Examination of historical method in art, design, and/or architecture, focusing on periods and problems determined by the research interest of the faculty member leading the seminar. Emphasizes critical reading and viewing and direct tutorial guidance.
Additional work required of students taking the graduate version.
This seminar examines episodes in the history of art and design from the perspective of the materials used in their production. Engaging a variety of organic and modern substances and examining selected case studies of their manipulation across diverse geographies from the ancient world to the mid twentieth century, the class asks how materials have historically conditioned the conception and meanings of artworks and how a focus on matter can bring into view the environmental impacts and the human costs of design. What meanings, for example, did metals or minerals mined from the earth or imported from distant parts of the world hold for early modern viewers? How can the study of furniture inlaid with ivory from Southeast Asia or made from mahogany sourced in the eighteenth-century Caribbean expose the blind spots attending the global systems of labor and transportation that moved such materials? Conversely, how might the uses of wood veneer reveal historical ideologies and/or period imaginaries of nature, time, and a nascent ecological awareness? What can the material attractions of porcelain, of plate glass, and plastics reveal about cultural and political imaginaries in Asia, in Europe and beyond? And what does clay have to do with the styling and planned obsolescence for which the twentieth-century American automobile industry was renowned?
Prerequisites
Permission of Instructor
Restricted Elective
4.609: BSA, Architecture Minor
Can Be Repeated for Credit
No
