Art History and Visual Culture


Faculty List
  • M. Gervers, A.B. (Princeton), M.A. (Poitiers), Ph.D. (Toronto), Professor
  • Y. Gu, M.Phil (Fudan). Ph.D. (Brown), Associate Professor
  • E. Harney, M.A. (Harvard), M.A. (Washington), Ph.D. (London), Associate Professor​
  • E. Webster, B.A., M.A. (Toronto), Ph.D. (Case Western Reserve), Associate Professor, Teaching Stream

ACM Program Manager: Email: acm-pm@utsc.utoronto.ca

Art History and Visual Culture at UTSC focuses on the global and contemporary and gives you a solid grounding in visual materials produced across time, cultures, classes, gender, and geography. You will learn to look, read, and write critically about the visual in the classroom and in real-world learning experience, such as in galleries and museums and other urban situations. You will understand how and why histories are written, how representations are formed, and how artists, critics, curators, dealers, and art historians (in other words, art world players) enter a shared discourse. The courses reveal the multiplicity of perspectives with which art may be approached, using recent methodologies that consider the works of art in the specific visual cultures of their day and in the social, political, and economic contexts in which the artists lived and worked.

For more information, please review the Art History and Visual Culture page of the ACM website.

Planning a Program in Art History and Visual Culture

Guidelines for First-Year Course Selection:

Students intending to complete a Major or Minor Program in Art History and Visual Culture should include VPHA46H3 in their first-year course selection, as it familiarizes students with the necessary historical, theoretical, and methodological foundations of the discipline of Art History specifically and Humanities more generally. Moreover, it will introduce students to the kinds of reading, research and writing skills they will be expected to develop in the program.

Students are strongly encouraged to enroll in VPHB39H3 early in their program of study and certainly by the beginning of their second year of study. This course further focuses on studies to address deeper questions in the disciplines of Art History and Visual Culture.

After completing these two foundational courses, students are encouraged to build a depth of learning in focused areas of concentration. The table below identifies the four areas of focus in Art History and Visual Culture. Students are encouraged to choose their courses from one or two of these areas.

Program Combination Restrictions in Art History and Visual Culture:

The Minor in Art History and Visual Culture cannot be combined with the Major in Art History and Visual Culture. 

Art History and Visual Culture Areas of Focus:

Creative Cities
VPHB58H3, VPHB68H3, VPHB74H3, VPHC42H3, VPHC68H3, VPHC74H3

Spectacle and Display
VPHB59H3, VPHB73H3, VPHB78H3, VPHB79H3, VPHC53H3

Dialogues with History
VPHB53H3, VPHB63H3, VPHC63H3, VPHC41H3, VPHC52H3, VPHD48H3

Constructing Identities
VPHB50H3, VPHB64H3, VPHB77H3, VPHC75H3, VPHC45H3, VPHC73H3

Experiential Learning and Outreach:

For a community-based experiential learning opportunity in your academic field of interest, consider the course CTLB03H3, which can be found in the Teaching and Learning section of the Calendar.

Art History and Visual Culture Programs

MAJOR PROGRAM IN ART HISTORY AND VISUAL CULTURE (ARTS) - SCMAJ0616

Undergraduate Advisor Email: art-history-program-supervisor@utsc.utoronto.ca

Program Requirements
This program requires the completion of 7.0 credits in Art History and Visual Culture (VPH) as follows:

1. Courses at the A-level (0.5 credit):
VPHA46H3 Ways of Seeing: Introduction to Art Histories

2. Courses at the B-level (0.5 credit):
VPHB39H3 Ten Key Words in Art History: Unpacking Methodology

3. Courses at the C-level (1.5 credits):
VPHC49H3 Advanced Studies in Art Theory
VPHC54H3 Art Writing
VPHC72H3 Art, the Museum, and the Gallery

4. Courses at the D-level (0.5 credit):
VPHD48H3 Advanced Seminar in Art History and Visual Culture

5. 4.0 additional credits in VPH courses, including:
(i) At least 1.5 credits must be in courses at the C- or D-level;
(ii) Must include diversity in the time-period and cultural geography;
(iii) Must include at least 1.0 credit dealing with periods prior to 1800;
(iv) Must include at least 1.0 credit dealing with periods after 1800; and
(v) Must include 0.5 credit dealing with the arts of Asia, Africa, or the Diaspora

Courses dealing with periods prior to 1800: VPHB53H3, VPHB63H3, VPHB64H3, VPHB74H3, VPHC41H3, VPHC42H3, VPHC53H3, VPHC63H3, (VPHD44H3)

Courses dealing with periods after 1800: VPHB58H3, VPHB59H3, VPHC45H3, VPHC68H3, VPHC73H3, (VPHD43H3), as well as (VPAC47H3) and (VPAC48H3).

Courses on the art of Africa: VPHB50H3, (VPHB65H3).

Courses on the art of Asia: VPHB73H3, VPHB77H3, VPHC74H3.

Courses in which content may vary, and which may deal with the art of any place or period: VPHB68H3, VPHB78H3, VPHB79H3, VPHC49H3, (VPHC51H3), VPHC54H3, VPHC75H3 and VPHD48H3.

MINOR PROGRAM IN ART HISTORY AND VISUAL CULTURE (ARTS) - SCMIN0616

Undergraduate Advisor Email: art-history-program-supervisor@utsc.utoronto.ca

Program Requirements
This program requires the completion of 4.0 credits in Art History and Visual Culture (VPH) as follows:

1. Courses at the A-level (0.5 credit):
VPHA46H3 Ways of Seeing: Introduction to Art Histories

2. Courses at the B-level (2.0 credits):
VPHB39H3 Ten Key Words in Art History: Unpacking Methodology
and
Additional 1.5 credits at the B-level in VPH courses

3. Courses at the C- and or D-level (1.5 credits):
1.5 credits at the C- or D-level in VPH courses

 

Art History and Visual Culture Courses

VPHA46H3 - Ways of Seeing: Introduction to Art Histories

How and why are objects defined as Art? How do these definitions vary across cultures and time periods? Studying different approaches to writing art history and considering a wide range of media from photography to printmaking and installation arts.

Exclusion: (FAH100Y), FAH101H
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language

VPHB39H3 - Ten Key Words in Art History: Unpacking Methodology

Key concepts in art history, including intention, meaning, style, materiality, identity, production, reception, gender, visuality, and history. Students will explore critical questions such as whether and how to read artist's biographies into their art. This course helps students understand the discipline and develops critical thinking and research skills required in advanced courses.

Prerequisite: VPHA46H3 or ACMA01H3
Exclusion: FAH102H
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language

VPHB50H3 - Africa Through the Photographic Lens

The centrality of photographic practice to African cultures and histories from the period of European imperialism, the rise of modernist "primitivism" and the birth of ethnology and anthropology to contemporary African artists living on the continent and abroad.

Prerequisite: VPHA46H3 or ACMA01H3 or AFSA01H3
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language

VPHB53H3 - Medieval Art

The origins of European artistic traditions in the early Christian, Mediterranean world; how these traditions were influenced by classical, Byzantine, Moslem and pagan forms; how they developed in an entirely new form of artistic expression in the high Middle Ages; and how they led on to the Renaissance.

Prerequisite: VPHA46H3
Exclusion: FAH215H, FAH216H
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language

VPHB58H3 - Modern Art and Culture

A study of nineteenth and twentieth-century arts and visual media, across genres and cultures. What did modernity mean in different cultural contexts? How is 'modern' art or 'modernism' defined? How did the dynamic cultural, economic, and socio-political shifts of the globalizing and industrializing modern world affect the visual ars and their framing?

Prerequisite: VPHA46H3
Exclusion: FAH245H, FAH246H
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language

VPHB59H3 - Current Art Practices

Shifts in theory and practice in art of the past fifty years. Studying selected artists' works from around the world, we explore how notions of modern art gave way to new ideas about media, patterns of practice, and the relations of art and artists to the public, to their institutional contexts, and to globalized cultures.

Prerequisite: VPHA46H3 or VPHB39H3
Exclusion: FAH245H, FAH246H
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language

VPHB63H3 - Fame, Spectacle and Glory: Objects of the Italian Renaissance

This course is an introduction to art and visual culture produced in Italy ca. 1350-1550. Students will explore new artistic media and techniques, along with critical issues of social, cultural, intellectual, theoretical and religious contexts that shaped the form and function of art made during this era.

Prerequisite: VPHA46H3
Exclusion: FAH230H
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language

VPHB64H3 - Baroque Visions

This course introduces the art and culture of 17th century Europe and its colonies. Art of the Baroque era offers rich opportunities for investigations of human exploration in geographic, spiritual, intellectual and political realms. We will also consider the development of the artist and new specializations in subject and media.

Prerequisite: VPHA46H3
Exclusion: FAH231H, FAH279H
Recommended Preparation: VPHB63H3 or VPHB74H3
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language

VPHB68H3 - Art and the Everyday: Mass Culture and the Visual Arts

This course explores the relationship between visuality and practices of everyday life. It looks at the interaction of the political, economic and aesthetic aspects of mass media with the realm of "fine" arts across history and cultures. We will explore notions of the public, the mass, and the simulacrum.

Prerequisite: VPHA46H3
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language
Course Experience: University-Based Experience

VPHB69H3 - Back to the Land: Restoring Embodied and Affective Ways of Knowing

In this course students will learn about sustainability thinking, its key concepts, historical development and applications to current environmental challenges. More specifically, students will gain a better understanding of the complexity of values, knowledge, and problem framings that sustainability practice engages with through a focused interdisciplinary study of land. This is a required course for the Certificate in Sustainability, a certificate available to any student at UTSC.
Same as ESTB03H3

Breadth Requirements: Social and Behavioural Sciences

VPHB73H3 - Visualizing Asia

A survey of the art of China, Japan, Korean, India, and Southeast Asia. We will examine a wide range of artistic production, including ritual objects, painting, calligraphy, architectural monuments, textile, and prints. Special attention will be given to social contexts, belief systems, and interregional exchanges.
Same as GASB73H3

Prerequisite: ACMA01H3 or VPHA46H3 or GASA01H3
Exclusion: GASB73H3, FAH260H
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language

VPHB74H3 - Not the Italian Renaissance: Art in Early Modern Europe

This course explores the rich visual culture produced in northern and central Europe 1400-1600. Topics such as the rise of print culture, religious conflict, artistic identity, contacts with other cultures and the development of the art market will be explored in conjunction with new artistic techniques, styles and materials.

Prerequisite: VPHA46H3
Exclusion: FAH230H, FAH274H
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language
Course Experience: University-Based Experience

VPHB77H3 - Modern Asian Art

An introduction to modern Asian art through domestic, regional, and international exhibitions. Students will study the multilayered new developments of art and art institutions in China, Japan, Korea, India, Thailand, and Vietnam, as well as explore key issues such as colonial modernity, translingual practices, and multiple modernism.
Same as GASB77H3

Prerequisite: ACMA01H3 or VPHA46H3 or GASA01H3
Exclusion: GASB77H3, FAH262H
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language

VPHB78H3 - Our Town, Our Art: Local Collections I

Local arts institutions are often taken for granted but understanding how and why collections are formed, why they are significant, and how they relate to larger art historical contexts provides important object-based learning opportunities. Students will explore these issues using a focused collection in the Royal Ontario Museum, the Aga Khan Museum or the Textile Museum.

Prerequisite: VPHA46H3
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language
Course Experience: Partnership-Based Experience

VPHB79H3 - Our Town, Our Art: Local Collections II

Local arts institutions are often taken for granted but understanding how and why collections are formed, why they are significant, and how they relate to larger art historical contexts provides important object-based learning opportunities. Students will explore these using a focused collection in the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Prerequisite: VPHA46H3
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language
Course Experience: Partnership-Based Experience
Note: Some classes will be held at the museum; students should be prepared to travel.

VPHC41H3 - Carolingian and Romanesque Art

Major artistic and architectural monuments of Europe from the Carolingian renaissance to the renaissance of the twelfth century, considered in relation to geographical context, to monasticism and pilgrimage, to artistic developments of the contemporary Mediterranean world, and to the art and architecture of the later Roman Empire, Byzantium and Armenia, Islam and the art of the invasion period.

Prerequisite: VPHB53H3
Exclusion: (VPHB42H3), FAH215H
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language

VPHC42H3 - Gothic Art and Architecture

Current scholarship is expanding and challenging how we decide "what is Gothic?" We will examine a variety of artworks, considering artistic culture, social, cultural, and physical contexts as well. Style, techniques, patronage, location in time and space, and importance of decoration (sculpture, stained glass, painting, tapestry) will be among topics discussed.

Prerequisite: VPHB53H3
Exclusion: FAH328H, FAH351H5, (FAH369H)
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language
Course Experience: University-Based Experience

VPHC45H3 - Seminar in Modern and Contemporary Art

Special topics in twentieth-century painting and sculpture. The subject will change from time to time. After introductory sessions outlining the subject and ways of getting information about it, seminar members will research and present topics of their choice.

Prerequisite: 1.0 credit at the VPHB-level
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language

VPHC49H3 - Advanced Studies in Art Theory

The class will read selected recent cultural theory and art theory and consider its implications for a variety of works of art, and will investigate selected exhibition critiques and the critical discourse surrounding the oeuvres of individual artists.

Prerequisite: VPHA46H3 and VPHB39H3
Corequisite: 1.0 credit at the B-level in VPH and/or VPS courses
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language

VPHC52H3 - Ethiopia: Seeing History

This course uses a focus on material history and visual culture to explore Ethiopia from the fourth through the nineteenth century, with particular emphasis on the Christian Church, the monarchy, links with both the Mediterranean world and the Indian subcontinent, and the relationship of individuals to their social, economic, artistic and geographic environments.
Same as AFSC52H3 and HISC52H3

Prerequisite: [1.0 credit in History] or [VPHA46H3 and an additional 1.0 credit in VPH courses]
Exclusion: AFSC52H3, HISC52H3
Breadth Requirements: History, Philosophy and Cultural Studies

VPHC53H3 - The Silk Routes

The Silk Routes were a lacing of highways connecting Central, South and East Asia and Europe. Utilizing the Royal Ontario Museum's collections, classes held at the Museum and U of T Scarborough will focus on the art produced along the Silk Routes in 7th to 9th century Afghanistan, India, China and the Taklamakhan regions.
Same as GASC53H3

Prerequisite: 1.0 credit in art history or in Asian or medieval European history.
Exclusion: GASC53H3
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language
Course Experience: University-Based Experience

VPHC54H3 - Art Writing

Art criticism as a complex set of practices performed not only by critics, art historians, curators and the like, but also by artists (and collectors). The traditional role of art critics in the shaping of an art world, and the parallel roles played by other forms of writing about art and culture (from anthropology, sociology, film studies).

Prerequisite: 2.0 credits at the B-level in VPA, VPH, and/or VPS courses.
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language

VPHC63H3 - Explorations in Early Modern Art

This seminar-format course will offer students the opportunity to investigate critical theories and methodologies of the early modern period (roughly 1400-1700). Focusing on such topics as a single artist, artwork or theme, students will become immersed in an interdisciplinary study that draws on impressive local materials from public museum and library collections.

Prerequisite: VPHA46H3 and [one of VPHB63H3 or VPHB64H3 or VPHB74H3].
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language
Course Experience: University-Based Experience

VPHC68H3 - Art in Global Cities

This course looks at the global city as a hub for the creation of visual, performing arts and architecture. How have cyberspace and increased transnational flows of art and artists changed the dynamic surrounding urban arts? What are the differences between the arts within the modern and global contemporary city?

Prerequisite: VPHB58H3 or VPHB59H3
Exclusion: (VPHC52H3)
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language

VPHC72H3 - Art and Visual Culture in Spaces, Places, and Institutions

Art and the settings in which it is seen in cities today. Some mandatory classes to be held in Toronto museums and galleries, giving direct insight into current exhibition practices and their effects on viewer's experiences of art; students must be prepared to attend these classes.

Prerequisite: VPHA46H3, and VPHB39H3
Exclusion: (CRTC72H3)
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language
Course Experience: Partnership-Based Experience

VPHC73H3 - Home, Away, and In Between: Diaspora and Visual Culture

This course considers representations of diaspora, migration, displacement, and placemaking within visual culture. We will employ a comparative, cross-cultural approach and a historical perspective, to consider how artists, theorists, media, and social institutions think about and visualize these widely-held experiences that increasingly characterize our cosmopolitan, interconnected world.

Prerequisite: 1.0 credits at VPHB-level
Exclusion: (VPAB09H3)
Breadth Requirements: Social and Behavioural Sciences

VPHC74H3 - A Tale of Three Cities: Introduction to Contemporary Art in China

An introduction to Chinese contemporary art focusing on three cities: Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Increasing globalization and China's persistent self-renovation has brought radical changes to cities, a subject of fascination for contemporary artists. The art works will be analyzed in relation to critical issues such as globalization and urban change.
Same as GASC74H3

Prerequisite: 2.0 credits at the B-level in Art History, Asian History, and/or Global Asia Studies courses, including at least 0.5 credit from the following: VPHB39H3, VPHB73H3, HISB58H3, (GASB31H3), GASB33H3, or (GASB35H3).
Exclusion: GASC74H3
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language

VPHC75H3 - The Artist, Maker, Creator

This course focuses on the ideas, career and œuvre of a single artist. Exploration and comparison of works across and within the context of the artist’s output provides substantial opportunities for deeper levels of interpretation, understanding and assessment. Students will utilize and develop research skills and critical methodologies appropriate to biographical investigation.

Prerequisite: VPHB39H3 and [an additional 1.0 credit at the B-level in Art History, Studio Art or Arts Management courses]
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language

VPHD42Y3 - Supervised Reading in Art History

A course offering the opportunity for advanced investigation of an area of interest; for students who are nearing completion of art history programs and who have already acquired independent research skills. Students must locate a willing supervisor and topics must be identified and approved by the end of the previous term.

Prerequisite: 1.0 credit at the C-level in art history. Students are advised that they must obtain consent from the supervising instructor before registering for these courses.
Course Experience: University-Based Experience

VPHD48H3 - Advanced Seminar in Art History and Visual Culture

What is art history and visual culture? What do we know, and need to know, about how we study the visual world? This capstone course for senior students will examine the ambiguities, challenges, methods and theories of the discipline. Students will practice methodological and theoretical tenets, and follow independent research agendas.

Prerequisite: 1.5 credits at the C-level in VPH courses
Exclusion: FAH470H
Breadth Requirements: Arts, Literature and Language
Course Experience: University-Based Experience
Note: Priority will be given to students in the Major and Minor in Art History and Visual Culture. Additional students will be admitted as space permits.

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