Art History/Architecture
Cat. I
This course provides an introduction to the basic principles of two and threedimensional visual organization. The course focuses on graphic expression, idea development, and visual literacy. Students will be expected to master basic rendering skills, perspective drawing, concept art, and storyboarding through traditional and/or computer-based tools.
AR 1101. Digital Imaging and Computer Art.
Cat. I
This course focuses on the methods, procedures and techniques of creating and manipulating images through electronic and digital means. Students will develop an understanding of image alteration. Topics may include color theory, displays, modeling, shading, and visual perception.
Recommended background: AR 1100.
AR 1111. Introduction to Art History.
Cat. I
How do we understand a work of art? Through readings and the study of objects at the Worcester Art Museum, the student will survey the major developments in world art and be introduced to various critical perspectives in art history. Students will learn how art historians work with primary materials and formulate arguments. No previous knowledge of art is required. (Formerly HU 1014.)
Cat. I
The successive phases of modern art, especially painting, are examined in light of the late-19th-century break with the 600-year old tradition of representation.
Topics covered include: non-objective art and abstraction—theory and practice, primitivism in modern art, surrealism and the irrational, the impact of photography on modern painting, cubism and collage, regionalism and abstract expressionism as American art forms, Pop art and popular culture, and the problem of concept versus representation in art. (Formerly AR 2300.)
AR 2114 Modern Architecture in the American Era, 1750-2001 and Beyond.
Cat. I
This course studies, in a non-technical way, America’s buildings and places, in the context of world architecture in modern times. The history of American architecture was shaped by the forces that shaped America, from its political emergence in the eighteenth century to the post-9/11 era. These forces include dreams of social and spiritual perfection; a tight and conflicted relation with nature; and the rise and spread of industrial capitalism. The same forces created the Modern Movement in architecture. How are modernism and American architecture interrelated? Illustrated lectures, films, and tours of Worcester architecture explore the question, while training students in the methods of architectural history and criticism.
Students who have taken AR 2113, Topics in 19th- and 20th-Century Architecture, since the 2000-2001 academic year MAY NOT take AR 2114 for credit.
AR 3000. The Art of Animation.
Cat. I
This course examines the fundamentals of computer generated 2D and 3D modeling and animation as they apply to creating believable characters and environments. Students will learn skeletal animation and traditional polygonal animation, giving weight and personality to characters through movement, environmental lighting, and changing mood and emotion. Students will be expected to master the tools of 3D modeling and skinning, and scripting of behaviors.
Recommended background: AR 1101. Fire Protection Engi neering Courses
AR 3112. Modernism, Mass Culture, and the Avant-Garde.
Cat. I
What is the role of art to be in the modern world? Can art be a vehicle for social change, or should art be a self-critical discipline that pursues primarily aesthetic ends? What is the relationship between art and mass culture? Using primary sources, this course focuses on some of the theorists and artistic trends since the mid-nineteenth century that have sought to resolve this dilemma. These include: Ruskin, Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement; Art For Art’s Sake; the German Werkbund and the Bauhaus; American industrial design.
AR/ID 3150. Light, Vision, and Understanding.
Cat. II
By using material from the sciences and the humanities, this course examines the ways in which ideas of knowledge and of human nature have been fashioned. The specific topics include physical theories about light, biological and psychological theories of visual perception, and artistic theories and practices concerned with representation. The mixing of material from different academic disciplines is deliberate, and meant to counter the notion that human pursuits are "naturally" arranged in the neat packages found in the modern university. The course draws upon the physical and social sciences, and the humanities, to examine how those fields relate to one another, and how they produce knowledge and self-knowledge. Cultural as well as disciplinary factors are assessed in this process.
Light, Vision and Understanding is conducted as a seminar. The diverse collection of reading materials includes a number of primary texts in different fields. In addition, the students keep a journal in which they record the results of numerous individual observations and experiments concerning light and visual perception. The course can fit into several Sufficiency areas as well as serve as a starting point for an IQP. There are no specific requirements for this course, although some knowledge of college-level physics, as well an acquaintance with the visual arts, is helpful.
This course will be offered in 2010-11 and in alternating years thereafter.