Introduction to Art History
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this survey of Euro-American art from the fourteenth to the twenty-first century, tracing how the roles of artist, artwork, and the discipline of art history itself have shifted over time. Lectures and readings examine paintings, sculpture, and architecture within the social, economic, and cultural contexts that produced them, asking whose interests specific images and objects served and whose they challenged. The course moves chronologically across major periods and movements, pairing case studies of individual works with broader questions about patronage, meaning, and interpretation. Materials include the full syllabus, lecture notes, and assignments as posted on MIT OpenCourseWare, free to access with no certificate offered. It suits a first encounter with art history for students who want grounding in how objects and images have been read differently across centuries rather than a simple survey of famous names.