fullscreen background
Skip to main content

Summer Quarter

Summer Registration Now Open
Most Classes Begin Jun 23
shopping cart icon0

Courses


« Back to Liberal Arts & Sciences

ARTH 61 — Introduction to Roman Art and Architecture

Quarter: Summer
Instructor(s): Patrick R. Crowley
Duration: 8 weeks
Location: Online
Date(s): Jun 24—Aug 12
Class Recording Available: Yes
Class Meeting Day: Tuesdays
Grade Restriction: No letter grade
Class Meeting Time: 7:00—8:50 pm (PT)
Tuition: $465
   
Refund Deadline: Jun 26
 
Unit(s): 1
   
Status: Open
 
Quarter: Summer
Day: Tuesdays
Duration: 8 weeks
Time: 7:00—8:50 pm (PT)
Date(s): Jun 24—Aug 12
Unit(s): 1
Location: Online
 
Tuition: $465
 
Refund Deadline: Jun 26
 
Instructor(s): Patrick R. Crowley
 
Grade Restriction: No letter grade
 
Recording Available: Yes
 
Status: Open
 
This course offers a sweeping survey of the art and architecture of the Roman world. From the founding of Rome in the 8th century BCE to the transfer of the capital to Constantinople in the 4th century CE, students will witness the transformation of Rome through time. We’ll journey from its humble beginnings as a village of huts surrounded by marshland in central Italy into its centripetal force as a powerful empire that spanned mind-bogglingly distant reaches of space and time. We will explore topics as diverse as Roman building techniques and urbanism, the relationship between Greek and Roman art, the politics and power encoded in Roman portraiture, the twinned destruction and preservation of Pompeii and other towns in the Bay of Naples, architectural marvels such as the Colosseum and the Pantheon, and the rise of Christianity. Throughout the course, we will consider how the built environments and artifacts produced by an incredible diversity of peoples and places can make visible larger trends of historical, political, and cultural change. What, we will begin and end by asking, is Roman about Roman art?

PATRICK R. CROWLEY
Associate Curator of European Art, Cantor Arts Center, Stanford

Patrick R. Crowley received a PhD from Columbia and is the author of The Phantom Image: Seeing the Dead in Ancient Rome. Before joining the Cantor Arts Center, he was an assistant professor of art history at the University of Chicago. His work has been supported by the J. Paul Getty Trust, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts in Washington, DC.

Textbooks for this course:

(Required) Fred S. Kleiner, A History of Roman Art, 2nd Ed. (ISBN 978-1305885127)
(Recommended) Mary Beard , SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (ISBN 978-1631492228)