FINE ARTS 110 HISTORY OF WESTERN ART I Fall 2008 Mary Prevo, Instructor Department of Fine Arts Office: 108 Winston, ext. 7057.   Office hours: TBA

Class Links Requirements Grading Schedule Quizzes/Exams Paper Attendance Honor Code Study Links for Quizzes and Exams General Links Paper Style Sheet Art History on the Web Museums Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

Course Description - A survey of the cultural heritage of the Mediterranean and Ancient Near East from Paleolithic times to the later Middle Ages.  Lectures focus on the historical outlines of the major periods and how they fit into the broader context of art history. We will also focus on developing your critical faculties -- the ability to apprehend and comprehend a work of art. How and why do you see what you see? How is what you see and understand the same or different from the vision and comprehension of the original audience? These are skills that are strengthened through exercise. Goals  To hone the student's skills of visual analysis To hone the student's ability to translate visual analysis into written prose To develop the student's understanding of the historical place of the objects studied and to understand their connections to one another and to the culture from which they emerge.  Text Kleiner, et al.  Gardner's Art through the Ages: The Western Perspective, most recent edition.  Available in College bookstore.   The bookstore carries volume one in paperback.  If you wish, you may purchase online or elsewhere the hardback edition that includes volumes one and two.  Volume two is the required textbook for History of Western Art II (FINA111).   Note: The text is also on reserve in the library. Requirements Preparation (readings as assigned in schedule), attendance, and  participation. Quizes, TBA, total 100 points. Mid-term exam, cumulative, 100 points. Final, comparisons and essays cumulative, 100 points. Paper, 5-7 pages on one work of art, 100 points. Note:  From time to time you will be required to attend lectures and events outside class that enhance or are related to class topics. Grading I do not grade on a curve. The grading scale is as follows:   100 - 94% A 84 - 87% B 74 - 77% C 64 - 67% D 93 - 90% A- 80 - 84 % B- 70 - 73.5% C- Below 63.5% F 89 - 87.5% B+ 79 - 77.5% C+ 69 - 67.5% D+

Schedule (subject to revision) - top of page This is a generic schedule - for specifics, see the class Blackboard site.

Week	Topic
1 Aug. 27	Introduction – Paleolithic and Neolithic – read the chapters in the text that correspond to week's topic
2 Sept. 1	South West Asia - Mesopotamia
3 Sept. 8	Egypt - Quiz 1 on Friday
4 Sept. 15	Bronze Age Aegean
5 Sept. 22	Pre-Classical Greece:  The 8th through the sixth centuries B.C.E.
6 Sept. 29	Classical Greece:  The fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. - Quiz 2 on Friday
7 Oct. 6	Hellenistic Greece and Etruscans in Italy
8 Oct. 13	Oct. 13: Review, Oct 15: Midterm, Oct. 17: Roman Republic
9 Oct. 20	Fall Break (Oct. 20 and 21) - Roman Empire
10 Oct. 27	Roman Empire - Paper topics selected
11 Nov. 3	Early Christian and Jewish Art - Quiz 3 on Friday
12 Nov. 10	Islamic Art; European Middle Ages: Carolingian
13 Nov. 17	Ottonian and Early Romanesque - Papers due on Friday at 5 p.m.
14 Nov. 24	European Middle Ages:  Romanesque - Quiz 4 on Monday;  THANKSGIVING
15 Dec. 1	European Middle Ages:  Gothic
16 Dec. 8	Last Class – Review; Final TBA

Attendance, Class Participation and Decorum

You are responsible for all material in the assigned reading, the images shown in class, and reproduced in the text. Class attendance is a requirement of the course. Please see the college catalogue for class attendance policies. More than three unexcused absences will result in a warning letter from the Dean of Students.  Repeated unexcused absences following the warning letter will result in being withdrawn from the class failing. Absences totaling 25% or more will result in an automatic F. If a student arrives after roll is taken, it is the student's responsibility to place his or her name on the class roll no later than the end of that class period. Failure to do so will result in an unexcused absence.  Excused absences are outlined in the college catalogue.  Please notify the instructor prior to the class you will miss for an excused absence.

Using class time effectively is as important as showing up. Think of classes as guided study sessions. The more effectively you use them, the better you will do, and the less time outside of class you will need to spend preparing for exams. Use classes to ask questions, review main themes, try out interpretations, and practice applying analytical terms to examples. Above all, take good notes. Force yourself to make a thumbnail sketch of each slide shown. Note the artist, title and medium of the work and a date. Remember the overall topic of the lecture and consider why each work is included.  If you learn better from audio materials, tape classes and edit them later, but you still need to sketch the images shown. Without a written or audio record, you have nothing to review. Without review, learning is inefficient at best.   

 Quizzes

Quizzes will include, but are not limited to, slide identifications and comparisons. A complete identification includes the maker and the maker's culture, title of the work, medium, and date produced.

Mid-term and Final Exams

Each exam will have three parts: Slide identifications; slide comparisons; and essays. The last two parts will be cumulative.

Exams and quizzes must be taken when scheduled. Make ups will be scheduled only by prior consent of the instructor, and only for compelling reasons (as determined by the instructor). If a student, without gaining prior consent, is unable to take an exam due to sudden illness or some other extraordinary event, the instructor must be notified immediately. If I cannot be reached directly or by phone, you may leave a message on my voice mail (ext. 7057). Unexplained absences from exams will result in a F.

Paper Requirements

The paper is to be a written description and analysis of a work of art of your choice, but approved by me. The work of art fall within the geographic and chronological limits of the course. The paper will include a discussion of the medium, scale, color, composition of the work.  I want you to articulate how these elements contribute to the success of the work. You will also include a description of how this work fits with the culture from which it comes and who or what influenced the artist as he or she made the work. 

Please use at least three sources, one of which may be the text book. The paper is designed for you to demonstrate that you can analyze a work of art visually and tie this analysis to research on that work of art. Meet with me about your topic as early as possible in the semester, but no later than Week 10 (Oct. 27). I require that the paper will be done specifically for this class and not crafted so as to be acceptable for other classes as well.

The paper must include a bibliography of all sources cited. Bibliography and footnote or endnote citations must conform to the proper style for the liberal arts.

Click here for Art History Paper Style Sheet (including bibliography and footnote styles)

The type of material that must be documented (i.e. footnoted) includes: controversial or distinctive arguments and opinions, facts that are not a matter of broad general knowledge, statistics other than those your tabulate yourself, all quotes, and paraphrases or summaries of an author's argument. All direct quotes over two lines in length must be indented and single-spaced.

It is imperative that you document source material, but the argument or thesis of your paper must be in your own words: excessive use of quotes or lengthy paraphrasing of sources will not be accepted, and can lead to plagiarism.

To preserve my sanity, PROOF READ YOUR PAPER AT LEAST ONCE BEFORE YOU HAND IT TO ME. That means read it out loud to see if it is in English. Would you want your mom to read it aloud to your dad, your aunt to your uncle, your high school English teacher to your college English prof? I will read drafts of papers. Anything put under my office door will be read and returned by the next class period if at all possible. Submitting drafts is not a substitute for submitting the finished paper.

Honor Code and Plagiarism

The college honor code will be enforced. Plagiarism is the intentional use of another's words or argument without proper credit. This includes copying passages from a source without both attribution and quotation. If you have reproduced the language of your source without quotes and footnote, you have committed plagiarism whether or not you have cited the source and the page number. This includes passages that a student may have modified: for example, changed verb tenses, omission or replacement of occasional words, reshuffling of phrases, sentences or paragraphs, combining of different sources. Writing a bad paper in you own words is far better than submitting a good one using another’s words.  One way to avoid inadvertent plagiarism is to close all your books when writing, and consult them only for specific facts or direct quotes. Also proofread your paper with plagiarism in mind.

Extra Credit

Extra-credit assignments may be arranged with the instructor. These assignments must be approved in advance by the instructor. They are worth a maximum of 10 points. No extra-credit assignment will be accepted as a substitute for a class requirement. The assignment is either an analytical book review, 3-5 pages in length, a second paper following the requirements of the paper as listed above, or reviews of exhibitions.

Top of page