AHI 105 CC: MONA LISA TO INSTAGRAM

Images flood our vision in twenty-first century life. We are surrounded by a constantly-changing visual field, with Netflix, t-shirts, news images, Instagram, beer advertising, and Facebook all simultaneously competing for our attention. On social media, we contribute our own deluge of photos, from selfies to animated GIFs. Without even noticing, we have learned to make split-second decisions about what to see and what to ignore, what to share and what to delete. How have images become so omnipresent and so powerful in our lives? Why do we find some images more effective than others? How does seeing influence our thoughts, behaviors, and identities? In this hands-on introduction to art history, we will explore how our contemporary ways of seeing continue to be shaped by the visual worlds of the past. We will consider the political, economic, social, and cultural implications of images like the Mona Lisa, and we will ask what kinds of value these images carry in the present (#monalisa). In the process, we will participate in the real practices of art history: working with actual art objects, using interdisciplinary approaches to discovering the meaning of images, and exploring unresolved debates.