Nina Horisaki-Christens

I learned a broad overview of art history in East Asia, how to discuss and analyze it in conceptual terms and how it fits into a global canon of art.

Overall history of China, Korea and Japan through the lens of Art.

To actually believe the warnings of previous reviews for classes. HEED MY WARNING!

Learned the general history of China, Japan, and Korea from pre-historic times until current day, focussing on art evidently however seeing how both religious and political movements impacted the type and forms of art which were created.

I learned how to critically analyze how we consume art, and how the way we react to it is informed by our cultural, social, and political context. I can now effectively question the way art is written about from different perspectives and how art is affected by the ways is shown, produced, and consumed. I learned how political events in East Asia and dynamics between the East and West influenced the development of East Asian (and Western) art.

We learned many different styles of East Asian art, across different cultures and mediums.

I had wished there had been more about Korean art but I understand it's an academic limitation due to the nature of studying Korean art history. I also wish there had been a discussion about the legacy of Japanese sexual slavery under Japanese colonization and the representations of women's bodies in art from that time.

If you are interested in art and history, I recommend this class. You will learn about China, Korea and Japan's history through looking at their art.

The class has so many different assignments and components that you never have any idea what to focus on (as in, three papers, three 20-pg readings for each class, weekly discussion posts, midterm exam, group presentation, final project/paper, final presentation, AND a final exam). Like, I've probably experienced the most difficult and time-consuming classes at Columbia, and this still took the cake for most work. I think what really got to me was how useless a lot of the work was (ex. the group presentation, weekly discussion posts, 'discussion'-based exams, etc.), so that you became so bogged down in the weeds and had absolutely no time to focus on the important components (ex. the final project/paper, readings, etc.).

As someone who had taken this course as an art humanities requirement, I reccommend it to anyone looking for an alternative to Masterpieces of Western Art as it provides a lens into art outside of the western world.