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ARTH 57 Z — How to Look at Art and Why

Quarter: Winter
Instructor(s): Alexander Nemerov
Duration: 10 weeks
Location: Online
Date(s): Jan 16—Mar 20
Class Recording Available: Yes
Class Meeting Day: Thursdays
Grade Restriction: No letter grade
Class Meeting Time: 5:30—7:20 pm (PT)
Tuition: $550
   
Refund Deadline: Jan 18
 
Unit(s): 2
   
Status: Registration opens Dec 2 8:30 am (PT)
 
Quarter: Winter
Day: Thursdays
Duration: 10 weeks
Time: 5:30—7:20 pm (PT)
Date(s): Jan 16—Mar 20
Unit(s): 2
Location: Online
 
Tuition: $550
 
Refund Deadline: Jan 18
 
Instructor(s): Alexander Nemerov
 
Grade Restriction: No letter grade
 
Recording Available: Yes
 
Status: Registration opens Dec 2 8:30 am (PT)
 
The old paintings in museums can seem distant from us—the stuff of polite interest, perhaps real curiosity, but nothing more. How can we open ourselves up to being transformed by art, encountering it in a more meaningful way? Focusing on prominent paintings of the Renaissance, Baroque, and Romantic periods, this course places an emphasis on the great human themes—love, joy, sadness—inherent in the art. Releasing these themes requires as much from us as from the art itself. Learning how to look at art, we will more fundamentally consider why we do so. Only then will great paintings by artists such as Masaccio, Titian, Tintoretto, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Poussin, La Tour, and Vermeer open themselves to us.

This all-new iteration of “How to Look at Art and Why” is a version of the popular course Alexander Nemerov has taught to undergraduates at Yale and Stanford since 2007 and a follow-up to his 2023 Continuing Studies course. Told in 10 lectures or “chapters,” the course will unfold like a book, focusing on such themes as being called by art and creating a mental chapel of the works that move us. Such study entails a vulnerability, not least from the professor himself, about what works of art may offer us. The course holds that paintings are occasions for us to pause, to attend both to them and to ourselves. Different from self-help, the course will delve deeply into the supposedly irrelevant past to affirm ourselves in a drastic emptying of ego. Art history is the course’s path but not its goal. The goal is to live a life closer to moments of emotional truth.

For students who have previously taken the course, the structure is the same but the content is new. Past students are encouraged to join. Students can choose to attend this course on campus or online. Sign up for Section H if you think you might attend class on the Stanford campus at least once. There is no commitment—you can still choose to attend via Zoom for any session. Sign up for Section Z if you know you will exclusively attend via Zoom.

ALEXANDER NEMEROV
Carl and Marilynn Thoma Provostial Professor in the Arts and Humanities, Stanford

Alexander Nemerov is an art historian and a distinguished scholar of American culture. He explores our connection to the past and the power of the humanities to shape our lives. Through his research and close readings of history, philosophy, and poetry, Nemerov reveals art as a source of emotional truth and considers its ethical demands upon us in our moment. He has been named one of Stanford’s top 10 professors by The Stanford Daily. He is the author of many books on art and cultural history. His most recent book is The Forest: A Fable of America in the 1830s.

Textbooks for this course:

There are no required textbooks; however, some fee-based online readings may be assigned.