ASST 342
Monuments and Miniatures: Architecture and Painting in India Spring 2020
Division I Writing Skills
Cross-listed ARTH 342
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

This tutorial is designed to provide an in-depth comparative study of two of the most important cultural expressions in the history of the Indian Subcontinent: Architecture and Painting. From sprawling pleasure gardens and palaces to iconic tomb complexes and temples, the built environment has served various cultural, religious and communal functions in India. Intimate in scale, and made primarily for an elite audience, miniature painting has also performed a key role in preserving and transmitting cultural values over time and space. Despite obvious differences in scale and scope, architectural monuments and miniature paintings produced for manuscripts and albums reflect similar creative impulses. They are also often linked through their relationship to text, and can be interpreted through contemporaneous literature. In the tutorial, students will be asked to make careful analyses of the iconography, symbolism and historical frameworks of monumental architecture and miniature painting in India. Original literature in translation and recent scholarly essays will help provide the framework for considering the artworks from the perspective of their patrons, creators and audiences. We will also consider the shifting roles and meanings of these artworks through the ages. For example, what was the original symbolism of the Taj Mahal, and how has it become a highly contested, political space in contemporary India? How did grand picture albums from the seventeenth century, made for some of the most powerful emperors in global history, function as tools for political self-fashioning? And what do their modern reception as part of Western museum collections tell us about the transformation of India during the British colonial period?
The Class: Format: tutorial
Limit: 10
Expected: 6
Class#: 3320
Grading: no pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: bi-weekly writing assignments 5-7 pages in length, short peer response papers, field trips to local museums
Prerequisites: none, open to all students
Distributions: Division I Writing Skills
Notes: This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
ARTH 342 Division I ASST 342 Division I
WS Notes: Bi-weekly 5-7 pages long papers. Students will receive from the instructor timely comments on their writing skills, with suggestions for improvement.
Attributes: ARTH pre-1800

Class Grid

Course Catalog Archive Search

TERM/YEAR
TEACHING MODE
SUBJECT
DIVISION



DISTRIBUTION



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