Masters and Masterpieces of Art

Instructor: Seymour Howard, Department of Art, College of Letters and Science

Description: Introduction to and investigation into the elements of art and the social-political, historic, cultural, biographic, and technical contexts of well-known art masterworks and their makers — e.g., Phidias, Michelangelo, Mu’Chi, Rembrandt, Frank Lloyd Wright, Picasso, Duchamp, et.al.

Format: Course will consist of class time, possible field trip; individual outside preparation of talk and paper.  Guided Socratic discussion with slides and art objects; local gallery viewing; oral and written presentations based on class participation and outside research drawn from Prints Collection and Library reserve.  Grading: Classroom participation (1/3); oral presentation and a short written paper (of 3 pages) on the “who, what, when, where, how, and why” of a specific masterwork by a great world master of art (2/3).

About the Instructor: Professor Howard is an art historian and artist dealing with Humanistic studies and art media in painting, sculpture, architecture, graphics, and film; researcher and publisher of scholarly books and papers as well as maker and exhibitor of art works for over five decades; recipient of the first Magnar Ronning Student Teaching Award in the Humanities at UC Davis.