Course Syllabus

ARTHS 197: History of Baroque to Early 20^th Century Art (3 units)

Contact me:

Email: kkoblik@dvc.edu

Skype handle: kckoblik

Office Phone: 925-969-2253

Text messages: 925-322-0037

In Person Office Hours on DVC’s Pleasant Hill Campus, Art Building

Room A-504: Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:30-10:30AM

Office is in the Art Department Offices, ART 401 (bottom floor door) ART-504 (top floor door). Please knock and give me a minute to get to the door to let you in. I am also happy to make appointments with students who are unable to attend these office hours.

Online Office Hours: Mondays 8:30AM-9:30AM, Wednesdays 7:30-8:30PM, most Sunday afternoons I will try to be online as well.

Online office hours I am available by Skype (handle kckoblik), email, or Zoom. An invitation to all office hour meetings through Zoom will be posted in each calendar day they occur. If I do not immediately respond to your request during my posted office hours, I am with another student, and I will “see” you as soon as possible.

I typically respond to email within 24 hours of receipt, so you can usually expect a same-day or next-day response, exclusive of weekends or holidays. I receive text messages mostly as email, so the same time frame applies to text message responses. I check my voice mail when I am in my office, so Tuesdays and Thursdays, which means that I am often slower to respond to voice mail.

I will be logged on and active in our course at least three times per week. If you have an urgent query, it is a good idea to email me rather than post in the discussion forum, as I check my email more frequently than the course website. An informative and specific subject line is always appreciated—I recommend including “ARTHS-197 online” in the subject.

Text:  This class does not have a required textbook. It has many required readings, which are all available online through our Canvas site. You will need to complete the readings in order to successfully complete the activities and quizzes that will demonstrate your learning in the course.

If you are looking for a good general chronological account of art history to supplement the material, I recommend Marilyn Stokstad’s Art History. Gardner’s and Janson’s histories of art are also good resources. Just about any library has at least one copy of at least one of these texts, or you can find previous editions for pretty cheap online.

Course Description:

This course traces the development of art in the western hemisphere from the Baroque period through the early 20^th century. Social, economic, cultural, political, religious, and technological influences on the art of each period are included in the scope of the course. Students examine works of art and their iconography, stylistic techniques, and different media, with the goal of recognizing, understanding, and discussing various art forms in their broader contexts. This course also aims to introduce students to the discipline of art history and to provide a wide visual database of relevant images and styles.

Translated into everyday language, basically what we do in Art History is to look at stuff that people have made, and try to make sense of it and learn from it. There’s many ways to make sense of and learn from the objects that we produce; in my classroom, we will talk a lot about the context of objects—how they were used, how folks would have understood them, how they reveal bits of the religious and political ideas of the time. I will expect you to become familiar with and remember the most important objects, to learn the broad historical and religious contexts that surround them, and to be able to make connections and analyze the objects and their contexts, and recognize major styles, artists, and characteristics of the time periods we cover.

Course Objectives and Student Learning Outcomes: Students will be able to:

1. Analyze works of art in terms of historical circumstances and cultural values of Western Europe from the baroque period to early twentieth century;
2. Compare and contrast painting, sculpture, and architecture using appropriate aesthetic vocabulary in the various styles of the chronological period - Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Dada, Surrealism;
3. Distinguish differences in styles and art patronage within these centuries;
4. Evaluate the changing role of the artist from the Baroque to the early 20th century.

 Course Requirements:

The course consists of four units of study that are arranged chronologically. Each unit has a “menu” of learning activities for you to choose from, although some activities are required of all students. At the end of each unit, you will write three short essays in response to a selection of prompts, and complete a quiz on the content covered in that unit. Your final project is a portfolio of your essays, one from each unit, which you will have the opportunity to revise and reflect on. Rubrics are provided for the activities and the essays.

• As this course takes place completely online, you need to have good computer and internet access—this is your “transportation” to the virtual classroom. On-campus computer labs are available for this purpose, but I would recommend a personal computer and additional internet service for convenience.
• For this course, you will need to create and submit assignments on your computer. Some technology proficiency and familiarity is assumed. You will need to:
• Open and read/view/listen to assigned course content on a variety of platforms
• Create and edit text documents using word processing software (MS Word, Pages, OpenOffice, or the like)
• Find, download, save, and edit images from the internet (Preview or Quicktime, Adobe Photoshop or other professional image software is not needed)
• Insert and manipulate images into presentations (bubbl.us, Google Slides, MS PowerPoint, Keynote, and the like)
• Create posts in discussion forums and attach images and/or media to those posts
• Save documents and presentations in a universally readable format (PDF) and submit them to an online dropbox
• Use VoiceThread software to record comments on lectures and possibly create your own presentations (free sign-up)
• You will be encouraged to visit a museum to see art in person. You can do this at a local museum, as long as it has art from the cultures and time periods we cover in this course. I have a list of Bay Area arts institutions, but would be happy to give you guidance if you are not from the local service area of the college.

 Grades:

Please review the PowerPoint and/or explanation video on the grade structure of the course. As mentioned above, there are four units and a final portfolio. Each of these sections is worth 20% of your grade. Within each unit of 100 points, 50 points are allocated to assignments and activities, 25 points to the short essays, and 25 points to the unit quiz. So each unit is 100 points, and the final portfolio is also 100 points for a total of 500 points possible in the course.

I will grade and update assignments at the end of each unit—more frequently if possible. Not every discussion post will receive evaluation or a specific reply, but I will be active in the course throughout the entire semester.

For each unit, I will evaluate and comment on ONE of your short essays, but I will be checking to make sure that you have submitted all of the required essays for each unit. Essay comments and evaluation take a bit more time—you can expect to have these back within maximum two weeks of submission.

Detailed rubrics for the essays, some assignments, and the final portfolio are available—please see the assignment files for more information.

Grades are recorded in the LMS and are always available for you to check. If you think a mistake has been made, please let me know as soon as possible. I occasionally make mistakes—I will address the situation or explain your grade as soon as possible.

Course Responsibilities: In a learning community, there are important roles and responsibilities, including teaching roles and learning roles. As your instructor, I make a commitment to you that I will do my best to make the course interesting and valuable to you, and I ask a commitment from you to fulfill your role as learner.

Instructor Responsibilities:

• Design interesting and engaging learning activities to meet the course goals
• Provide high quality content and resources in a variety of formats that cover the content of the course
• Facilitate and provide the opportunity for lots of peer to peer interaction and collaboration
• Convey my enthusiasm and passion for art
• Provide personalized and individual assistance for learners who need more support
• Consult and assist students who have individual learning goals related to the material we cover beyond or in addition to the course objectives
• Provide multiple forms of feedback on learner progress—not just grades, but informal and formal feedback, review, assessment.
• Be a “model member” of the community
  • Display netiquette such as: timely posts and replies, respect for multiple views interpretations and cultures, trust in people’s good intentions, preserve safe space and a voice for every member of the community
  • Share my personal interpretations and reactions to art, history, and other course material
  • Be open to learning from multiple resources; update my views according to new information and interactions

Learner Responsibilities:

• Share personal information, including opinions and experiences related to the subjects we cover. Your willingness to share and be open and personal with your peers and me is what will create a strong community and authentic learning experiences.
• Complete your assignments and interact with course material and your peers in a frequent and regular fashion
• Reflect on your opinions/knowledge and be willing to change your mind to accommodate new information and views
• Inform your instructor promptly of any technical difficulties so that they can be addressed as soon as possible
• Access support materials when needed in an attempt to address any issues you have before asking for personal assistance—try to troubleshoot for yourself and then if it’s not working, ask for help
• Provide feedback on content, activities, and technology aspects of the course
• Be “model members” of the community:
  • Display netiquette such as: timely posts and replies, respect for multiple views interpretations and cultures, trust in people’s good intentions, preserve safe space and a voice for every member of the community
  • Be flexible and understand that in a text-based medium, tone is often misread. To avoid misunderstandings, consider using emoticons and abbreviations (smileys, LOL, etc.) to add emotional nuance to your words. Before reacting to someone’s post or response, try to consider it in the most positive possible light rather than trying to look for offense.
  • Question ideas, not people. When you have a different view, or think someone is mistaken, be gentle in pointing this out, and support your view with specific information and links to resources when possible.

Additional Policies:

• Personal identification: In order to create a sense of community in the virtual classroom, I ask that you update your Canvas profile with a photograph that shows your face.
• Participation: Your participation is the essence of your class experience. You must participate in the assignments and activities not only to complete your assignment, but to comment meaningfully on your peers’ work. Therefore, your comments and participation are part of your assignment grade, as shown in the rubrics. You should plan on logging in and interacting with the course material and your fellow learners at least once a week and ideally more frequently. If you do not complete the introduction assignment by the required date or if you are absent from the digital classroom (have not logged in) for longer than a week, you may be dropped from the course.
• Testing Procedures: The Unit Quizzes are all repeatable for the duration of the unit. You may take them as many times as you wish; only your highest score will be recorded. They are open-note but have a time limit.
• Assignment Submission: Many/most assignments will be turned in to discussion forums so that you can read and comment on your peers’ work. However, some assignments, such as the final portfolio, may be required to be submitted through a dropbox in the Learning Management System. Our college subscribes to Turnitin software, which conducts originality checks—your papers will be scanned for material from outside sources and will be added to the database of sources used for originality checks.
• Late work: Late activities and discussion posts are not accepted after the close of the unit—we all need to move on because there’s a lot of content we need to get through! The content quizzes for each unit automatically close at the end of the unit and cannot be retaken thereafter. Each unit has a small amount of extra credit possible—see the grade PowerPoint/video for more explanation of this.
• Extra Credit: There is no additional extra credit available beyond the small amount of points built into the grading structure of each unit—see the grade PowerPoint/Video for a more detailed explanation.
• Plagiarism: Any student who copies or paraphrases directly from a book, periodical, or website without acknowledgment and documentation (footnotes, quotation marks, etc.) will receive a lowered grade or an F (0 points) on that assignment. All quotes, facts, and ideas from others must be documented. It is crucial when presenting your ideas that you put them in your own words and cite any input from others. Appropriate citing and quoting methods will be discussed in class. If you have any questions about what constitutes plagiarism or if your work is appropriate, please come and see me before the assignment is due.
• Any student who cheats on an exam/assignment will receive a lowered grade or an F (0 points) for that exam/assignment and may be subject to disciplinary action through the college review board, which may result in suspension from the college.