ARHI 6002

Greek and Roman Painting

Abbe | CRN 73729 | Tuesdays and Thursdays 1:15-2:35pm

This course offers a critical introduction to the celebrated art of painting in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, with an emphasis on new finds and research from the late fourth century BCE (the Macedonia tombs) to the third century CE (the final Roman mummy portraits). Important historical, stylistic, and material developments will be reexamined and assessed with an emphasis on the materials, techniques, and practices of both panel and mural painting.

Close readings of Pliny’s Natural History and increased cultural and philosophical understandings of the intersections between art, materials, and natural matter allow us to reframe the often-assumed aesthetic priorities of Greek and Roman viewers. We will examine the display of “collections” of painting in civic, domestic, and funerary contexts. The ancient appreciation of painting as a material crafted object will be emphasized to explore the diverse surface effects of different materials and how artistic processes and the individual hand were made visibly manifest and “legible” to contemporary eyes. Students will be encouraged to creatively engage the diverse methodologies used in the most recent scholarship in handling and questioning different forms of textual and archaeological evidence.

ARHI 6900

Topics in Ancient and Medieval Art — MEDIEVAL MAGIC

Caitlin Mims / cem76861@uga.edu | CRN 74143 | Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:55-4:15pm

This seminar will explore the medieval understanding of magic and the disparate ways it was defined and practiced by different cultures and people. We will examine the vast material evidence of magical practice, including, but not limited to amulets and magical gemstones, grimoires, and illustrations of magicians and witches. To contextualize these objects, we will read a range of sources dealing with the themes of magic, science, and medicine. We will think about topics including the rationality of magic, the role of healing miracles, the fine line between magic and the university sciences, and the persecution of witches.

(Image: London, British Library, MS Yates Thompson 28, f. 51r, Florence, 1425).

ARHI 7770

Special Topics in Teaching

Andrew | CRN 73987

ARHI 8580

Seminar in Early Modern Art – THE SCALE OF ART

Lee | CRN 73730 | Mondays 2:55–5:35

In art history, “scale” refers to the relationship between the size of an object depicted in a work of art and its expected real-life size. How large or small an object appears can feel personal and variable, since our sense of size is shaped by experience, familiarity, and curiosity. Art historians use this concept to examine how a work of art engages its viewers, emphasizing the size and physical presence of the objects represented. This seminar considers how scale becomes a problem for both artists and viewers in recalibrating their perceptions of the world through art. Readings will include major contributions by Michael Fried, T. J. Clark, Susan Stewart, Jennifer Roberts, David Summers, Joan Kee, Emanuele Lugli, and Andrew Hamilton. We will also discuss how artworks, particularly miniature and monumental works, can be displayed and interpreted in museum settings. For the final project, students will write a research paper on a work from early modern European or colonial Latin American art that addresses an issue of scale.

ARHI 8950

Seminar in Contemporary Art

Wallace | CRN 63949 | Wednesdays 2:55–5:35

Designed to elucidate dominant trends in art since 1990, this course asks that students come to terms with several new bodies of work, while engaging interpretive strategies that are both compelling and sophisticated. Because this class is grounded in the conviction that interpretation is a teachable, refinable skill, each week serves as an occasion to analyze, defend, and critique artworks grouped together because of their shared engagement with specific themes, questions, or media.

Studio Art Courses

ARST 6315 – Introduction to Book Arts

Wallace | CRN 53462 | Mondays and Wednesdays 11:35am-2:15pm, Main Art Building S165

ARST 6325 – Introduction to Book Arts: Papermaking

Wallace | CRN 71290 | Tuesdays and Thursdays 11:35am-2:15pm, Main Art Building S165

ARST 6345 – Advanced Print Studio

Harshman |CRN 53463 | Tuesdays and Thursdays 11:35am-2:15pm, Main Art Building S265

ARST 6370 – Advanced Book Studio

Wallace | CRN 57029 | Tuesdays and Thursdays 8:35-11:15am, Main Art Building S165

ARST 6500 – Advanced Ceramics

Isys Hennigar (TBC) | CRN 53333 | Tuesdays and Thursdays 8:35-11:15am, Ceramics 109

ARST 7110 – Painting

Britton | CRN 61497 | Mondays and Wednesdays 11:35am-2:15pm, Main Art Building S350

ARST 7630 – Jewelry & Metalwork

Pearse | CRN 49489 | Tuesdays and Thursdays 11:35am-2:15pm, Thomas Street Art Complex 121

Thematic Inquiry Courses

ARST 6915 – Thematic Inquiry in Contemporary Art: Geographies of Walking: Interdisciplinary Mapping, Storytelling, and Drawing

Enos | CRN 40580 | Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:55-5:35pm, Thomas Street Art Complex 202

This advanced thematic inquiry explores walking as a critical, aesthetic, and spatial practice for traversing disciplinary boundaries across art, design, environmental geography, and urbanism. Anchored in the expanded fields of ambulatory art and design studies, this course invites students to engage with the terrain of the everyday through walking, drawing, and notational systems— treating the act of moving through space as a form of inquiry, performance, and mapping.

Taking inspiration from the practices of Richard Long, the dérives of Guy Debord and the Situationists, the embodied mappings of Garnette Cadogan, the cultural-geographical narratives of Rebecca Solnit, and the participatory tools of the Stalker Collective / Osservatorio Nomade, this course proposes walking not merely as transport but as a method of engagement with place, time, and perception. Through critical readings, fieldwork, and studio-based investigations, students will explore walking as a method to enter spatial politics, where one’s subjectivity is open to being changed, where making sense is a precarious and embodied encounter activated only through dialogue and unsettling contact.

Under this paradigmatic openness, we will together build new forms of spatial storytelling, critical cartography, and environmental awareness. Key investigations include alternative visualization strategies that emphasize subjectivity, affect, and temporality, approaching space not as a fixed container but as a lived, contested, and continually rewritten field of experiences—shaped by tensions between ephemerality and fixity across vast social and conceptual distances.

*w/Visiting Artist Garnette Cadogan and MFA Alumnus Annie Simpson

ARST 6915 – Thematic Inquiry in Contemporary Art: The Immersion Lab: Live, Embodied & Playable Experiences

Smith | CRN 57907 | Mondays and Wednesdays 2:55-5:35pm, Main Art Building S279/S285

Exploring immersion across bodies, spaces, and stories 

“It’s so immersive.” Everyone says it; everyone means something different. What do we actually mean?

This studio makes immersion concrete by treating real-time, liveness, and presence as our raw materials. We range from being “immersed” in environments (forests, water, built sites) to being absorbed inside a story, game, or performance. Through movement labs and light fieldwork, we explore spatial storytelling and playable media such as XR (extended reality), LARP, 360 video, binaural audio, and location-based work. This project-based course applies practical methods for worldbuilding and experience design (including the magic circle), moving through prototyping and playtesting toward a collaborative final project, and a brief survey of immersive art’s lineage from ritual and cave paintings to “happenings” and XR.

ARST 6915 – Thematic Inquiry in Contemporary Art: Dreams and the Subconscious in Studio Art

Cogan | CRN | Mondays and Wednesdays 11:35am-2:15PM

This course will explore dreams as material for art making. Students will expand awareness of the subconscious and other techniques beyond ordinary thought processes. All disciplines of art are welcome and encouraged in this course in order to achieve a diverse atmosphere of creativity.
Through the history of dream-based art, from ancient cultures to artificial intelligence, the course will develop the capacity to tap into the artist’s deepest levels of expression from within.
This course is project-based and will be supported by guidance, discussion, experiments and presentation. It is suggested that students approach the course with an open mind and a willingness to explore unchartered territory within their own artistic practices.
We will also research ways in which authenticity, elements of chance, spontaneity, and contemporary existence influence the creation of artworks. The course will provide clear direction and strategies for students wishing to take their work in new directions.

ARST6915/6420 – Thematic Inquiry in Contemporary Art: Making Puppets for Puppetry

van Wagtendonk | Undergrad CRN | Grad CRN
In this Maymester course, we’ll dive into the playful and imaginative world of puppet making. Together, we’ll explore how character, movement, and craft come together to create something that feels alive.

We’ll start by building a simple hand puppet—à la Kermit the Frog—with a mouth that comes to life through the movement of your hand. From there, each puppet will grow its own personality as we experiment with materials, techniques, and storytelling.

A field trip to the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta is also part of our adventure. There, we’ll meet the world’s largest collection of Jim Henson puppets and travel through the history of puppetry across cultures and continents.

Directed Study: Art, Ecology, and Southern Identity: A Field Study in Coastal Georgia

Peragine

This semester-long course explores the intersection of art, ecology, and Southern history, culminating in an immersive field experience at Wormsloe State Historic Site and coastal Georgia during Spring Break (March 8–13). With Wormsloe as our base, students will engage in a range of place-based investigations—from nature walks and archive visits to ecological excursions and artist dialogues. Through a combination of class meetings, fieldwork, and independent studio practice, students will develop a body of work that reflects their engagement with the region’s landscapes, histories, and environmental narratives.

This program is part of a Spring semester course focused on the connections between art, ecology, and Southern history. There will bi-weekly meetings to explore aspects of the trip. These will take place on Friday mornings. The heart of the course is a weeklong immersive experience during Spring Break (March 8–13), featuring on-site research, plein air work, museum visits, and conversations with artists and scientists. There will be an opportunity to exhibit work both at the Dodd and at the Wormsloe Visitor’s Center at the end of the trip.

Sample Spring Break Itinerary Highlights:

• March 8 – Depart for Savannah, orientation walk & fieldwork
• March 9 – Tour Historic Site, Natural dye workshop, connect with Wormsloe Intitue of Bat Ecology
• March 10 – Telfair Museum, SCAD Museum & artist studio visits
• March 11 – Visit Marine Institute on Sapelo Island
• March 12 – Studio time, reflection, and site-based practice. Visit opening reception at the Telfair Museum
• March 13 – Morning fieldwork and debrief, return to Athens after lunch

Covered Costs:

• Transportation
• Lodging
• Museum Entry Fees
• Sapelo Ferry

What You’ll Cover:

• Food
• Personal art supplies