THE HISTORY OF
ART & VISUAL CULTURE
NEW FALL COURSE
Pricing
History of Art & Visual Culture
20 engaging video lectures and access to curated learning resources that give context to every lesson
$200
ABOUT THIS COURSE
This is not a typical, old school art history course where Giorgio Vasari gets to decide for all time and all places the standards of beauty and what, exactly, qualifies as art. This is new art history. We use old school formal analysis combined with real time contextual analysis. This is where we analyze the who, what, when, where, and why of a cultural object.
Who made it and who was it made for? When was it made and what was happening around it? What impact did the work have in its time – and what impact does it have now? Where was it made? Did it move from its original location? And why was it made?
And these questions lead us to even bigger ones – How does art shape the way we live and feel? The way we experience the visual world around us? Has it shaped the past? What about the present? And can it mold the future?
Meet Your Waldorfologist
Melissa Hiatt
Melissa graduated from the University of California, Davis and began work as an exhibition designer for museums in California and New Mexico. This evolved into curatorial writing for art catalogs and museum books, and critical writing for magazines and newspapers.
When her family moved to Denver, they purchased a house two blocks from the Denver Waldorf School and enrolled their daughter Alex in kindergarten. Within weeks, Melissa was hired as a substitute teacher. Upon a move back to California, she immersed in Foundation Studies at Rudolf Steiner College, became a class teacher at Davis Waldorf School, then joined the Humanities faculty at Sacramento Waldorf School in 2011. She has served on the College of Teachers, as the Director of Student Activities, as the Humanities Department Chair, and as an instructor for Waldorf Teacher Training. She deeply values the role education plays in the future of the world, and seeks to be an inspired contributor every single day.
