Art History II

Course Description

ARH2051 – Art History II is a 3-credit-hour course that surveys the major works, artists, and movements of Western art from the Renaissance through the twentieth century, with attention to global art traditions and contemporary practice as institutional curricula increasingly include them. Building on the prehistoric-through-medieval coverage of ARH2050 (Art History I), the course examines art and visual culture from the fourteenth century through the contemporary moment, situating artworks within their historical, cultural, religious, political, and intellectual contexts.

Students develop visual literacy — the ability to describe, analyze, and interpret works of art — and gain familiarity with the methods of art history as a discipline. Coursework typically combines lecture-based examination of artworks (using high-quality digital reproductions), close visual analysis exercises, written analytical assignments, and museum visits where institutional location allows. Students engage with painting, sculpture, architecture, prints, photography, and other media.

ARH2051 is a Florida common course offered at approximately 31 Florida institutions and satisfies general-education humanities requirements at most Florida public colleges and universities. It transfers as the equivalent course at all Florida public postsecondary institutions per SCNS articulation policy. Together with ARH2050, it constitutes the standard two-semester art history survey sequence.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Apply the vocabulary of formal analysis — including line, shape, color, value, texture, space, composition, and the elements and principles of design — to describe works of art.
• Apply the methods of art-historical analysis, including formal analysis, iconography, and contextual analysis (historical, cultural, religious, political, biographical).
• Identify and describe major works, artists, and movements of the Italian Renaissance (Early, High, and Late Renaissance), including the work of artists such as Giotto, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael.
• Identify and describe major works of the Northern Renaissance and Reformation period, including the work of artists such as Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Albrecht Dürer, Hans Holbein the Younger, and Pieter Bruegel.
• Identify and describe major works of Mannerism and the Baroque, including the work of artists such as Caravaggio, Bernini, Velázquez, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Rubens, and Artemisia Gentileschi.
• Identify and describe major works of Rococo, Neoclassicism, and Romanticism, including the work of artists such as Watteau, Fragonard, David, Ingres, Goya, Géricault, and Delacroix.
• Identify and describe major works of nineteenth-century Realism, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism, including the work of artists such as Courbet, Manet, Monet, Degas, Renoir, Cassatt, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Seurat.
• Identify and describe major works of early twentieth-century modernism, including Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism, Futurism, Dada, Surrealism, the Bauhaus, and modern architecture, with attention to artists such as Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Kandinsky, Marcel Duchamp, Dalí, Frida Kahlo, and Frank Lloyd Wright.
• Identify and describe major works of mid-to-late twentieth-century art, including Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism, Conceptual Art, performance, photography as art, and architecture, with attention to artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Donald Judd, Yayoi Kusama, and contemporary architects.
• Engage with contemporary and global art, including non-Western traditions and contemporary practices that expand the canon, recognizing the increasing diversity of art-historical study.
• Write clear, well-organized art-historical analyses using appropriate vocabulary and citation.
• Engage critically with museum exhibitions and art-historical scholarship as available.

Optional Outcomes

• Engage with non-Western art traditions in greater depth, including Islamic art, Chinese and Japanese art, African art, Pre-Columbian and Indigenous art of the Americas, and Oceanic art.
• Engage with feminist, postcolonial, and critical race approaches to art history.
• Apply art-historical analysis to contemporary art at greater depth, including current exhibitions and artists.
• Engage with museum studies and curatorial practice at an introductory level.
• Conduct an independent research project on a selected artist, work, or movement.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Methods of Art History: Visual analysis vocabulary; formal analysis; iconography (Panofsky); contextual analysis; art-historical writing; the role of museums and collections.
• Late Medieval to Early Renaissance: The Proto-Renaissance in Italy (Giotto, Cimabue); the Sienese tradition; the rise of perspective; the influence of humanism.
• Early Italian Renaissance: Florence in the fifteenth century; Brunelleschi and the development of linear perspective; Donatello and Renaissance sculpture; Masaccio and Renaissance painting; Botticelli; the Medici as patrons.
• High Italian Renaissance: Leonardo da Vinci; Michelangelo; Raphael; the Venetian school (Bellini, Giorgione, Titian); architecture (Bramante).
• Northern Renaissance: Early Netherlandish painting (Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hieronymus Bosch); German Renaissance (Dürer, Holbein, Cranach); the Reformation and its impact on art (Pieter Bruegel the Elder).
• Mannerism and Late Renaissance: Italian Mannerism (Pontormo, Bronzino, Parmigianino, El Greco); the Council of Trent and Counter-Reformation art.
• Baroque: Italian Baroque (Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi, Bernini, Borromini); Spanish Baroque (Velázquez, Zurbarán); Flemish Baroque (Rubens, Van Dyck); Dutch Baroque (Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, Ruisdael); French Baroque (Poussin, Claude).
• Rococo and Eighteenth-Century Art: French Rococo (Watteau, Boucher, Fragonard); the Enlightenment and the rise of Neoclassicism (Vigée Le Brun, Kauffman, David, Houdon).
• Romanticism: Goya; British Romanticism (Turner, Constable, Blake); French Romanticism (Géricault, Delacroix); German Romanticism (Friedrich); Romantic landscape and the sublime.
• Realism: Courbet; Daumier; Millet; the rise of social realism; early photography (Daguerre, Talbot).
• Impressionism: Manet (precursor); Monet, Renoir, Degas, Pissarro, Morisot, Cassatt; the changing nature of the art world; the influence of photography and Japanese prints.
• Post-Impressionism: Cézanne; Van Gogh; Gauguin; Seurat; Toulouse-Lautrec; the foundations of modernism; Symbolism (Munch, Klimt).
• Early Twentieth-Century Modernism: Fauvism (Matisse); Cubism (Picasso, Braque); German Expressionism (Die Brücke, Der Blaue Reiter); Italian Futurism (Boccioni); Russian art (Malevich, Tatlin); the Armory Show and modernism in America.
• Dada, Surrealism, and the Bauhaus: Dada (Duchamp, Höch, Schwitters); Surrealism (Dalí, Magritte, Ernst, Frida Kahlo, Dorothea Tanning); the Bauhaus (Gropius, Klee, Kandinsky); De Stijl (Mondrian).
• Modern Architecture: Frank Lloyd Wright; Le Corbusier; Mies van der Rohe; the International Style; American skyscraper development.
• Mid-Twentieth-Century Art: Abstract Expressionism (Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko, Krasner, Frankenthaler); the New York School; postwar European art; Color Field painting.
• Pop Art and Beyond: Pop Art (Warhol, Lichtenstein, Hamilton, Hockney); Minimalism (Judd, Stella, Martin); Op Art; Conceptual Art; Earth Art (Smithson, Heizer); Performance Art; Photography as fine art.
• Late Twentieth Century to Present: Postmodernism; Neo-Expressionism; the Pictures Generation; the YBA (Young British Artists); Identity-based art; new media art; contemporary global art (Yayoi Kusama, Kara Walker, Kerry James Marshall, Ai Weiwei, Yinka Shonibare); contemporary architecture.
• Global and Non-Western Connections: Increasingly emphasized in art-history courses — the influence of Japanese prints on Impressionism; African art and modernism; Islamic art; Chinese painting; contemporary global voices in art.

Optional Topics

• Art and Activism: Art as social and political engagement; AIDS activism (Gran Fury, ACT UP, Felix Gonzalez-Torres); contemporary activist art.
• Feminist and Critical Race Approaches: Reconsidering the canon; recovering women artists and artists of color; institutional critique.
• Photography: Photographic history from the daguerreotype through contemporary photography as art.
• Museum Studies and Curatorial Practice: The role of museums; curating; exhibition design; collection management.
• Florida-Specific Engagement: Visits or virtual engagement with Florida art museums (the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, the Pérez Art Museum Miami, the John and Mable Ringling Museum in Sarasota, the Cummer Museum in Jacksonville).
• Independent Research Project: Student-selected investigation of a specific artist, work, or movement.

Resources & Tools

• Common Textbooks: Gardner's Art Through the Ages (Kleiner — most widely adopted), Stokstad's Art History (Cothren/Stokstad), Janson's History of Art (Davies et al.), The Annotated Mona Lisa (Strickland), Art: A Brief History (Stokstad/Cothren)
• Open Educational Resources: SmartHistory (smarthistory.org — free, peer-reviewed art history with high-quality video and image content; widely used in Florida); Art History by Lumen Learning
• Online Platforms: Connect (McGraw-Hill), Revel (Pearson), MindTap (Cengage)
• Digital Image Resources: Google Arts and Culture (artsandculture.google.com); museum digital collections (The Met, MoMA, Tate, Louvre, Prado, Uffizi, Rijksmuseum); ArtStor (institutional subscription); Wikimedia Commons
• Florida Museum Resources: The Salvador Dalí Museum (St. Petersburg); The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art (Sarasota); Pérez Art Museum Miami; Norton Museum of Art (West Palm Beach); Tampa Museum of Art; Orlando Museum of Art; Cornell Fine Arts Museum (Rollins College); Cummer Museum (Jacksonville); MOCA North Miami
• Reference Resources: Grove Art Online (institutional subscription); Oxford Art Online; Bénézit Dictionary of Artists; museum scholarly publications

Career Pathways

Art history develops visual literacy, analytical and critical-thinking capabilities, and cultural literacy valuable across many fields. Specific career pathways supported include:

• Museum and Gallery Careers — Curatorial assistance, museum education, museum administration, registrar roles, exhibition design, conservation (with additional training).
• Arts Administration — Nonprofit arts management, performing arts administration, public art programs.
• Art Education — K–12 art teaching (with additional teacher preparation).
• Art Market — Auction houses (Sotheby's, Christie's), art galleries, art appraisal (with additional credentials).
• Cultural Heritage and Preservation — Historic preservation, cultural heritage management, archaeology-related work.
• Pre-Law (Art and Cultural Property Law): Foundational for law specializations in art law and cultural property.
• Communications, Journalism, and Publishing — Arts journalism, art criticism, museum publications, art book publishing.
• Graphic Design, Illustration, and Visual Communications — Foundational for visual-arts career paths.
• Tourism and Cultural Tourism — Particularly relevant to Florida's tourism economy and the state's substantial museum and cultural-attraction sector.

Most students taking ARH2051 are not pursuing art-history careers but benefit from the visual-literacy, cultural-literacy, and analytical capabilities the course develops. The course supports general-education humanities requirements for students across virtually any major.

Special Information

General Education and Transfer

ARH2051 is a Florida common course number that satisfies general-education humanities requirements at most Florida public colleges and universities. It transfers as the equivalent course at all Florida public postsecondary institutions per SCNS articulation policy and is part of the standard humanities options on the A.A. transfer pathway.

Course Sequence

ARH2051 typically follows ARH2050 (Art History I, covering prehistoric through medieval art), but neither course usually requires the other as a prerequisite — students may take them in either order or independently. Some institutions offer a combined one-semester art-history survey (ARH1000 or ARH2000) as an alternative for students whose program requires only a single art-history course.

Course Approach Variations

Florida institutions vary in their pedagogical approach:

• Western canon survey: Traditional chronological coverage of the major Western movements.
• Global survey: Substantial integration of non-Western and global traditions throughout the chronology.
• Thematic approach: Organization around themes (e.g., the body, the sacred, power, identity) cutting across periods.
• Museum-engaged approach: Heavy use of museum visits, where institutional location allows.

All approaches typically address the major required content; the difference is one of organization and emphasis.

Online and Hybrid Delivery

ARH2051 has been particularly well-suited to online delivery given the visual nature of the content (high-quality digital reproductions, virtual museum tours) and its expansion under various online learning initiatives. Most Florida institutions offer the course in face-to-face, hybrid, and fully online formats.

Florida Museum Resources

Florida is home to several outstanding art museums that enrich the study of ARH2051. Many programs incorporate visits to the Dalí Museum (Surrealism), the Ringling Museum (Baroque, especially Rubens), the Pérez Art Museum Miami (modern and contemporary), the Norton Museum (American and European), and others as part of the course experience.