SANTA MARGARITA CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL
VISUAL ARTS DEPARTMENT
2009-2010
Course: AP Art History
Scheduling: Period 5, room B-206
Instructor: Ms. Tessa Fleming, M.A.
Phone: 949-766-6000 ext. 4066
Email: flemingt@smhs.org
Office Hours: Thurs.,7:00-7:30am in B-218 or by appointment
Website: SMHS Homepage>Faculty/Staff Directory>Ms. Tessa Fleming
Course Description
Surveying nearly twenty-five thousand years of the artistic tradition, from the ancient world to the twentyfirst century, AP Art History is a rigorous and rewarding college-level course. Adopting an interdisciplinary
approach, art history will be presented as a synthesis of visual art and history, emphasizing not only formal
aesthetic qualities of a work of art but also its historical context. Painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture,
and photography of both the Western and non-Western canons will be explored in terms of style, meaning,
and socioeconomic context with special attention to gender, function, and patronage. Practicing visual
analysis through “directed looking,” students will be introduced to the basic methodology and vocabulary of
art historians while gaining an understanding and appreciation of the visual arts.
AP Art History course is designed to prepare students for the AP exam in May. The following tables show
the percentage of the AP Exam devoted to each content area; the class will reflect these same divisions.
Architecture
25%
Sculpture
25%
Painting & Drawing 40-50%
Other media
5-10%
ANCIENT THROUGH MEDIEVAL (WESTERN TRADITION)
Greece & Rome
Early Christian, Byzantine, & Early Medieval
Romanesque
Gothic
RENAISSANCE TO PRESENT (WESTERN TRADITION)
14th through 16th Centuries
17th & 18th Centuries
19th Century
20th & 21st Centuries
ART BEYOND THE WESTERN TRADITION
Includes Africa, the Americas, Ancient Near East, China,
Egypt, Islamic tradition, India, Japan, & Oceania
30%
10-15%
5-10%
3-7%
7-10%
50%
12-17%
10-15%
10-15%
10-15%
20%
AP ART HISTORY
SYLLABUS
T. FLEMING
AP Art History Exam Content Changes for 2010
 Prehistoric art will not be included nor accepted as an appropriate example in the 30-minute essay
 Emphasis on using examples from Non-Western Cultures other than Egypt and the Ancient Near
East, student should instead draw from Africa, the Americas, Asia, Islamic cultures and Oceania.
 Printed inserts (in color) will replace slides.
 Order of Free-Response essays—questions 1 and 2 will be 30-minute essay questions.
Course Objectives
Students will master the following concepts/skills
1. master the vocabulary and methodology of art historians including:
a. Visual Analysis (formalism and iconography)
b. Contextual Analysis
c. Provenance/Patronage Study
d. Identification/Authentication
e. Theory/Criticism
2. ability to identify specific historical encounters (military, political, and cultural) between the West
and India, Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Middle East, establishing a pattern of interaction and
mutual influence.
3. explore the establishment of an artistic canon, and the creation of a national self-image through
visual culture.
4. critically engage with works of art, demonstrating an ability to use both primary and secondary
source material to form and prove a hypothesis.
Detailed Course Outline
I.
Introduction of Art History: subjects and vocabulary
II. The Ancient Near East
a. Sumerian Art
b. Akkadian Art
c. Babylonian Art
d. Assyrian Art
e. Neo-Babylonian Art
f. Achaemenid Persian Art
III. Egypt
a. Pre-dynastic and Early Dynastic Periods
b. The Old Kingdom
c. The New Kingdom
IV. The Aegean
a. Cycladic
b. Minoan
c. Mycenaean
V. Greece
a. Geometric and Archaic
b. Early and High Classical
c. Late Classical
d. Hellenistic
VI. Etruscans
AP ART HISTORY
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
SYLLABUS
Rome
a. Republic
b. Pompeii and Vesuvius
c. Early Empire and Flavian Dynasty
d. High Empire
e. Late Empire
Early Christianity and Byzantium (including iconoclasm)
Islam
Early Middle Ages
a. Warrior Lords
b. Hiberno-Saxon
c. Carolingian
d. Ottonian
Romanesque
Gothic
a. France
i. Early
ii. High and Rayonnant Style
iii. Late and Flamboyant Style Gothic
b. Italy and Germany
c. England
i. Decorated style
ii. Perpendicular style
Fifteenth-Century Renaissance
a. Flanders and Germany
b. France
c. Italy: Florence
d. The Princely Courts
Sixteenth-Century Renaissance
a. Italy
b. Mannerism
c. Holy Roman Empire
d. France and Spain
Baroque Europe
a. Italy
b. Spain
c. Flanders and the Dutch Republic
d. France and England
Europe and America, 1750-1850
a. Rococo
b. Enlightenment, “Natural” and Grand Manner
c. Neoclassicism
d. Romanticism
e. Mid-19th-century Architecture
f. Photography
Art Beyond the European Tradition
a. South Asia
T. FLEMING
AP ART HISTORY
XVIII.
XIX.
XX.
SYLLABUS
b. Japan
c. China
d. Africa
e. The Americas and Oceana
Europe and America, 1850-1900
a. Realism
i. The Barbizon School and Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
b. Impressionism
c. Post-Impressionism and late 19th-century styles
i. Aestheticism
ii. Symbolism
iii. Fin de Siècle
Europe and America, 1900-1945
a. Fauvism
b. German Expressionism
i. Die Brücke
ii. Der Blaue Reiter
c. Cubism
i. Analytic
ii. Synthetic
d. Futurism
e. Dada and Surrealism
f. The Armory Show and its Legacy
g. Neue Sachlichkeit
h. Surrealism
i. Suprematism, Constructivism, and De Stijl
j. Architecture
i. The Bauhaus
ii. International Style
iii. “Natural” or Organic (FLW)
k. Political and Social Commentary
i. WPA and FAP
ii. Social Realism and Regionalism
iii. Mexican Muralists
Europe and America After World War II
a. Post-war Expressionism
b. Abstract Expressionism
i. Greenbergian Formalism and the New York School
ii. Gestural abstraction versus Chromatic abstraction
c. Post-Painterly Abstraction and Color-Field
d. Minimalism, Performance, and Conceptual Art
e. Pop Art
f. Photorealism/Superrealism
g. Environmental Art
h. Architecture
i. Modern
ii. Postmodern and deconstruction
T. FLEMING
AP ART HISTORY
i.
SYLLABUS
Postmodern Painting, sculpture and photography
i. Neo-Expressionism
ii. Political and Feminist Art
iii. New Media
T. FLEMING