ARTH 245
Visual Arts and Natural History Spring 2017
Division I
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

Scientists and artists of the early modern period were faced with a natural world in expansion, which they endeavored to describe in detail. While scientific publication projects challenged existing ideas about classification, visual expertise, and collecting and display, new fields of study, such as ornithology, were forming into distinct scientific disciplines. From the emergence of cabinets of curiosity in the Renaissance to the creation of museums of natural history at the end of the Enlightenment, this course will examine the relation between visual arts and natural history in the early modern world. Topics such as women artists and collectors, the representation of life versus death, geographic exploration, teratology, taxonomy, imperialism, and fetishism will be studied. Students are expected to engage critically with the literature on the history of art and of natural history, to study thoroughly a set of primary sources, and to think creatively about questions of epistemology by observing the natural world around them.
The Class: Format: lecture
Limit: 30
Expected: 20
Class#: 3983
Grading: yes pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: three field assignments (e.g., herbal, snowflake observation), three response papers, 6- to 8-page research paper, midterm exam, final exam
Prerequisites: none
Distributions: 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)