Ioannis Mylonopoulos

Amazing class! One of my favorite of the Core. He is such an engaging lecturer, kept each class organized, and called on people often. He really knew how to get a class discussion going. The essays were easy and open-topic. Both exams were take-home. To me, this was the perfect course load for a Core class. It is clear that he cares more about learning rather than students stressing about their grades. Stay engaged, participate, and you will do well. Sometimes the pace of ArtHum felt so break-neck. I loved this professor and I wish I could take more classes with him that would go deeper into art history.

This is one of the best classes I have taken so far at Columbia. Professor Mylonopoulos is very organized and gives his lecture a lot of structure, making it easier to create study guides for exams. He is a great lecturer who is obviously very passionate and knowledgable about the subject matter, and he genuinely wants you to do well in his class. I felt very comfortable speaking up in class because he always encourages students to connect the dots and to make educated guesses even when he doesn't agree with your answers. I really appreciate Professor Mylonopoulos going out of his way to remember the students' names and to keep the lectures fun and light-hearted. It was a fairly easy class, so I felt tempted to skip from time to time but always attended just because I liked his lectures so much. 10/10 would recommend if you want to learn more about Greek mythologies and to be able to recall them for a long time even after the class ends.

Mylonopoulos is a fantastic lecturer and reveals a detailed, descriptive look at Greek antiquity. He's a genius and can get a little cocky about it (but I guess he deserves to be since he is quite the formidable scholar). But let's get real on expectations...it's a good class, but it will only be a good class if you are willing to WORK FOR IT. Buckle up kids because this is not your average art history class. He runs through slides as quick as people ran from the erupting volcano in Pompeii, demands exact dates for all those works, and has a question on the exams where you have to order works chronologically (including an unknown!). Did I cry after the midterm? You betcha! Do I still get nightmares about him cold calling me to identify the five spiritual centers of Ancient Greece? Yup! Oh, you thought I was done there? How cute. Sit back down and keep your arms in the vehicle at all times because there's definitely more. Red-figure versus black-figure pottery? You need to know the chemical equations in the reaction of the iron oxidizing and changing color. You need to know the temperature at which this happens. You need to know when in the firing process you would open the air vents. By the time you finish this course, you will know so much about Greek Art that you can identify every vase and sculpture in the Met and the movie Hercules. I'm not just a bitter person- I did fine…

This class was incredible - being Greek myself and being taught by a Greek professor while learning about Greek art and archi was a real pleasure. His lectures are engaging, I went to all of them, and he only calls on you if you raise your hand. Participation is encouraged though as he will ask your name when he calls on you and the more the answer, the more memorable you are, and the more he will like you. He corrects the papers himself, so recognizing your name will definitely help. I never did any of the readings but the lectures prepare you perfectly for the exam and midterm - he tells you what he wants you to know. A LOT of memorization is involved though. this is an intensive art hist course in the sense that he will ask you the exact date of the berlin painter`s vase and in what decade this particular minoan house was created. every date, name and artist has to be remembered, he doesnt create a list of 40 pieces to study for the exam for example, KNOW EVERYTHING.

Mylonopoulos is brilliant (speaks many languages) and pretty funny, but not approachable nor warm. When I went to discuss my paper with him, he was pretty condescending and I felt somewhat like I was wasting his time. Granted, some students respond well to a blunt and to-the-point kind of professor, but I was not one of them. Additionally, the reading list was pointless; the "supplementary" readings (which were often only 5-10 pages) were relevant but weren't helpful nor interesting and certainly not required for the exams (which are average in difficulty. like everyone else says, its a series of specific questions and you usually know the response he's looking for.) Paper was relatively painless (I got an A with minimal work effort) but if you're looking for a warm supportive professor, he's not your guy.

I had Prof. Mylonopoulous for Art Hum in Paris last semester and as someone who wasn't looking forward to this core class, I was shocked by how amazing this class was. I don't know if it was being in Paris or having such an awesome professor or a combination of the two, but I'm so glad to have had him as my instructor. He really cares about the students and encourages you to think critically. He makes it so easy and comfortable to talk in class, which helps because participation is so important in these smaller core classes. The syllabus thoughtfully integrated all of the resources of Paris and you can tell he spent time selecting museums and pieces throughout the city, even taking us outside of the city on trips to see some of the architecture pieces that we studied in person. Class was not stressful at all, as along as you speak up and voice your opinions. He never made anyone feel stupid about their observations/interpretations, even though there were some out-there remarks. His accent is also charming - a combination of so many different European accents because he can speak so many different languages! Ioannis was cool. All I can say is take his class if he's teaching in New York.

1 Midterm, 1 Cumulative Final, 1 Research Paper

I just want to write a review to temper the universal praise this course and professor have received. I was really excited to take this class partly because of the stellar reviews they received. This class is a lot of memorization and memorization that will be useless to you unless you go further into studying this field. I was not inspired by the lectures nor did I even find them interesting. You look at famous works like the Venus from Melos and basically just learn when it was made and who possibly made it. You don't get very much Greek history or culture in this class. Maybe if Professor had slowed down it would have felt more worthwhile. Don't take this class if you looking for a course which will give you an understanding of Greek art which be with you for a lifetime. Don't take this class if you are not prepared to memorize hundreds of works. The professor plows through the objects at a quick pace and you will fall behind quickly if you aren't keeping up. Just to make it even worse he includes some works from the first half so you have to memorize everything for the final because you have no idea what will be on there. I just found that the work I put into this class didn't really pay off. He also bragged about how he reads all of the final papers and makes comments on them but his comments were nearly worthless, occasional spelling corrections and then a final grade, t…

I can critique this class only on two aspects - content and presentation. For the former, I learnt many things that I was not aware of before this course. Every class taught me something new, every hour was useful. Because Prof Mylonopoulos keeps on highlighting the differences between different pieces of art, it is not difficult to remember the material after class. At the end of course I was able to look at a piece and tell its approximate age, in addition to my opinion whether it was an original or Roman copy. As far as presentation goes, Prof. Mylonopoulos had the class' undivided attention because he would bring a mundane piece to life by telling interesting stories and events. At times I was so spellbound by his teaching that would not realize that an hour had passed by. He made very interesting observations on questions like - Is geometric period primitive? Was Alexander's conquest of East justified because what ancient Persians did to Greek temples? Questions like these made me see not only Greek but also Meso-American art in a different light. The visits to MET were icing on the cake. To sum up - Of the 5 courses that I took last Fall, including graduate level IEOR courses, this was the one which I enjoyed and learned from the most. Although I did not have much interaction with TAs, they seemed to be helpful to other students.

Professor Mylonopoulos is incredible! As opposed to other art history classes where the lights dim and then it takes effort to keep your eyes open, Mylonopoulos is engaging and his material is interesting. I definitely recommend taking this course with him or any of his other courses. I plan on taking as many as I can before I graduate. Do not get intimidated by the syllabus the reading is minimal and amazing at contextualizing all of the info that gets thrown your way. Mylonopoulos is SO ORGANIZED and posts all the lectures with notes and slides after each lecture. He is by far the best art history prof that I had in Columbia.