Thread: Art History

I just got my art history textbook and summer assignment. Now this book is pretty intimidating at 1200 pages but what is even more ridiculous is that I only have 45 class periods to get through it. I thought some of my AP classes had trouble getting through the material but this is insane.

It is part of a multi-discipline course called recurring themes, so this class takes days from lit or euro.

Also, I don't think we will be able to get through all of this with a new and inexperienced teacher (the old one left at the end of this year).

Has anyone here ever taken the course? Please share some experiences.

I enjoy the old masterpieces but have never formally studied.

Twelve hundred pages is insane! I can hardly believe it. You can create a work of science that can re-structure a whole society for less than one thousand pages. The Bible did and it is filled with myrads of inconsistencies, errors and trivia!

I remember when I went to highschool and then college. I was eager to learn, curious and idealistic. The higher grades then began to dump and endless list of conflicting theories on me. I scrambled to learn them. I figured someday I would get a change to "think through" so I had the "RIGHT" ones and could "dump" the rest. That never happened. Even the prospect of trying to catch up that way became so daunting that I kept putting it off. Then you graduate, and you have given up. You look ahead and see your whole life before you. You will get a wife, make money to spend on stuff, and then grow old. Life has no meaning. All is hopeless . . .

Fortunately, it did not happen to me! I stepped outside of the system and studied texts carefully and built up my own way of thinking. I have no lucrative career as a result, but I know where I stand on things. I know what to reject. Not being cluttered with conflict, I am not "open" to everthing and know what to reject. An open mind is like a failed water system; it can no longer filter out the muck.