A Crash Course in Art History Through Parisian Museums and Monuments

Catalog description

Using an additional sheet, if more convenient, please write a brief description of the course you propose. Describe the scope and analytical perspective of this course. What are the key issues and questions that you expect to explore? Please see the "Application to Teach Overseas" for additional information. Please attach your course description to this completed form. Paris has long been considered a world-renowned artistic and architectural capital. Visitors marvel at its Gallo-Roman baths, its Gothic cathedral, its Baroque churches, its Art Nouveau metro stations, not to mention its fabulous art collections of medieval altarpieces, Fauvist paintings, Cubist sculptures, and so much more. But how to tell the difference between all of those styles, and what do they mean? This course is designed for students wondering how to recognize and understand the significance of the major movements and styles that have influenced art and architecture in Paris. The course will be conducted entirely out of the classroom, in a selection of Paris's most emblematic monuments and museums. The course is designed to help students make the most of their time in Paris, by giving them the codes to decipher the hidden messages captured on canvas and in stone that they will observe in and out of the classroom in Paris. However, the image analysis methodology and codes of visual literacy will serve them beyond their semester in Paris as citizens of our hyper-image-focused society.