Foundation Courses

The Foundation Program provides a unified and dynamic experience designed to build a durable framework for all areas of study in Visual Arts. This program is founded upon intensive lecture, studio, and lab investigation of techniques, methods, and concepts.

The curriculum broadens and expands a student’s formal creative design vocabulary, while introducing new ways of thinking about images, time, space, and audience. This program encourages students to think analytically and to use their imagination to develop an awareness of the role of artists in our culture.

Students with a studio major in Visual Arts are required to take the following courses regardless of their concentration:

ART 210
Visual Concepts I: Two Dimensions[3]
Visual Concepts I introduces the art major to basic design principles, various perception and notation techniques, personal narrative, expression and time. Other issues covered include symmetry and asymmetry, formal and informal organization, proportion, perspective, dimensions in space, visualization, imagination, illusion, rhythm, typography, narrative (linear/non-linear), drawing, painting, collage and text/image relationships.

ART 211
Visual Concepts II: Camera Vision [3]
Visual Concepts II introduces the visual art major to creating still images via a camera. Formal and technical issues connected to camera operation, two-dimensional design, lighting, framing and introduction to the chemistry of photography are covered. Emphasis will be placed on developing a vocabulary for talking about images and on the ability to think critically about images. This course also will serve as introduction to using the computer as a tool for manipulating images.

ART 212
Visual Concepts III: Three-dimensional Form, Space and Interaction[3]
Visual Concepts III introduces the visual art major to compositional issues as they relate to real, recorded and virtual space. Basic concepts of three dimensional design, lighting and fabrication are covered, as are navigation and interaction design principles. The body in space is addressed in the context of installation, architecture and site-specific practices.
Prerequisite: ART 210 and 211.

ART 213
Visual Concepts IV: Time-based Media[3]
Visual Concepts IV will introduce the visual art major to time-based media and will focus on the relationship of image and sound in timebased media production. Students will study how sequencing and juxtaposition work in relation to narrative and non-narrative animation, video, and film. Prerequisite: ART 210 and 211.

ART 214
Drawing I: Beginning Drawing[3]
Drawing I will introduce the visual art major to the visual vocabulary of drawing. Through materials and processes, drawing will be explored as a means of visual thinking, a way to depict what we see and visualize what we think, and a method of communicating ideas. Technical skills will be applied to an exploration of representation and visual invention, including figurative imagery. There are no prerequisites for this course. However, it is recommended that students take ART 210 either previously or concurrently.

ART 215
Introduction to Art and Media [3]
Introduction to Art and Media Studies will introduce the visual art major to the conceptual and historical commonalities shared among photography, film, video, computer and other visual arts. Artists working in these interdisciplinary forms will be viewed and discussed.

ART 216
Studies in Visual Culture (Prehistory through the 1750s) [3]
This course engages students in a focused study of six or seven specific, momentous periods in the history of world art dating from prehistory to the mid-eighteenth century. The selection of topics will be determined by the particular organizing principle adopted by the course instructor. For example, the organizing principle could be that of medium (architecture, painting, sculpture, decorative arts); of belief systems (religion, philosophy); of patronage; or of prevailing technological inventions and discoveries. By studying selected moments in the history of world art in some depth, students will gain an awareness of how art objects and visual culture both shape and represent societies and their histories.
OR substitute ART 220 AND ART 221

PLUS Select two of the following:

ART 318
Visual Culture of City and Cinema in South Asia [3]
South Asian cities are loci of culture, commerce, religion, politics, crime and poverty. This course studies urbanism in contemporary South Asia from two perspectives: through the influential lens of Indian entertainment or ‘Bollywood’ cinema and through an examination of visual cultural forms, derived from the cinema, that pervade urban public spaces in South Asia. Examples include street murals, commercial signage, haute couture, wedding festivities and even the addition of new deities to the Hindu pantheon.
Prerequisite: ART216 or ASIA100

ART 319
Space and Place in Public Art and Urbanism [3]
This course studies the production and reception of public art. Through case studies, encompassing a range of public art forms, from ephemeral actions to monumental sculpture, we examine the spatial, social and political impact of public art in urban locations. Investigations of public art are conducted through reviewing theories of space and place as well as through practical experience, whereby teams of students collaborate with Baltimore community leaders to propose and execute public art projects.
Prerequisite: ART216 or ENTR200 or ENTR201

ART 321
From the Enlightenment to the Birth of Modernism (1750-1880) [3]
A study of the visual arts from the Enlightenment era (1750) to the advent of modernism (1880), with an emphasis on the changing social and aesthetic conditions that influenced later art forms. From the Enlightenment to the French Revolution to the impact of photography, the period gave rise to revolution and innovation. Art reflected and responded to these conditions with its own radical shifts in style and content from neo-classicism and romanticism to realism and impressionism. This course will explore how the developments of the 18th and19th centuries laid the foundation for modernism.
Prerequisite: ART 216 or ART 221 or permission of the instructor

ART 323
Modernism in Europe and the U.S. (1880-1960) [3]
A survey of turning points in the development of modernism in the visual arts beginning with European movements in the late nineteenth century (e.g. impressionism and post impressionism) and continuing to artistic movements of the first half of the twentieth century (e.g. cubism, German expressionism, Italian futurism, Russian constructivism, dada and surrealism). The course closes with key developments in American modernism (e.g. the Armory show, the Harlem renaissance, social realism, abstract expressionism) including a brief glimpse at pop art. All art historical developments will be considered in their specific sociopolitical and economic contexts.
Note: This course is designated as a gateway course for students concentrating in art history and museum studies and must be passed with a grade of “B” or better.
Prerequisite: ART 216 or ART 221 or permission of the instructor

ART 328
Postmodernism (1960 – present) [3]
The period from the 1960s onwards witnessed the almost simultaneous challenge to Modernism in a host of movements in the USA, Europe and, increasingly, around the world. This new phase in art, that some art historians termed Postmodernism, opened up the boundaries of the art world as never before to new practitioners, new media and new centers of contemporary art practice, while the term itself became the subject of great debate. The course will end with a survey of current developments in art of the twenty-first century. All art historical developments will be considered in their specific sociopolitical and economic contexts.
Prerequisite: ART 216 or ART 221 or permission of the instructor

ART 329
Topics in Art History and Visual Culture [3]
The topic of this course will be concerned with major currents and stylistic directions in the history of art and media in the nineteenth through the twenty-first centuries. In some instances the course content will focus on a specific art historical period or movement; others will trace a prominent theme through several periods. The topic of the course will change depending on the expertise of the instructor teaching the course.
Note: Repeatable for a total of 6 credits.
Prerequisite: ART 216 or ART 221

ART 349
Black, Queer, and Feminist Film [3]
This course examines prominent themes in films that fall within the categories “Black,” “Queer,” and “Feminist”. Most of the films are narrative, dealing with issues involving race, gender, and sexuality. This course is not just about watching films. It makes extensive use of critical historical and theoretical texts from the disciplines of psychoanalysis, feminism, literary and queer theory, as well as from film history, art history, and critical theories of race, gender, and sexuality. Prior knowledge of film-making and/or film history/theory is not required.
Prerequisite: ART216 or ART221