AP Art History

Learning objectives

• Analyze how political power and religious belief shaped monumental art and architecture in Egypt and Mesopotamia
• Trace the development of naturalism in Greek sculpture from the rigid Archaic style through the dynamic Hellenistic period
• Evaluate Roman architectural innovations -- the arch, concrete, the dome -- and how they served imperial ideology
• Compare Egyptian, Greek, and Roman conventions for representing the human figure and explain what each reveals about its culture
• Write comparative analyses of artworks from different ancient Mediterranean cultures using formal and contextual evidence

Learning objectives

• Explain how Christian theology and liturgical function shaped the form and content of Byzantine, Romanesque, and Gothic art
• Analyze how Renaissance artists revived classical principles of perspective, proportion, and naturalism while serving new patrons
• Evaluate how patronage -- papal, royal, merchant -- shaped artistic production and subject matter in the Baroque period
• Compare colonial and indigenous artistic traditions in the Americas and analyze how cultural contact produced hybrid forms
• Trace the evolution from flat, symbolic medieval imagery to the illusionistic depth of Renaissance and Baroque art

Learning objectives

• Analyze how Enlightenment ideals of reason and virtue shaped Neoclassical art and its relationship to political revolution
• Evaluate how Impressionism broke with academic tradition in technique, subject matter, and exhibition practice
• Trace the development of abstraction from Post-Impressionism through Cubism to Abstract Expressionism as a coherent progression
• Assess how political upheaval -- revolution, world wars, decolonization -- shaped 20th-century artistic movements and manifestos
• Write visual analysis essays that connect formal choices (color, composition, materials) to cultural and historical context

Learning objectives

• Analyze the relationship between monumental architecture and cosmological belief in Mesoamerican and Andean civilizations
• Evaluate how art, ritual, and cosmology were intertwined in indigenous American cultures in ways Western categories often miss
• Compare artistic traditions across North, Central, and South America and identify both shared principles and regional distinctiveness
• Assess the impact of European colonization on indigenous artistic production -- not as an ending but as a transformation
• Challenge the distinction between 'art' and 'craft' by analyzing the aesthetic complexity and cultural significance of textiles, pottery, and other functional objects

Learning objectives

• Analyze African sculpture techniques -- casting, carving, assemblage -- and the aesthetic principles that guided them
• Evaluate how art functioned within African political systems (court art, regalia) and spiritual practices (power figures, masquerade)
• Assess the impact of colonialism on African artistic production, including looting, museum display, and repatriation debates
• Compare artistic traditions across different African regions and time periods to challenge monolithic narratives about 'African art'
• Analyze how African art influenced European modernists (Picasso, Braque) and examine the politics of that influence

Learning objectives

• Analyze how calligraphy, geometric patterns, and arabesque designs function as spiritual and aesthetic expression in Islamic art
• Evaluate the complex and varied attitudes toward figural imagery across different Islamic traditions, periods, and regions
• Compare mosque architecture across cultures -- Umayyad, Abbasid, Ottoman, Mughal -- identifying shared principles and regional adaptations
• Assess how Silk Road trade facilitated artistic exchange between Islamic, Chinese, Indian, and European traditions
• Analyze the relationship between political patronage and artistic production in Islamic court cultures

Learning objectives

• Analyze how religious and philosophical traditions -- Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, Daoist -- shaped the form, function, and meaning of art across Asia
• Evaluate the philosophical principles behind Chinese landscape painting (shanshui) and Japanese aesthetic concepts (wabi-sabi, ma)
• Compare how Buddhism inspired different artistic traditions in India, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia as it traveled along trade routes
• Assess how maritime and overland trade influenced the architecture and iconography of Southeast Asian temple complexes like Angkor Wat
• Practice comparative analysis between Asian and Western artistic traditions without ranking one as superior

Learning objectives

• Analyze the relationship between Pacific monumental sculpture (moai, meeting houses) and the communities that created them
• Evaluate how navigation, wayfinding, and ocean voyaging are connected to artistic and cultural expression in Oceania
• Assess tattooing, body art, and performance as legitimate art forms with deep cultural significance
• Compare artistic traditions across Polynesia, Melanesia, and Aboriginal Australia, identifying distinct cultural logics
• Challenge the museum-centered definition of art by analyzing works that were never meant to be separated from their living context

Learning objectives

• Analyze how contemporary artists engage with globalization, diaspora, and identity through diverse media and strategies
• Evaluate how the expansion of art into installation, performance, video, and digital media challenges traditional definitions of art
• Assess the role of biennials, art fairs, and global institutions in shaping which art gets seen and valued
• Compare how artists from different cultural backgrounds address universal themes -- memory, displacement, power, environment -- through distinct visual languages
• Synthesize the full course by making cross-cultural and cross-temporal comparisons between contemporary works and those from earlier content areas