Art History with Tom Quinn

Six Mondays, February 2-March 9, 1-3 p.m.

Cost: $168

This class will be offered on Zoom and in person

Every enthusiastic 21st-century artist benefits from a knowledge of the art that came before. We look at slides of the greatest Western art, from prehistory to the mid-twentieth century, with lively discussions of the relevance of the art of the past to that of the present—and the future.

Week 1. We begin by addressing certain questions, like: What is art history? Does it pass aimlessly, or will it converge on a goal? What is the purpose of studying art history? Why do we concentrate on Western art? Why are most of the artists men? In what ways do the motivations to create art change from one culture and period to another — and in what ways do they remain constant?We see slides of the cave paintings of France and Spain. Early sculptures and reliefs, architecture and pottery from Sumeria, Assyria, and Persia. The great pyramids and the Sphinx. Ancient Egyptian painting and sculpture. Archaic vase painting and sculpture, Greek temple architecture, Classical and Hellenistic sculpture. Roman architecture, sculpture, and fresco painting. Byzantine architecture, sculpture, and mosaics. Romanesque and Gothic churches, Gothic sculpture, and Medieval manuscript illuminations

Week 2. The early Renaissance art of the Trecento, the great Renaissance painters and sculptors like Masaccio, Botticelli, Mantegna, and Piero della Francesca

Week 3. The High Renaissance artists Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian, and Raphael. Mannerism from Bronzino, Pontormo, Parmigianino, etc. The great Renaissance artists of Northern Europe: Van Eyck, Bosch, Dürer, Cranach, Holbein, etc.

Week 4. The great Spanish painters El Greco and Velázquez, the Roman artists Bernini, Caravaggio, and Poussin. Dutch painting from Rembrandt, Hals, and Vermeer. Eighteenth-century English painting from Hogarth, Gainsborough, Constable, and Turner. The neoclassicism of David and Ingres

Week 5. First great American artists. Nineteenth-century French painting from Delacroix, Courbety, and Corot. The great impressionists Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cassatt, Whistler. Post-impressionism from Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne

Week 6. American regionalists, abstract expressionism, pop art, and contemporary art