Art and Archaeology

Academic Year: 
2017-18
Address: 
McCormick Hall
Phone: 
609-258-5678
Website: 
Department of Art and Archaeology
Program offerings: 
Ph.D.
Director of Graduate Studies
Charles Barber
Graduate Program Administrator
Diane Schulte

Academic department detail

Overview

The graduate curriculum in the history of art at Princeton University is one of the oldest in the country, and for many decades the department has played a leading role in training teachers, scholars, and curators in this area. At Princeton, graduate work in this discipline has certain special advantages. Because the number of graduate students is limited, all courses are small, intimate seminars in which there is maximum opportunity for free and informal discussion. The graduate courses given by members of the department are, from time to time, supplemented by courses or lectures given by members of the Institute for Advanced Study or invited scholars.  Graduate study is carried out within one of seven broad fields: 1) Classical, 2) Byzantine and Medieval, 3) Renaissance and Baroque, 4) Modern and Contemporary, 5) East Asian, and 6) African.

Graduate studies in art and archaeology are designed to prepare students to become creative scholars and teachers in the history of art. A student wishing to begin graduate work in the department should have had a sound liberal education as an undergraduate, with courses in history, literature, at least two foreign languages and preferably, although not necessarily, a major in the history of art. During the first year of graduate study, students who have had limited undergraduate preparation in the history of art are expected to remedy any deficiency by doing individual reading and taking pertinent undergraduate courses, which may be adjusted to the graduate level by means of special preceptorials, readings, and reports. A single student or a small group may initiate a reading course on a topic of agreed interest supervised by a member of the faculty.

Applicants who already hold a master’s degree have a distinct advantage in their preparation; however, because Princeton has no course credit system, specific advanced credit for prior work in the field cannot be offered. Applicants for graduate study in the department are admitted only as candidates for the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.).

Students have the opportunity to work with objects in the collections of the Princeton University Art Museum and to help organize exhibitions. They also have their own active organization that meets frequently and sponsors a series of lectures by art historians from other colleges and universities.

Courses

Permanent Courses

Courses listed below are graduate-level courses that have been approved by the program’s faculty as well as the Curriculum Subcommittee of the Faculty Committee on the Graduate School as permanent course offerings. Permanent courses may be offered by the department or program on an ongoing basis, depending on curricular needs, scheduling requirements, and student interest. Not listed below are undergraduate courses and one-time-only graduate courses, which may be found for a specific term through the Registrar’s website. Also not listed are graduate-level independent reading and research courses, which may be approved by the Graduate School for individual students.

ARC 549 History and Theories of Architecture: 20th Century (also
ART 586
) An overview of the major themes running through modern architecture in the twentieth century. The seminar is based on a close reading of selected buildings and texts both by prominent and less prominent figures of the modern movement and its aftermath. Special emphasis is given to the historiography and the history of reception of modern architecture, as well as the cultural, aesthetic and scientific theories that have informed modern architectural debates, including organicism, vitalism, functionalism, structuralism, historicism and their opposites.
ARC 571 Research in Architecture (also
ART 581
/
MOD 573
) A research seminar in selected areas of aesthetics, art criticism, and architectural theory from the 18th to the 20th centuries on the notion of representation in art and architecture. This seminar is given to students in the doctoral program at the School of Architecture and to doctoral candidates in other departments.
ARC 572 Research in Architecture (also
ART 582
) A research seminar in selected areas of aesthetics, art criticism, and architectural theory from the 18th to the 20th centuries on the notion of representation in art and architecture. This seminar is given to students in the doctoral program at the School of Architecture and to doctoral candidates in other departments.
ARC 576 Advanced Topics in Modern Architecture (also
MOD 502
/
ART 598
) Explores the critical transformation in the relationship between interior and exterior space in modern architecture, which is most evident in domestic space. Domestic space ceases to be simply bounded space in opposition to the outside, whether physical or social. An analysis of modern houses is used as a frame to register contemporary displacements of the relationship between public and private space, instigated by the emerging reality of the technologies of communicaton, including newspaper, telephone, radio, film, and television.
ART 500 Proseminar in the History of Art Introduction to a broad range of art-historical methods from the modern founders of the discipline (e.g., Alois Riegl, Aby Waburg, Heinrich Wolfflin, and Erwin Panofsky) to contemporary theorists. Topics include Hegelian narratives; the notions of Kunstwollen, Pathosformel, and Symbolic Form; iconography; formalism; theories of the gaze; and social, feminist, and postcolonial art histories. The course is required for incoming students in the Western program. One three-hour seminar.
ART 501 Introduction to Historiography Selected topics in the literature of art and architecture in Europe and the Americas from antiquity to the present.
ART 502A The Graduate Seminar This course is intended to ensure a continuing breadth of exposure to contemporary art-historical discourse and practices. It requires attendance and participation in the department lecture/seminar series. Students must take the course sequentially in each of their first four semesters and take the appropriate letter version of the course (A,B,C,or D) based on their semester of study. The course is taken in addition to the normal load of three courses per semester and is for first- and second-year graduate students only. Topics discussed cover all fields of Art History and address current questions and practices.
ART 502B The Graduate Seminar This course is intended to ensure a continuing breadth of exposure to contemporary art-historical discourse and practices. It requires attendance and participation in the department lecture/seminar series. Students must take the course sequentially in each of their first four semesters and take the appropriate letter version of the course (A,B,C,or D) based on their semester of study. The course is taken in addition to the normal load of three courses per semester and is for first- and second-year graduate students only. Topics discussed cover all fields of Art History and address current questions and practices.
ART 502C The Graduate Seminar This course is intended to ensure a continuing breadth of exposure to contemporary art-historical discourse and practices. It requires attendance and participation in the department lecture/seminar series. Students must take the course sequentially in each of their first four semesters and take the appropriate letter version of the course (A,B,C, or D) based on their semester of study. The course is taken in addition to the normal load of three courses per semester and is for first- and second-year graduate students only. Topics discussed cover all fields of Art History and address current questions and practices.
ART 513 Seminar in Roman Art (also
CLA 518
) The seminar pursues research on a varying set of topics (differing every year) on ancient Roman art and architecture.
ART 518 Greek Sculpture, Roman Copies Seminar on the long-standing problems concerning the tradition of Greek sculpture, most of which survives in later Roman copies. Emphasis on stylistic comparison of the surviving copies (Kopienkritik); critical engagement with the ancient written sources that attest the most famous works (Opera Nobilia); the historiographic and critical tradition in modern scholarship devoted to these works; and, in particular, those works in the PAM and the MMA that may serve as prime examples of the phenomenon.
ART 519 The Orientalizing Phenomenon in Greek Art and Archaeology (also
CLA 523
/
HLS 519
) A study of the origins, nature, and impact of Greek contact with the Near East in the Iron Age. Course examines chronology; regional variation and distribution; technology and innovation; differences across media; modes of communication and exchange; patterns of consumption and display; and the social function of the "exotic." Analyzed with a view to changes and developments in settlement and society, particularly migration, colonization, social stratification, and the rise of the polis.
ART 520 The Divine Image in Ancient Greece (also
HLS 520
/
REL 593
) A study of the representations of gods and goddesses in ancient Greece and the reception and functions (religious, cultural, political) of their images, from the Archaic through the Hellenistic periods. The seminar will focus in particular on cult statues. Topics include: the relationship between cult and votive statues; the use of attributes; the "frame" for the divine image; rituals involving statues; anthropomorphism; the gods on vases (the image within the image); deified Hellenistic rulers; Roman copies of cult statues; and aniconic art. Each seminar session structured around one cult statue.
ART 522 Architectural Sculpture and Sacred Space in Greece (also
HLS 523
) Recent studies have examined Greek architectural sculpture through the lens of socio-political relations. This course will evaluate how and when (if ever) the sculpture assumes such an allegorical character. It will seek in particular to discover an approach that can integrate architectural sculpture more coherently into the materiality of sacred space. The seminar will address the issues of space and landscape; religious ritual; votive dedications; temple decoration and ornamentation; and agency. It will then turn to several case studies from the late Archaic and Classical periods.
ART 523 Classical Greek Sculpture and Painting Selected problems in Greek art from 480 to 300 B.C.
ART 526 Problems in Greek Art (also
HLS 526
) This seminar will deal with mythological imagery of archaic and classical Greece in the frame of social and political history. The principle aim is to understand the vital interest Greek societies had in general in their myths, and especially in images of myths destined to be 'used' in specific social situations: mainly on vases for the symposium but also in monumental architecture in sanctuaries and other public areas. The images of myth will be interpreted as significant testimonia of social values and practice, collective mentality, political, religious and cultural identity.
ART 527 Topography and Monuments of Athens A study of the city's growth from its prehistoric beginnings to the Roman period. Some of the questions considered are the relation of documentary to excavational evidence in topography, restoration, and relative chronology of specific buildings.
ART 528 Memories of the Ancient Past The cultures of ancient Egypt and the ancient Middle East have been essential touchstones for Western and Middle Eastern cultures, as sources of identity, inspiration, competition, or the exotic other. This seminar considers how cultures throughout western history have looked at ancient Egypt and the Middle East, centering the roles of memory and materiality. Students develop independent research projects on this theme considering any time period, up to and including current events.
ART 529 Ancient Egyptian Kingship in Image, Architecture & Performance (also
CLA 528
/
AAS 529
) The institution of kingship was central to the ancient Egyptian worldview. Kings and their administrations sought to express the complex nature of a strong leader with access to the gods and secret knowledge, exceptional skill as a warrior and diplomat, and unrivaled power over and sacrifice to his people by using both mystery and overwhelming display. In this seminar we consider the nature of Egyptian kingship and how a vast body of material and visual culture shaped and expressed this essential concept from its origins in the beginning of the 4th millennium to the era of Roman rulers.
ART 535 Problems in Late Antique and Byzantine Art and Architecture (also
HLS 535
) Problems in art and architecture of the Eastern Roman Empire and culturally related areas from 300 to 1453.
ART 537 Seminar in Medieval Art (also
MED 500
) Intensive seminar on selective topics in Medieval art and theory from 400 to 1400.
ART 541 Seminar in Renaissance Art The seminar examines in detail selected thematic topics in Italian painting and sculpture.
ART 542 Art and Society in Renaissance Italy Seminar on selected topics in Italian art from 1300 to 1600, with special emphasis given to its social, religious, and cultural context. Problems of method in dealing with the contextual study of works of art are considered.
ART 543 Replication and Movement in the Renaissance Examination of the ideas of time and temporality in the Renaissance image, via the lens of two early modern obsessions and their history: the representation of movement and the idea of the copy. Focus will be on artists and works from the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy. Topics include: procession, print technology, replicas, pilgrimage, archaeology, the workshop, and more. Course includes at least one trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
ART 544 Seminar in Northern Renaissance Topics in Netherlandish, German, or French art ca. 1350-1550. Emphasis on close analysis of works--painting, sculpture, graphic arts--and comparative dimensions of interpretation.
ART 545 The Geography of Art Art has a place as well as a time. This course examines the geography of art, primarily in the early modern era. Examples are chosen from Europe and the Americas. A theoretical, historiographic, and historical investigation of issues, including ethnic and national identity, metropoles, regionalism, provincialism, peripheries, and artistic interchange, is explored.
ART 547 Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Architecture (also
ARC 552
) Advanced research in the history of architecture from 1400 to 1750. Topics vary, with the focus each year placed on important European centers and architects and on issues related to architectural theory and practice.
ART 548 The Color of White: Sculpture, Materiality and Illusionism This seminar examines the illusionistic effects that Baroque sculptors of marble, bronze and clay employed to rival the deceptiveness of painting. By studying sculptural ensembles by Bernini and his contemporaries in contrast to the works of earlier sculptors like Michelangelo and against paintings in the tradition of Titian, we explore the value and limits of painterly models for making and viewing sculpture. Our investigation also considers the limits of comparisons to painting and studies the strategies sculptors adopted to undermine illusionism and to assert an autonomous sculptural paradigm.
ART 552 Northern Baroque Art Topics in the art and culture of the Netherlands or France ca. 1580 to 1750.
ART 553 Seminar in Central European Art (also
GER 553
) Topics in the art and culture of the central European region from 1500 to 1800.
ART 560 Art and the British Empire (also
AAS 560
) This seminar proceeds through a series of thematic and case studies ranging from Britain's early colonial expansion to the legacies of empire in contemporary art and museum practice. Topics include science and ethnography; the colonial picturesque; curiosity and collecting; slavery and visual representation; art and nationalism and readings are drawn from a range of disciplines.
ART 562 Seminar in American Art Study of a particular artist, subject, medium, or movement in American art, primarily in the 19th century and ordinarily organized around significant holdings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Possible topics include landscape and still-life painting, Homer and Eakins, and American drawings and watercolors.
ART 563 Art in Translation: From East to West and Back This seminar focuses on the translatability of cultural artifacts that resulted from Western trade and Western colonialism in Asia during the modern age. Main topics include the constitution of portable objects as art; the role of Museums in nation-building and the self-imagination of empires; the "discovery" of ancient monuments in colonized territories and the restoration practices that made them accessible - at a price - to colonizers; the repression implied by the very notion of translation and the cultural forces of resistance to which it gave rise in colonized areas.
ART 564 19th-Century Art Seminar will focus on a specific aspect of art, history, theory, and criticism in Europe between 1789 and 1913. Possible topics include art and revolution, nationalism and the arts, orientalism and primitivism, and theories of modernism.
ART 565 Seminar in Modernist Art and Theory (also
MOD 565
) The seminar focuses on the study of a particular problem in modernism. Possible topics include the advent of modernist abstraction, the different uses of advant-garde devices of collage and photomontage, the readymade and the construction, art and technology, art and the unconscious, art and political revolution, and antimodernism.
ART 566 Seminar in Contemporary Art and Theory The seminar focuses on the study of a particular problem in contemporary art and theory. Possible topics include the definition of postwar painting, the rise of neo-avant-gardes in the 1950s, the expanded field of art in the 1960s, the advent of new mediums (e.g., performance and video) in the 1970s, and the question of postmodernism in the 1980s.
ART 567 Seminar in History of Photography (also
MOD 567
) The seminar is concerned with the work of a single European or American photographer or with a significant movement in the 20th century.
ART 568 Insurgent Modernities: The Architecture of Western Colonialism in Asia (1800-1949) This seminar explores the architecture, urbanism, and restoration practices of European powers in Asia. Our goal is to understand the complex forms of cultural production that resulted from the unequal encounter with imperialism, the role played by architecture and the circulation of art objects in the Western construction of Asia, and conversely, the emerging cultures of resistance that were themselves highly diversified and transnational.
ART 571 Seminar in Special Problems in Chinese Painting Problems offered include studies of single periods, sites, or phases of painting. This course is adjusted to the needs of the students.
ART 573 Topics in Early Chinese Art and Archaeology Focusing on a few specific problems in Chinese Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeology, the course explores a variety of approaches to the interpretation of archaeological finds. Topics vary from year to year.
ART 574 Seminar in Japanese Art and Archaeology Museum seminar in the Japanese field, including problems in the connoisseurship of paintings, calligraphies, sculptures, and other categories of art objects.
ART 580 Islam and Modern Art The course is dedicated to encounters between 'Islamic Art' and culture on one hand and Western modernity on the other. It reconstructs the historical and theoretical framework of this encounter and studies the following artistic realms: calligraphy and ornament (graffiti -pentagonal tiling and the motif 'woman in ornament'); architecture and contemporary museum presentation of 'Islamic Art', modern painting and Islamic culture (Klee, Matisse); contemporary artists with Iranian or Arabic background; and photography and film (women photographers from Iran and the Arab world and Iranian filmmakers).
ART 587 French Architecture: Visual Culture in 1920's Paris Object, Building, Body: Visual Culture in 1920s Paris -This seminar will explore a particular moment in the French visual arts, when architects, painters, photographers and film-makers articulated new and often conflicting concepts of the object, architecture, and the body. It will range from Le Corbusier and Ozenfant to Léger and Man Ray, the machine aesthetic, the Ballets Russes, and the avant-garde appropriation of film. How did these artists respond - or not - to sweeping social and political changes, such as transformations in gender roles, the colonization of Algeria, and the emergence of negritude?
ART 589 Seminar in 19th-Century Photography Just as there was initially no one process that was identified as what we call "photography" today, there was no one moment of "invention" or clear idea of what making pictures with light might accomplish. At a time when it has become fashionable to speak of the "death of photography," this seminar returns to the earliest experiments with light, silver salts, and cameras between 1789 and 1848 in order to reconsider what photography was, why it embodied the ideals of "modernity," and how it can be located within practices ranging from drawing, printmaking, magic, optical amusements, art, natural philosophy, and industrial production.
ART 590 Mask and Theory Seminar This course focuses on approaches to the study of African masks as social, artistic, metaphysical phenomena in order to account for the ritual, symbolic and political power, as well as social functions associated with masking. We shall hold theories of masking offered by anthropology, psychology, sociology and art history, performance theory and philosophy in dynamic tension with ritual systems and religious beliefs that authorized production and performance of masquerades in African societies.
ART 591 French Theories of Space, 1920s-1970s (also
ARC 592
/
FRE 591
) Drawing heavily on the work of Henri Lefebvre, this seminar focuses on French architects, thinkers, and groups who engaged with representations of space and challenged the institution of architecture. Whether they framed their views in terms of utopia, dystopia, interpellated geographies of empire or the colonization of everyday life, Le Corbusier, Bataille, Debord, Foucault, Perec, and others spearheaded a revolution in our ways of conceptualizing space.
CEE 538 Holistic Analysis of Heritage Structures (also
ART 538
) Heritage structures represent an important cultural legacy. First, this course identifies particularities relative to structural analysis of heritage structures; it correlates the space and time (where and when the structure was built, used, upgraded, damaged, repaired), with construction materials, techniques, and contemporary architectural forms. Second, the course presents the methods of structural analysis that take into account the identified particularities, that are efficient in finding solutions, and that are simple and intuitive in terms of application and interpretation.
CLA 548 Problems in Ancient History (also
HLS 548
/
PAW 548
/
ART 532
) Study of a topic involving both ancient Greece and ancient Rome, such as imperialism or slavery, from a comparative perspective.
COM 515 Word and Image (also
ART 515
) A seminar in cross-disciplinary and cross-chronological approaches. After considering methodological issues in studying relations between words and images and between antiquity and Renaissance, the course turns to its principal subject, the artistic presentation of multiple and diverse stories within single frameworks, whether visual (e.g., Pompeiian decoration, Isabella d'Este's studio) or literary (e.g., Ovid's Metamorphoses, Shakespeare's multiple plots). The class will ask how this matter of narrative, especially plural narrative, reflects on relations across media, disciplinary practices and periods of history.
COM 581 Topics in Non-Western and General Literature (also
EAS 589
/
ART 572
) By examining one or more literatures of the Near East or East Asia, and by referring to Western examples as well, the course raises literary issues that cannot be aired through the study of Western literature alone. Emphasis in any given year falls on Arabic, Persian, Chinese, or Japanese literature viewed in a comparative context.
EAS 514 Special Topics in Chinese History (also
ART 570
) Selected problems on the historiography of the early, medieval, or late empires with a focus on literati thought, religion, or literature in historical context. Working knowledge of classical Chinese strongly recommended.