Scope and Sequence for AP Art History
Course Description:
The AP Art History course explores such topics as the nature of art, its uses, its
meanings, art making, and responses to art. Though investigation of diverse
artistic traditions of cultures from prehistory to the present, the course fosters indepth and holistic understanding of the history of art from a global perspective.
Students learn and apply skills of visual, contextual, and comparative analysis to
engage with a variety of art forms, constructing understanding of individual works
and interconnections of art-making processes and products throughout history.
AP Art History Course Content:
Functions and effects of art are the focus of the AP Art History course. Students
consider influential forces like patronage, politics, class, belief, gender and ethnicity
in their analysis of art forms. They examine styles, techniques, themes, and
chronology, comparing and contrasting art forms from varied perspectives.
Students explore a specific set of 250 works of art in 12 content areas beginning
with art from global prehistory and ending with global works from the present.
Course Planning and Pacing by Content Areas (Units):
Unit 1: In the Beginning . . . Prehistoric Art
Unit 2: The Most Ancient of Us All: The Near East and Egypt
Unit 3: The Classical Era: The Ideal Through the Eyes of the Greeks and Romans
Unit 4: Faith Around the World, and How it Inspires the Arts
Unit 5: Art of South and East Asia: New Forms for Traditional Ideas
Unit 6: Medieval Europe
Unit 7: African Art: Coming of Age
Unit 8: Renaissance and Baroque Europe
Unit 9: Oceanic Art: Art over the Great Expanse
Unit 10: Art of the Americas: Pre-and Post-Contact
Unit 11: The 19th and 20th Centuries
Unit 12: Contemporary Art: Looking Ahead/Looking Back/Looking All Around
Big Ideas Essential Questions and Learning Objectives:
Within each content area, students explore essential contextual information about
regions, cultures, and time periods. Students have options for focused, intensive
learning about artworks, themes and cultures they select as personally relevant and
meaningful.
As students study works of art in the image set, they apply essential art historical
skills within the learning objectives, such as visual, contextual, and comparative
analysis. The following are big ideas, essential questions and learning objectives of
the AP Art History course.
Big Idea 1: Artists manipulate materials and ideas to create an aesthetic object,
act or event.
Essential Question: What is art and how is it made?
Learning Objectives:
1.1: Students differential the components of form, function, content, and/or context
of a work of art.
1.2: Students explain how artistic decisions about art making shape a work of art.
1.3: Students describe how context influences artistic decisions about creating a
work of art.
1.4: Students analyze form, function, content, and/or context to infer or explain the
possible intentions for creating a specific work of art.
Big Idea 2: Art making is shaped by tradition and change.
Essential Question: Why and how does art change?
Learning Objectives:
2.1: Students describe features of tradition and/or change in a single work of art
or in a group of related works.
2.2: Students explain how and why specific traditions and/or changes are
demonstrated in a single work or a group of related works.
2.3: Students analyze the influence of a single work of art or group of related
works on other artistic production.
Big Idea 3: Interpretations of art are variable.
Essential Question: How do we describe our thinking about art?
Learning Objectives:
3.1: Students identify a work of art.
3.2: Students analyze how formal qualities and/or content of a work of art elicit(s)
a response.
3.3: Students analyze how contextual variables lead to different interpretations of
a work of art.
3.4: Students justify attribution of an unknown work of art.
3.5: Students analyze relationships between works of art based on their similarities
and differences.
Themes and Subthemes
Themes: Natural World, Individual and Society, Human Body,Knowledge and
Belief
Subthemes: Conflict/Harmony, Life Cycles, Converging Cultures, Inner Visions,
Display,
Private/Public,Domestic Life, Text and Images, History/Memory,
Performances (includes ritual and ceremony), Identity (includes race, gender, class,
status and ethnicity), Urban Experience, Power
Materials:
Textbook Gardner’s Art Through the Ages A Concise Global History by Fred S.
Kleiner Third edition. 2013 Thomson Wadsworth Publishing Company
Tablet PC
Smarthistory from Kahn Academy
Barron’s AP Art History 2015 edition by John Nici (suggested not required)
Evaluation
Assignments will be graded on a point system.
will account for 70% of your grade
Tests, critiques and presentations
Quizzes, note card checks and homework assignments will account for 30% of your
grade.
The First Semester Exam will account for 20% of the 70% Tests and Major Projects
Grade.
Students who take the AP Exam are exempt from a Final Exam. Those
students who do not take the exam will be given a Final Exam, and it will account
for 20% of the 70% Tests and Major Projects Grade.
Field Trip
In late March or early April we will visit the Cincinnati Art Museum. It has a
wonderful collection, and will be an excellent review of the periods of art we have
studied. Be advised that students who have excessive absences and are on
“doctor’s note only” or “no makeup work allowed” status will not be allowed to
participate in our field trip.