History of Art

FA 271 walks you through Western visual culture from cave paintings to the late Renaissance, treating each work as evidence of the political, religious, and technical pressures of its moment rather than as a slideshow of masterpieces. Expect lecture-heavy weeks anchored by a midterm and final, plus regular discussion sessions and a homework assignment where you practice reading an artwork in its historical context. It's a required foundation for the FADA curriculum and gives you the vocabulary you'll lean on in studio critiques and later art-history electives that pick up where Byzantium leaves off.