This information is part of the Colgate University catalog, 2023-24.
Faculty |
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Professors Godfrey, Kaimal, Marlowe (Chair), McVaugh, Schwarzer, Stephenson |
The Department of Art offers courses of study in the history, theory, and practice of the visual arts for the general liberal arts student as well as the art history or studio art major.
Art History The department offers more than 20 courses that trace the visual arts from antiquity to the present day. Classroom lectures are supplemented by visits to museums in the area and in New York City, as well as Colgate's Clifford Gallery, Picker Art Gallery, and Longyear Museum of Anthropology. In this way, students increase their understanding of the visual arts as expressions of fundamental cultural values.
Studio Art Courses explore creative modes of expression and problem solving while gaining familiarity with contemporary issues in visual art. The curriculum supports a variety of mediums including digital art, drawing, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and video art at the introductory and advanced levels. Studio arts courses are enriched by an ongoing series of visiting artists' lectures, exhibitions, and screenings as well as regular visits to New York City galleries, museums, and artists' studios.
Effective spring 2024, departmental subject codes will be adjusted to reflect the various topics offered. The ARTS subject code will be reserved for studio arts courses. Art History courses will have the subject code of ARTH and architecture courses will have the subject code of ARCH.
Departmental Exhibitions, Lectures and Screenings
The Clifford Gallery is a teaching gallery featuring four to six exhibitions a year. Exhibitions are selected by the art and art history faculty to explore issues central to the academic curriculum, with the primary focus on professional work by contemporary artists. These artists are often featured in the weekly public lecture series described below. The Clifford Gallery is open to the entire community and contributes to the cultural life of the central New York area.
The Department of Art Lecture Series Lectures take place throughout the semester in Little Hall's Golden Auditorium. The series features presentations by studio artists, art historians, and critics, and serves as an arena for discussion of a wide range of subjects relevant to the study of the visual arts. Recent participants have included art historians and practicing sculptors, painters, film and video makers, printmakers, photographers, architects, and artists working in digital art and performance. The series is required as part of the curriculum and is open to the community. It also serves as a venue for welcoming Colgate graduates back to discuss their work in the visual arts and architecture.
The Alternative Cinema Series takes place weekly on Tuesday evenings. Tied to the film and video art curriculum, this series is programmed to include films and videos ranging from "classic" cinema to the current avant-garde. Each semester several film/video makers, historians, or curators visit campus and present work in person.
Honors and High Honors
After completing ARTS 475 - Senior Project: Art History or ARTS 406 - Senior Project: Studio Art in the fall semester, students have the opportunity to apply to continue their project in the spring semester as an independent study, ARTS 499 - Senior Project Intensive in Studio Art or Art History. Some projects completed in ARTS 499 may be nominated for honors at the end of the spring semester. The award of honors is dependent on departmental evaluation.
GPA Requirements: Honors — 3.20 in courses within the department; High Honors — 3.70 in courses within the department.
Awards
The Fitchen Award for Excellence in Art and Art History — awarded by the department to an outstanding major.
The Harriette Wagner Memorial Award — established in 2004 by Professor Joseph Wagner, created in memory of Harriette Zeppinick Wagner. The award will be given annually to the senior major whose work exemplifies the way visual arts enrich the spirit and express the dignity of human beings.
Transfer Credit
The department allows two courses to be transferred for credit toward the major, with prior approval of the courses by the department. No seminar taken outside Colgate or outside the art department will fulfill the seminar requirement within the art history major.
Study Groups
Students are encouraged to participate in study groups; they may not schedule off-campus study during the senior year. For information, see Off-Campus Study.
Majors and Minors
Major
Minor
Courses
- ARTS 101 - Caves to Cathedrals: The Art of Europe and the Mediterranean to the 13th Century
- ARTS 103 - The Arts of Asia
- ARTS 105 - Introduction to Architecture in Cultural Context
- ARTS 107 - What is Modern Art?
- ARTS 109 - Buddhist Arts of Asia
- ARTS 110 - Global Contemporary Art
- ARTS 201 - Digital Studio: Code, Recipes, Spells
- ARTS 202 - Digital Studio: Distribution and Intervention
- ARTS 207 - Roman Art
- ARTS 210 - Contemporary Art and Politics in the Middle East
- ARTS 211 - Drawing
- ARTS 216 - Nature's Mirror: Renaissance Arts 1400-1550
- ARTS 219 - The Economics of Art
- ARTS 220 - Early Modern European Architecture
- ARTS 221L - Required Film Screening
- ARTS 221 - Video Art
- ARTS 223L - Required Film Screening
- ARTS 223 - Analogue Filmmaking
- ARTS 226 - Nature's Order: Baroque Arts 1550-1750
- ARTS 231 - Painting
- ARTS 236 - Art and Politics in the 19th Century
- ARTS 238 - Transatlantic Avant-Gardes: 1880-1920
- ARTS 240 - Art and Theory 1960-1990
- ARTS 241 - Analog Photography
- ARTS 242 - Digital Photography
- ARTS 243 - Art & Theory 1980 to Present
- ARTS 244 - Housing the Sacred in Ancient India
- ARTS 245 - Palaces and Paintings of India
- ARTS 246 - From Emperors to Anime: Pictorial Practices in China and Japan
- ARTS 251 - Printmaking
- ARTS 255 - Museum Exhibitions: Design, Rhetoric, and Interpretation
- ARTS 257 - Colonizing and Decolonizing Museums
- ARTS 260 - Social Practice Art
- ARTS 263 - Sculpture: Surface and Form
- ARTS 264 - Sculpture: Material & Process
- ARTS 270 - Critical Museum Theory
- ARTS 271 - Architectural Design I
- ARTS 273 - Architecture of Art Museums
- ARTS 274 - Sustainability in Architectural Design
- ARTS 275 - American Campus Architecture
- ARTS 277 - Modern Architecture 1880-1970
- ARTS 280 - Visual Culture of Fascism
- ARTS 287L - Required Film Screening
- ARTS 287 - History and Theory of Cinema
- ARTS 291 - Independent Study
- ARTS 302 - Advanced Digital Studio: Interactivity and Narrative
- ARTS 311 - The Arts in Venice during the Golden Age (Venice Study Group)
- ARTS 312 - Advanced Drawing
- ARTS 332 - Advanced Painting
- ARTS 342 - Advanced Photography
- ARTS 344 - Hindu Temples: Architecture and Sculpture, Architecture as Sculpture
- ARTS 345 - Exhibiting the New: 1960-2000
- ARTS 346 - Latin American Modernism, 1922-1968
- ARTS 348 - Modern Art on Display
- ARTS 350 - Art and the Goddess
- ARTS 354 - Printmaking II
- ARTS 357 - Storytelling Without Words
- ARTS 360 - Borderlands
- ARTS 361 - Boundary Consciousness: 1960s Art
- ARTS 363 - War and Plunder
- ARTS 375 - Advanced Projects in Studio Art
- ARTS 381 - Seminar in Art History: Pre-1300
- ARTS 382 - Seminar in Art History: 1300-1800 (AH)
- ARTS 383 - Seminar in Art History: After 1800
- ARTS 391 - Independent Study
- ARTS 406 - Senior Project: Studio Art
- ARTS 475 - Senior Project: Art History
- ARTS 491 - Independent Study
- ARTS 499 - Senior Project Intensive