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Art History and Fine Arts
 
 
 

 
 

The educational experience of Art History majors at The American University of Paris offers an in-depth understanding of the development of Western Art as product and agent of history and society. In addition to class lectures exceptional exposure to original works of European art and architecture, both in museums and on-site, is an integral part of the course of study.

 

Student Learning Outcomes
Students will acquire a broad grasp of the evolution of Western Art in the framework of social and historical developments. Using discipline-specific terminology they will learn to analyze art works thematically and stylistically. Students will be able to apply a variety of theoretical approaches to individual works of art as well as to specific monuments.
 

Interdisciplinary Initiatives
Minors in Art History, Fine Arts, Classical Civilization, Medieval Studies, Middle Eastern and Islamic Cultures, Renaissance Studies, Urban Studies, Visual Culture.
 

Centers and Partnerships
Louvre Partnership: “Les jeunes ont la parole”; The Arts Arena.

 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 

 

Madeleine Beaufort

Senior Lecturer Emerita

BA, University of Connecticut.

MAT, Yale University.

MA, PhD, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

 

Suse Childs
Assistant Professor Emerita
BA, MLS, State University of New York, Albany.
MA, MPhil, Columbia University.

 

Charlotte Lacaze
Schiff-Dupee Associate Professor Emerita
BA, New York University.
MA, PhD, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

 

Françoise Weinmann
Associate Professor Emerita
Licence, Institut d'Art et d'Archéologie, Université de Paris-Sorbonne.
MA, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

 

 
Requirements for the Major in  ART HISTORY
 

 

FirstBridge
8 FirstBridge courses change every year.

 

GENERAL EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS
Up to 8 EN 110 College Writing, EN 220 Writing and Criticism
Up to 18 French through French FR 235
4 French language or literature beyond FR 235
4 Historical and Cross-Cultural Understandings
4 Social Experience and Organization
4 from either of the above two categories
Up to 8 Scientific and Mathematical Investigations

 

CORE
Select one of the following two options (16 credits)

 

OPTION I
AH 100 Introduction to Western Art I
AH 213 Renaissance Art and Architecture
AH 214 Baroque and Rococo Art and Architecture
AH 216 19th- and 20th-Century Art and Architecture

 

OPTION II
AH 120 Introduction to Western Art II
AH 211 Ancient Art and Architecture
AH 212 Medieval Art and Architecture
AH 213 Renaissance Art and Architecture

 

REQUIRED (12 credits)
AR 120 Materials and Techniques of the Masters
AH 390 Junior Seminar (must be taken in the Junior year)
AH 490 Senior Seminar (may be taken twice for credit)

 

ELECTIVES (20 credits)
Select five additional Art History courses of which three must be at the 300- level or above, (only one of these may be cross listed) plus two other Art History or cross listed AH courses.
 

Plus GENERAL ELECTIVES to total 128 Credits

 
 
Requirements for the Major in  ART HISTORY with a VISUAL CULTURE TRACK
 

 

CORE (20 credits)
AH 100 Introduction to Western Art I
AH 120 Introduction to Western Art II
CM 123 Media Analysis or
FM/CM 110 Films and Their Meanings
CM/ES 337 The Museum as Medium
ES 110 Europe and Cities: The Modern City
 

ELECTIVES
Choose six of the following courses, from at least three different disciplines (24 credits)
 

AH/PL 374 The Philosophy of Aesthetics
CM 306 Color as Communication
CM 355 Visual Rhetoric: Persuasive Images
CM 362 Media Semiotics
CM 375 Media Aesthetics
CM/AN 349 Media and Ethnography
CM/GS 353 Media and Gender
CM/GS 304 Communicating Fashion
CL 302 Word and Image: Literature and the Visual Arts
ES 105 Europe and Cities: The Italian Renaissance
ES/AH 316 Society and Spectacle
ES/HI 317 The Islamic City
ES/FM 300 The Film Culture of Europe’s Cities
FM 275 Introduction to the History and Analysis of Film I
FM 276 Introduction to the History and Analysis of Film II
FM 292 Women and Film
FM 327 Film Theory and Criticism
GS/PY 208 Gender Identity, Homosexuality and the Cinema: A Psychosocial Approach
GS/HI 213 Women in Parisian History and the Arts
GS/VC 314 Art, Culture and Gender in the Italian Renaissance
GS/HI 319 Women Artists in European History
GS/VC 332 The Power of Images in Western History
GS/HI 326 Women in the French Renaissance
PY 391 Topics in Psychology (if the topic is appropriate)
 

VC 495 SENIOR THESIS OR SENIOR PROJECT: interdisciplinary in nature, linking an art historical issue to at least one other discipline (4 credits)
 

Plus GENERAL ELECTIVES to total 128 Credit

 

 
 

 
Art History
Classical Civilization
Fine Arts
Medieval Studies
Urban Studies
Visual Cultures

 
 

 
 

 
 
 
 

 

 

AUP is now a partner of the Cour de France, a publication space for documents, essays and scholarly resources for research on the court of France from its beginnings to the 19th century. Please visit: http://cour-de-france.fr

 
 

Louvre: Les jeunes ont la parole

Each Fall and Spring semester, Art History students are offered the privilege of participating in 'Les jeunes ont la parole', one facet of the Louvre Museum's Friday evening program Les nocturnes du Louvre. Alongside peers from other Parisian institutions, students may elect to do in-depth research on a specific work of art in the Louvre, around which they enter into dialogue with young visitors and/or the general public on two or three designated evenings, in the languages of their choice. The program culminates in both one AUP credit and a certificate from the Louvre. Please see Professor Christine Baltay, Chair of the Department, for further information.

 
 

Anna Russakoff will be presenting a paper entitled "Images that come to life: Miracles of the Virgin and the Vierges Ouvrantes" at the Historians of Netherlandish Art conference in Amsterdam, held from May 27-29.  She is also co-organizing a conference for the International Medieval Society in Paris, in collaboration with the research group LAMOP-Paris I Sorbonne, on the theme of Translation, to be held at the Sorbonne from June 24-26.  For the program and registration form, see www.ims-paris.org

[AUP - Posted 17 June 2010]

 
 

Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier attended the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America which was held in Venice from April 7-8. She chaired a session at the Fondazione Cini in which Sabine Frommel (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris) and Lorenz Baumer (Chair, Classical Archeology, Université de Genève) presented papers on French architecture and sculpture during the 1540s. Her own paper, "Madeleine de Savoie - Madame la Connétable - and the Gendering of Montmorency Patronage" was presented in a session chaired by Sheila ffolliott (Emeritus, George Mason University) at the University of Ca'Foscari; companion papers were given by Elizabeth L'Estrange (Université de Liège) and Peggy Brown (Emeritus, CUNY).  Sophie Cassagnes-Brouquet (Université de Toulouse) published a positive review of her book Patronnes et mécènes en France à la Renaissance in Clio (29-2009), available online. This book also led to an interview which will be integrated into a prime time television program dedicated to the patronage of Diane de Poitiers at Anet, to be aired this summer on France 2 as part of its series “Secrets d’Histoire.”

[AUP - Posted 6 May 2010]

 
 

Ralph Petty exhibited his new work, paintings, and drawings at the T&S Gallery in Tokyo from March 3-20. He will also show five large paintings at the Eumeria Gallery located in the downtown Ginza district of Tokyo, from May 10-22, in a group show comprising four other international artists. There will be a symposium on Fuji television on the program “Prime Time News” on May 14 from 20:00-22:00 (Tokyo time) featuring the exhibition with the theme “Globalisation, localisation in the arts.” Prime Time News is one of the major cultural television programs on Japanese television. Ralph’s drawings and poem/songs were published in Encounters: A Riff on the Senses (La Nana Creek Press, 2009, Nacogdoches, Texas) in a limited edition of forty hand-printed and hand-bound hardcover fine artist books with original writings and drawings by Ralph Petty and Charles Jones.

[AUP - Posted 2 Apr 2010]

 
 

Anna Russakoff's contribution, “Miracles de la Vierge et handicap au XIIIe siècle,” has just been published in Handicaps et sociétés dans l’histoire : l’estropie, l’aveugle et le paralytique de l’Antiquité aux temps modernes, edited by Franck Collard (Université Paris X-Nanterre) and Evelyne Samama (Université de Reims). Paris: L’Harmattan, 2010, pp. 129-144.

[AUP - Posted 2 Apr 2010]

 
 
 
 

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