ARTH 117: Global Art History Before 1400

(1 unit)
This course provides students with a survey of artifacts, art objects, and architectural sites from across the globe, before the year 1400. Through focused analyses of visual cultures and built environments across different spaces and times, this record of the deep past demonstrates how humanity, arguably, has always been creatively expressive. It also illustrates how closely tied artistic patronage is to economic and political power. This course underscores how art-making is rooted in the exchange of ideas inasmuch as the economic and political realities of trade, migrations, pilgrimage, diplomacy, war and conquest. Students will explore how various cultures adopted artistic practices shaped by social networks, economic exchanges, religious beliefs, political power and historical events before the year 1400. Demerdash, Wickre.