The following 200 and 300 level courses are usually offered over the span of two years.

Art History 241, Nineteenth-Century European Art

This upper-division course surveys art from the era of the French Revolution to the late nineteenth century and traces the shift from the politically-oriented art of David and his atelier to the painting of modern life in the work of Manet and his followers. Using the art of France and, to a lesser degree, England and Spain as its central examples, it introduces students to the multiple meanings of modernism and modernist art. Among the major figures to be studied are Constable, Courbet, Delacroix, Gericault, Goya, Monet, and Turner.

Art History 242, History of Photography

This survey course traces the rise and development of photography in the United States and, to a lesser extent, Mexico and the countries in Western Europe. It charts the wide range of work with the camera, including commercial, so-called "vernacular," and fine art projects, and considers pictures from photography's very beginnings in 1839 to today's practices. Among the major figures to be discussed are the early landscape photographers O'Sullivan and Watkins, the aesthetes Stieglitz and Genthe, the Depression-era photographers Evans and Lange, and the New Documentarians Arbus and Frank.

Art History 244, Modern Art, 1885-1945

This course examines the great ruptures in European art that today we call, and usually celebrate as, modernist. It relates aspects of that art to the equally great transformations in European society: revolutionary ferment, the rise and consolidation of industrial capitalism, colonialism and its discontents, and world war. It places alternative modernist histories, including unheralded artists and more obscure works, in dialogue with those artists and works of the canon. Among the major figures to be studied are Duchamp, Matisse, Malevich, Picasso, Seurat, and van Gogh.

Art History 245, Contemporary Art

This upper-division course examines American and European art from 1940 to the present. It considers the cultural, social, and art historical contexts for work by artists from, among other important developments, abstract expressionism, minimalism, pop, conceptual art, earthworks, site-specific sculpture, and performance. It traces the fortunes of modernist art in the context of the cold war and the rise of postmodern practices amidst the tumultuous social and political events of the 1960s and 1970s. In addition, it considers the premises and functions of the contemporary gallery and museum as they relate to the works of art and our responses to them.

Art History 340, Seminar in Nineteenth-Century Art

The topic for this seminar varies. Previous subjects have included "French Painting in the 1880s" and "Gender and Identity in Art." Often, the subject will coincide with an exhibition at the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum.

Art History 342, Seminar in Twentieth-Century Art

The topic for this seminar also varies. Previous subjects have included "Imagining Chinatown" and "Photography Case Studies: The Documentary." The seminar topic is often related to an exhibition at the Art Museum or a theme developed by the College's Weissman Center.