ASST 268
Chinese Art and Culture: From Imperial Treasures to Contemporary Visions Fall 2016
Division I Exploring Diversity Initiative
Cross-listed ARTH 268
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

This course introduces to students some of the major artistic traditions and trends from the dawn of Chinese civilization to the present. Highlights include ancient bronze vessels commissioned by the royal house and the mysteries and scholarly debates surrounding their fantastic surface décor; how the teachings of different Buddhist schools and sects are visualized for the attainment of Nirvana; how nature or landscape painting was used as religious, moral, and political rhetoric; the relationship between words and images; the way in which Chinese artists represent space and the external world in contrast to the European approaches that use the one-point perspective technique in picture making; how China’s encounters with foreign cultures and their arts in different times in history have contributed to the development of Chinese culture and artistic trends, including 20th social realism made during Communist China’s Cultural Revolution; and how some contemporary Chinese artists show their defiance against tradition, using traditional Chinese visual imagery, while some try to achieve shock value in their art, forcing the viewer to confront the positive and negative influences of Western art theories on contemporary Chinese artworks. The course’s contextual approach helps students gain insight into the aesthetic, religious, and political ideas and cultural meanings conveyed by the works of art. It also provides students with the vocabulary, techniques, and patterns of thinking needed for advanced art history courses. This course fulfills the EDI initiative in that its historical, visual, and thematic analyses will bear upon not only the interconnectedness between Chinese culture and the distinctively different cultures of India, Korea, and Japan, but China’s respective interactions with other cultures in the Middle East and West.
The Class: Format: lecture/discussion
Limit: 35
Expected: 20
Class#: 1996
Grading: no pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: 3 quizzes; 3 short essay assignments, film screening, class attendence
Extra Info: may not be taken on a pass/fail basis; not available for the fifth course option
Prerequisites: none
Distributions: Division I Exploring Diversity Initiative
Notes: meets Division 1 requirement if registration is under ARTH; meets Division 2 requirement if registration is under ASST
This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
ARTH 268 Division I ASST 268 Division I

Class Grid

Course Catalog Archive Search

TERM/YEAR
TEACHING MODE
SUBJECT
DIVISION



DISTRIBUTION



ENROLLMENT LIMIT
COURSE TYPE
Start Time
End Time
Day(s)