Hello First-Years!
Please take a look at the information down below for a new art history course that will be open to First-Year students this fall term! ~ AHIS BC2525 (Modern Japanese Art)
This course can fulfill any general education requirements! You can also find the course listing available in Vergil here!
Best,
The First-Year Team
Modern Japanese Art
AHIS BC2525
M/W 5:40-6:55PM
Location at Barnard to be announced
Professor Maggie Mustard
Course Description: This class is an introduction to the history of Japanese art from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. In this chronological study we will encounter a range of art forms—from woodblock prints, painting, photography, sculpture, performance, and new media—and we will consider how Japanese artists responded to major societal, political, and economic changes over the last two centuries, including industrialization and modernization, major natural disasters, war, questions of cultural/national identity, and debates centering on what “tradition” meant to artistic practice in the modern and contemporary eras. Using visual analysis as our core skillset, this course will also rely on readings from secondary scholarship, as well as those by Japanese artists and art critics from each time period to help us better understand the historical contexts surrounding each artist, artwork, or art movement.
Learning Objectives: In this course, students will learn how to critically engage with images and objects from the history of modern Japanese art through the skill of visual analysis. Students should come away from the course with a solid knowledge of the canonical periods in the history of modern Japanese art, and be able to confidently identify 5-10 individual artworks and comprehend the historical, political, art historical, and/or social context of the artwork that contributes to its significance in the canon. Most importantly, students should feel empowered by the above accumulated skills and knowledge to seek out additional histories and forms of creative practice that come from outside the classical Western art history narrative.
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