS 300 Architecture Design Studio  This course, a vertical studio, is an introduction the design process as a method of inquiry, focused study and innovative problem solving. Emphasizing conceptual design, student projects may explore site design, building design, interiors and lighting, object or product design, installation art, garment design, and other topics. Students will learn to work interactively on their projects, gain familiarity with formal design principles, and work at multiple scales. Lessons in precision drawing, modeling, and design work flow will be integrated into project work. Students may repeat this course. (Blankenship, D'Angelo, Piersol, offered each semester)

ARCS 405 Portfolio Design  A visual portfolio is a graphic sampling of work that tells a story in either physical or digital form. Well-designed visual portfolios provide broad insights about their subject matter, whether person, product or idea. In this course, students will work with design software to develop a visual narrative strategy, prepare imagery and draft text for a capstone portfolio. Other topics covered include logo and website design, resume and personal essay writing and other kinds of professional development. (Blankenship, D'Angelo, Piersol, offered each semester)

ARCS 495 Honors 

ARCS 499 Internship