This course surveys the history of Western Art from the Greek world to the present day, using the question of beauty as a unifying theme. The first class each week will introduce the art or architecture of the period; the second will use readings from period sources to understand how beauty was perceived and defined in that period. The course will have a particular emphasis on theories of beauty that recur in successive historical periods: beauty and mathematics, beauty and function, beauty and color, beauty and mimesis, beauty and effect.
Foundations Program
This course fulfills the Foundations Program requirement in Fine Art. It also serves as a gateway to the Fortin and Gonthier Core Texts and Enduring Questions Program and/or to a minor in Art History.