HAA 0620 Art of China

(usually offered once a year)

This course is designed as an introduction to the visual arts of China. It is hoped that the lecture, class discussions, reading and written work when taken together will provide a base with which you can begin to understand how the Chinese have viewed themselves and the world through time and how this has been expressed in the visual arts. The chronological principle is used as a framework to organize the course. Within each period the arts are analyzed visually and stylistic and iconographic change are examined in light of social and political context. The purpose in each section of the course is to learn, with increasing skill, to read the works and to interpret them in their historical context. Weeks one - four we will look at analysis in an archaeological context. Weeks five and six concentrate on the religious art of Taoism and Buddhism and their relationship to the state. The weeks seven - twelve focus on the art of painting and its importance to the court and to the individual. The last two weeks are designed to look at modern and contemporary China and the attitudes toward formerly elite forms of art vs. art of the common people.