Art History Course Listings

Courses Offered Spring 2025

• AH 110 - Western Art: Paleolithic to Gothic (fulfills fine arts core requirement)
• AH 111 - Western Art: Renaissance to Contemporary (fulfills fine arts core requirement)
• AH 188 - Medical Humanities: Visual Arts and Health Science
• AH 319 - History of Photography
• AH 350 - Visual Thinking
• AH 360 - Special Topics in Art History: Parthenon to Pantheon

Course Descriptions

AH 109 - Non-Western Art

(3.00 cr.)
A survey of the history of art addressing one or more artistic traditions beyond Europe. Topic varies by instructor. Fulfills fine arts core requirement.

Sessions Typically Offered: Varies
Years Typically Offered: Varies

AH 110 - Western Art: Paleolithic to Gothic

(3.00 cr.)
A broad overview of the art of the West from the Paleolithic age to the Gothic era, focusing on Egyptian, Greek, Roman, early Christian, and Medieval art and architecture. Fulfills fine arts core requirement. Same course as CL 241.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually
Interdisciplinary Studies: CU/ICL

AH 111 - Western Art: Renaissance to Contemporary

(3.00 cr.)
A survey of major Western artworks, artists, and artistic styles from the Renaissance to the present. Fulfills fine arts core requirement.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually

AH 188 - Medical Humanities: Visual Arts and Health Science

(3.00 cr.)
Explores the compelling dialogue between art and health science with a series of historical case studies and projects. Through this exploration, students discover ways to sharpen observational skills, nurture empathetic understanding, develop creative problem-solving skills, and link self-expression to research. Participants also practice reflecting critically upon methods of gaining knowledge, the limits of those methods, and ways that different domains of knowledge are valued in society. Fulfills the natural science core requirement. Does not fulfill major requirements for biology, biohealth, or biochemistry. Same course as BL 188.

Interdisciplinary Studies: IHE

AH 307 - Discovering Difference: Art in the Age of Encounter

(3.00 cr.)
The centuries following Columbus's "discovery" of the New World in 1492 were marked by an unprecedented degree of interchange between formerly unconnected cultures. In Europe, Asia, and the Americas this contact had wide-ranging effects in terms of politics, economics, religion, culture, and art. Using art and visual culture as points of entry, this course examines the historical, cultural, and aesthetic implications of this interchange. Fulfills art history non-Western requirement.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Varies
Interdisciplinary Studies: CU/ICL

AH 308 - Art of Ancient Greece

(3.00 cr.)
A survey of Greek art and architecture from the Bronze Age to the Hellenistic Era. Among the topics considered are Mycenaean tombs and palaces, the development of temple architecture, and the ways in which polytheistic religion shaped life in ancient Greece. Same course as CL 308.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Varies

AH 310 - Church and Empire: Early Medieval Art, c. 250-1050

(3.00 cr.)
An exploration of European art beginning with the earliest emergence of Christian art in the mid-third century through the flowering of magnificent church architecture in the twelfth century. Brilliant mosaics; sculpture in stone, ivory, and bronze; glittering reliquaries holding saints’ bones; monasteries; and illuminated manuscripts are among the types of artworks examined. Students investigate how Christianity and the growing influence of Germanic ethnic groups transformed the artistic heritage of the Roman Empire during this period, and how pilgrimage, aesthetic theories of beauty, the fear of idolatry, assertions of sacred and secular power, and other contextual factors shaped artworks. This course meets in the Manuscript Room and Medieval Department at The Walters Art Museum several times during the semester.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Varies
Interdisciplinary Studies: IC/IGE/IM

AH 312 - The Renaissance in Italy

(3.00 cr.)
Investigates art's reflection of the rise of humanism, the rebirth of interest in antiquity, and a new concentration on the earthly world in thirteenth- to sixteenth-century Italy. Studies art and patronage in Republican Florence, Papal Rome, and the ducal courts of Northern Italy, from the time of Giotto to the High Renaissance of Leonardo and Michelangelo, and on to Mannerism and the Counter-Reformation.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Varies
Interdisciplinary Studies: IC/II/IM

AH 313 - Renaissance Art in Northern Europe

(3.00 cr.)
A study of the developing humanism of the fifteenth century in Flanders where the manuscript tradition of painting developed into the naturalistic and symbolic painting of the late Gothic period, as well as the increasing influence of Italian art on Northern Europe in the sixteenth century.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Varies
Interdisciplinary Studies: IC/IGE/IM

AH 315 - African-American Art: Race and Racism in the American Imagination

(3.00 cr.)
Surveys the work of African American artists from the colonial period through the present. The artworks studied illuminate how race and racism have shaped the lives of African Americans and demonstrate the centrality of African American experiences in American history.

Sessions Typically Offered: Varies
Years Typically Offered: Varies
Interdisciplinary Studies: CU/IAF/ICL/IPJ/IU

AH 316 - Realism and Impressionism

(3.00 cr.)
Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, artists such as Courbet, Manet, and Monet struggled to free themselves from older art forms in an effort to become "modern," to capture the life and spirit of their own times. Investigates the artistic transformation that occurred in an era of rapid social change as artists struggled with new avenues for marketing their works (through dealers and galleries), mined new urban spaces and newly created suburbs, and combed the diminishing countryside for their images.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Odd Years
Interdisciplinary Studies: IG

AH 319 - History of Photography

(3.00 cr.)
An examination of the major technical and aesthetic movements in the history of photography since its invention. Covers the works of major artists working in this medium as well as the major styles. Students in this class will not be expected to produce photographs. Same course as PT 319.

Sessions Typically Offered: Spring
Years Typically Offered: Odd Years

AH 322 - Michelangelo

(3.00 cr.)
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) was arguably the most important artistic figure of the sixteenth century. Active as a painter, sculptor, architect, draftsman, and poet, Michelangelo greatly influenced the development of art in Italy (and Europe) both during and after his life. Works such as David and the Sistine Chapel ceiling are examined in the context of the political, religious, artistic, and philosophical concerns of the time. Michelangelo's art also is examined in relation to that of his predecessors, contemporaries, and followers, so that students may come to understand not only his art but his impact on the art of the Renaissance and, more broadly, on Western European art.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Varies
Interdisciplinary Studies: II

AH 325 - Gothic Art and Architecture

(3.00 cr.)
Beginning around Paris in the mid-twelfth century, this course investigates the emergence and development of Gothic-a style of art and architecture that dominated Western Europe for centuries and offered new ways of envisioning the world and the divine. Gothic is studied in its social contexts across a range of media, from towering churches to manuscripts in local collections.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Varies
Interdisciplinary Studies: IC/IGE/IM

AH 326 - The Crusades in Medieval Visual Culture

(3.00 cr.)
Explores the crusades as a catalyst for artistic encounter between western European, Byzantine, and Islamicate cultures in the Holy Land and the Mediterranean from the eleventh through the fourteenth centuries. The investigation of the richly varied art and architecture of this period-which includes intricately carved ivory boxes, scintillating mosaics, and imposing castles-provides critical insights into the complex historical processes of cultural conflict and convergence. Fulfills art history non-Western requirement.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Varies
Interdisciplinary Studies: CU/GT/IC/ICL/IM

AH 327- Islamic Art

(3.00 cr.)
A survey of the rich and diverse artistic heritage from the seventh century to the present. A wide range of media is covered, including architecture, calligraphy, ceramics, textiles, and manuscript illumination. Religious and secular art is examined within its historical context in Spain, North Africa, the Middle East, and central and south Asia. Fulfills art history non-Western requirement. Closed to students who have taken AH 204.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Varies
Interdisciplinary Studies: CU/GT/IA/ICL/IM

AH 345 - Sight and Insight: Topics in Aesthetics and Art History

(3.00 cr.)
Studying works of art inevitably brings up philosophical questions about the nature of art and the status of aesthetic judgments. Is art just about emotion and not reason? Is art basically subjective? Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? Conversely, the philosophy of art must grapple with the acute particularity of artworks, and efforts to probe art in the realm of ideas are inescapably freighted by the objects themselves and the history of art. How is form related to meaning? What is modernism? What is the future of art? In short, art history and philosophy of art need each other, and students need both to fully pursue fundamental questions about the role of art in human life. This course brings abstract theorizing together with contextualized case studies, allowing students to develop nuanced perspectives on our modes of thinking about art and our cultural practices of making, exchanging, and experiencing artworks. Same course as PL 345.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall
Years Typically Offered: Varies

AH 350 - Visual Thinking

(3.00 cr.)
Focuses on methods of interdisciplinary study essential to scholar and artist. This course combines elements of studio art, photography, and art history in a hybrid, seminar/ studio format investigating the history, theory, and material practices of the visual arts. The course offers a versatile, topics-based curriculum bringing the techniques of the artist and the labor of the scholar together in one class. Interpreting research as a creative activity crossing the boundaries of academic disciplines, the principal learning aim is the cultivation of a scholar-artist capable of innovative and rigorous investigation of the history of art and the individual creative processes. Combining experiences of art making and research in the theoretical and historical context of visual art, assignments offer students a choice of responses involving text and image. Same course as PT 350, SA 350.

Prerequisite: AH 109 or AH 110 or AH 111 or PT 270 or SA 224 or SA 227.
Restrictions: Restricted to visual arts majors and art history, interArts, photography, and studio arts minors.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall
Years Typically Offered: Annually

AH 353 - Posters! A History of Art and Persuasion

(3.00 cr.)
Introduces students to the cultural and visual history of posters. Drawing on Baltimore's rich poster resources, students examine the poster as a key participant in both modern life and modern art. Beginning with the prehistory of the poster in the Reformation broadsheet and moving on to the posters of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, students investigate how the poster and its visual language has participated in and shaped art, history, politics, culture, and commerce. Same course as CM 348.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall
Years Typically Offered: Odd Years

AH 360 - Special Topics in Art History

(3.00 cr.)
Utilizes a lecture format to investigate a culture, issue, or period in the history of art. May be repeated for credit with different topics. Depending on topic can fulfill art history non-Western requirement. 

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Years Typically Offered: Varies

AH 401 - Intensive Independent Study

(3.00 cr.)
Intensive, one-on-one investigation of a special topic, artist, limited span of time, or a particular artistic "problem" in the history of art. May be repeated twice for credit with different topics. Depending on topic can fulfill art history non-Western requirement.

Prerequisite: Written or electronic permission of the instructor.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Years Typically Offered: Varies

AH 402 - Special Topics in Art History

(3.00 cr.)
An intensive investigation of a special topic, artist, limited span of time, or a particular artistic "problem" in the history of art. Combines a lecture and seminar format. May be repeated for credit with different topics.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Varies

AH 403 - Internship: Art History

(3.00 cr.)
Students interested in an internship in the history of art or museum studies should contact the instructor. May be repeated for nondegree credit.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually

AH 405 - Prints and Printmaking: A History of Printmaking in the West

(3.00 cr.)
Examines the history of European and American prints from the early fifteenth century up to the present day. Prints are viewed in their historical, artistic, material, and cultural contexts, and numerous meetings are held in the print room of the Baltimore Museum of Art. The course uses critical theory and features practical demonstrations of printmaking techniques. Students are responsible for transportation. Written or electronic permission of the instructor required.

Sessions Typically Offered: Spring
Years Typically Offered: Varies

AH 406 - Museum Studies: History, Politics, and Practices

(3.00 cr.)
Offers a critical introduction to museums, one of the most influential types of cultural institutions. Far more than repositories of objects, museums today are vital crucibles of discussion and debate about public values, memory, and identity. Participants survey the historical development of museums from the Renaissance to the present and consider challenges that currently confront museums. Written or electronic permission of the instructor required.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall
Years Typically Offered: Varies

AH 407 - Albrecht Dürer

(3.00 cr.)
Best known as a maker of innovative engravings and woodcuts, the German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) was also a painter and artistic theorist who, in his work and writings, brought together Northern European and Italian elements. He revolutionized the print medium, influenced artists throughout Europe, and was influenced by the Protestant Reformation.  This course holds approximately half of its meetings in the print room of the Baltimore Museum of Art. Students are responsible for transportation. Written or electronic permission of the instructor required.

Sessions Typically Offered: Spring
Years Typically Offered: Varies
Interdisciplinary Studies: IGE

Questions about Art History Program courses? Contact us.