Art History (ARTH)

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ARTH 1120  3 credits  
Art and Visual Culture: Prehistoric to Early Renaissance  

Students will study a selective survey of Western visual art and culture objects, including works of sculpture, painting, architecture, and other art forms from the Prehistoric period to the fourteenth century. They will examine the impact of cultural, religious, political, societal, and technological developments in the history of the visual arts, while studying principal moments of intersection with non-Western cultures. Students will develop their visual literacy, critical thinking and communication skills through written assignments that focus on describing, analyzing, and comparing works of art. Note: This is a writing-intensive course.

Level: UG

Prerequisite(s): English 12 (B) or ENGL 1099 or ENGQ 1099 or ABEE 0091 or ENGP 1091 or ABEE 0092 or ABEE 0097 or ENGP 1097 or Kwantlen English Placement Test placement or an LPI Essay Score of 30 – Level 5 or (ELST 0381 & 0383 B)

Attributes: ASTR, ARTS

ARTH 1121  3 credits  
Art and Visual Culture: Late Renaissance to 20th Century  

Students will study a selective survey of European and North American visual art and culture objects, including works of painting, sculpture, printmaking, architecture, and other art forms from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. They will examine principal turning points connected to visual art of this period in order to illuminate the cultural, religious, political, societal, and technological factors contributing to the production and reception of the visual arts. Students will cultivate their visual literacy and develop the basic tools and terminology for analyzing visual art and culture.

Level: UG

Attributes: ASTR, ARTS, PW_3

ARTH 1130  3 credits  
Introduction to Film Studies  

Students will study the history and development of world cinema and will examine film as a visual language and art-making practice from its inception in the nineteenth century to the present. They will learn methods for exploring aesthetic function and for considering the social, political, and technological contexts of moving pictures.

Level: UG

Attributes: ASTR, ARTS

ARTH 1140  3 credits  
Introduction to Visual Art, Urban, and Screen Culture  

Students will study the broad field of contemporary visual art and culture with a specific focus on the role of urban environments and the emerging world of screen culture in shaping new possibilities for global art production and circulation. Students will explore how they can become active agents rather than passive observers through engagement with the diversity of visual art and culture surrounding them. They will investigate interdisciplinary topics connecting the world of visual art with urban and screen cultures through case studies in street and graffiti art, hip-hop and punk culture, video gaming, anime, new media and Internet art, urban performance art, activist art, grassroots fashion, street photography, and the world of mobile photography and filmmaking.

Level: UG

Attributes: ASTR, ARTS

ARTH 2122  3 credits  
Modern Art and Visual Culture: 1890-1945  

Students will study the development of modern art movements and visual culture in the period from 1890 to 1945 in Europe and North America. They will identify important issues related to the emergence and development of modern art, modernism, and the avant-garde in art and visual culture in relationship to: urban capitalism; issues of gender representation; social class and social consciousness; theories related to visual art and culture and visual language. Students will also be introduced to critical analysis of art theory in the Modernist period. Note: Students may not get credit for both FINA 1122 and ARTH 2122.

Level: UG

Prerequisite(s): 6 credits from courses at the 1100 level or higher

Attributes: ASTR, ARTS

ARTH 2124  3 credits  
Indigenous Art  

Students will study visual language from a variety of indigenous cultures. They will explore important stylistic periods and artistic traditions within a historical context, and will examine the political, spiritual, and cultural issues informing and influencing the visual arts outside of a Western perspective.

Level: UG

Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1100

Attributes: ASTR, ARTS

ARTH 2126  3 credits  
Canadian Modern and Contemporary Art  

Students will examine the development of Canadian art from the modern to postmodern and contemporary periods, across Canada, coast to coast. They will investigate Canadian social, political, and multicultural influences on visual art and culture, and visual language from one stylistic period to the next, one region to another. Students will study the Canadian art scene and its institutions within the context of the broader global art community.

Level: UG

Prerequisite(s): 6 credits from courses at the 1100 level or higher

Attributes: ASTR, ARTS

ARTH 2160  3 credits  
History of Architecture: Prehistoric to Renaissance  

Students will study a survey of the development and history of architecture in the Paleolithic Age through the Renaissance, approaching architecture as a unique medium with its own visual vocabulary and spatial codes. Students will assess a variety of formal building and visual languages, designs, and theories that have shaped the early history of architecture through the close examination of select buildings and spatial environments set within specific cultural, social, political and economic contexts of their planning and construction.

Level: UG

Prerequisite(s): 6 credits from courses at the 1100 level or higher

Attributes: ASTR, ARTS

ARTH 2222  3 credits  
Contemporary Art and Visual Culture: 1945 to the Present  

Students will examine the development of visual art and language in Western art from the 1940's to the Twenty-First Century. They will investigate social, political, cultural and technological influences on Western art from the Abstract Expressionist period to the development of the Postmodernist aesthetic, as well as participating in analysis and interpretation of modern and contemporary painting, sculpture, architecture, printmaking, ceramics, photography, film, installation art, video art, digital art, performance art and other multi-media venues.

Level: UG

Prerequisite(s): 6 credits from courses at the 1100 level or higher

Attributes: ASTR, ARTS

ARTH 2260  3 credits  
History of Architecture: Baroque to Postmodern  

Students will study a survey of the development and history of architecture from the period of the late Baroque in the eighteenth century through to the postmodern architectural styles associated with the contemporary present, approaching architecture as a unique medium with its own visual vocabulary and spatial codes. Students will assess a variety of formal building and visual languages, designs, and theories that have shaped the modern and postmodern history of architecture through the close examination of select buildings and spatial environments set within specific cultural, social, political and economic contexts of their planning and construction.

Level: UG

Prerequisite(s): 6 credits from courses at the 1100 level or higher

Attributes: ASTR, ARTS

ARTH 3100  3 credits  
Special Topics Seminar in Art History  

Students will engage in an intensive study of a special topic in art history selected by the instructor within a seminar environment. They will study the career of a particular artist or examine an artistic movement, stylistic period or consider the topic from a thematic perspective. The students may utilize exhibitions at local or international venues as part of the make-up of the course content. Note: Students may take this course multiple times for further credit on different topics.

Level: UG

Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1100, and either (a) 6 credits from courses in ARTH, or (b) 18 credits from courses at the 1100 level or higher.

Attributes: ASTR, ARTS

ARTH 3121  3 credits  
Italian Renaissance and Mannerist Art  

Students will study the art of the Italian Renaissance and Mannerist periods. They will study the dominant artists of the period as well as their patrons. Students will examine the impact of cultural, religious, political, societal, ideological, and technological developments on the art.

Level: UG

Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1100, and either (a) 6 credits from courses in ARTH, or (b) 18 credits from courses at the 1100 level or higher.

Attributes: ASTR, ARTS

ARTH 3122  3 credits  
Modern Art and the Age of Revolution  

Students will study the complex ways in which social and political change, and ideologies of gender, class, race and ethnicity, worked to shape aspects of visual art and culture from the late eighteenth to early twentieth century in Europe and North America. Students will focus on the roles played by industrialization, political ideology, rapid urban growth, global commerce, and the new media technologies of an expanding consumer culture in defining a wide range of visual culture. They will also examine different representations and debates around the idea of modernity and the modern, exploring the dynamic relationship between image and event in the "Age of Revolution."

Level: UG

Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1100, and either (a) 6 credits from courses in ARTH, or (b) 18 credits from courses at the 1100 level or higher.

Attribute: ARTS

ARTH 3130  3 credits  
Film and the City  

Students will study the dynamic intersections of the filmic medium and the emergence of the city as both a conceptual and material idea, examining how filmmakers and the techniques of filmmaking from the early twentieth century forward have been closely bound up in representing the visual, spatial, and mental contours of the metropolis. They will examine film's critical role in the development of modern visual culture, exploring how the evolving city and its various filmic representations have helped frame the development and understanding of important themes emerging in the history of modern and contemporary art.

Level: UG

Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1100, and either (a) 6 credits from courses in ARTH, or (b) 18 credits from courses at the 1100 level or higher.

Attribute: ARTS

ARTH 3140  3 credits  
History of Photography  

Students will study the history of photography and photographic practices from the mid-19th century to the present. They will be introduced to present and past uses of the medium in a number of specific historical, social, and theoretical contexts that examine how photographic images have circulated as both unstable and highly mobile objects within and outside the history of art. Students will learn the basic tools and terminology for analyzing photographic images through an introduction to critical and historical methods.

Level: UG

Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1100, and either (a) 6 credits from courses in ARTH, or (b) 18 credits from courses at the 1100 level or higher.

Attribute: ARTS

ARTH 3150  3 credits  
New Media in Art  

Students will undertake a critical and historical examination of new media and the influence of technological, networked, and computerized information and communication technologies in the development of innovative formats of art making from the late nineteenth century to the present. They will also focus on how contemporary new media art practices can be understood in a broader historical and social context involving changing ideas about time, duration, narrative, and the most recent turn to a digitally mediated world.

Level: UG

Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1100, and either (a) 6 credits from courses in ARTH, or (b) 18 credits from courses at the 1100 level or higher.

Attribute: ARTS

ARTH 3160  3 credits  
Urban Graffiti and Street Art  

Students will undertake a critical and historical examination of the origins and evolution of graffiti and street art in the urban context. The course will track the rise of graffiti and street art from their first appearance on North American city streets through to their often-controversial foray into the contemporary art scene and into their present status as among the most circulated and highly visible forms of global public art both on the Internet and in cities around the world. Themes and issues covered in this course include the form and content of signature graffiti writing and street art media and techniques; the emergence of key individuals, crews, and rivalries on local and global scenes; the influence of hip-hop and music cultures on graffiti and street art; identity politics and the contest over real and virtual public space; the role and influence of celebrity graffiti and street artists on the scene; and the role of technological, digital, computerized, and networked information technologies in the creation, distribution, and circulation of graffiti and street art today. Note: Credit will not be given for both ARTH 3160 and ARTH 3100: Street and Graffiti Art.

Level: UG

Prerequisite(s): 6 Credits from ARTH courses, or 18 credits from courses at the 1100 level or higher, including ENGL 1100.

Credit Exclusion: ARTH 3100

Attribute: ARTS

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