In the early 20th century, painting radically broke from its 
Eurocentric mimesis tradition by embracing and acknowledging non-
western perspectives regarding form, function, and motivations 
that continue to influence the look of world visual culture. 
This course traces how the visual strategies from Asian, 
Islamic, and African image cultures impacted modern painting 
and how this impact can be identified and incorporated into the 
perceptual-based paintings generated by the beginning painting 
student within a classroom studio setting. By acknowledging that 
painting serves as a mirror of society, encapsulating history, 
geopolitical events, philosophies, theologies, technological 
advancements (photography, digital media) and their significant 
impacts on the human condition, this course asks what the 
purpose and function of a painted image is today.

Students will be introduced to major social and historical 
contexts for painting through lectures, image presentations, 
readings, visiting artists, and museum visits.  

Students will learn introductory skills and techniques through 
technical exercises that utilize various modalities of vision: 
direct observation, lens-based media, chromatic, and peripheral 
observation.

Students will be expected to assimilate and analyze the 
presented materials within the medium of painting. Students will 
also be expected to use the nomenclature that is stylistically 
appropriate and mature through response papers, presentations, 
and critiques. During critiques students will learn to 
communicate for academic and professional contexts, supporting 
a consistent purpose and point of view while considering and 
engaging opposing points of view.

• Students should gain a basic understanding of perceptual 
painting idioms practiced by artists of various cultures.
• Students will become familiar with the art historical contexts 
and the impact of current events on the generation of that 
artwork.
• Students will demonstrate the use of various models of 
convergent and divergent design thinking to prepare and research 
and investigate visual problems. 
• Students will demonstrate the use of various visual 
strategies, materials, and processes of modern and contemporary 
painting practice.
• Students will demonstrate an understanding and adequate 
mastery of the material and tactile handling of the medium of 
paint, pigments, and mediums derived primarily from direct 
observation.
• Students will develop a sensitivity to color through the 
creative application of color theory, the perceptual translation 
of color as it relates to the plastic world of space, light, and 
form and to the sensual world of surface and texture using 
various color palettes and painting surfaces.
• Students will build and prepare different painting supports 
and surfaces. 
• Students will demonstrate an understanding of safe studio 
practices and appropriate work habits.  
• Students will learn to use critical language to succinctly 
articulate their work and the work of others both orally and in 
written form.
• Students will demonstrate the ability to communicate their 
personal thoughts and vantage points through the newly acquired 
language of painting.
• Students will also demonstrate critical understanding through 
written assignments. 

Unit 1:  Seeing vs. Looking, Materials, Techniques, and Design 
Introduction to the painting mediums and techniques from the 
Western tradition of painting. Introduction to the substantive 
effect that Japanese kilo-e woodblock prints had on European and 
American artists at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 
20th centuries, and the influence of “Japonisme” on composition 
and design: figure/ground relationship, cropping, and pattern. 
Students will complete various painted studies that demonstrate 
awareness of these concepts.  
• Development of Traditional and Contemporary Painting Materials 
and Techniques  
• Compositional Design  
• Rendering Skills 
• Light Logic 
• Color Theory 
• Written Assignment/Response Idea: Researching the Painting 
Collection at the GMOA. (Topic to be determined.)

Unit 2:  Still Life and Object Painting 
Introduction to traditional still life painting before the 20th 
century in contrast to object paintings from Impressionism, Post-
impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, and countless other movements 
from Modern to Contemporary. 
Students will Appreciate the profound change in Western 
aesthetics initiated by exposure to African sculpture and 
textiles; as well as the prints, textiles, and architecture 
from Asian and Islamic cultures. Students will complete at least 
two paintings that demonstrate understanding of asymmetrical 
balance, shallow space, repetition, and ornamentation.
• Painting and Design Strategies Composition, Picture Plane, 
Positive/Negative Shapes, Texture, Pattern, Balance, Rhythm, 
Unity, Emphasis, Movement, Convergent and Divergent Strategies, 
Design Methodologies
• Written Response: Themes to be explored: objects identity and 
power, consumerism, personal iconography and symbolism, 
naturalism, realism, expressionism, and hyperrealism

Unit 3:  Modalities of Spatial Perception  
Introduction to the marked differences between Western and 
Eastern philosophies and depictions of pictorial space and their 
subsequent convergence in the Modern movement and onward.  
Students will begin by covering the Western tradition of linear 
perspective by incorporating the illusionary “window” and fixed 
viewpoint.  Students will then be introduced to Japanese, 
Chinese, and Indo-Persian art that employs a parallel or 
isometric perspective wherein objects and their surroundings 
have been compressed within a shallow space behind the picture 
plane with no vanishing point. And they will become familiar 
with spatial ambiguity that primarily emphasizes the two-
dimensional surface of the painting as opposed to the 
illusionary window.  

Students will complete one painting that demonstrates 
understanding of traditional linear perspective and a second 
painting that demonstrates a synthesis of various spatial 
perspectives.  
• Picture plane as a window vs. a rectangular surface described 
by ornamentation and pattern.
• Reintroduction of Ukiyo-e prints, “the floating world.” 
Chinese screen painting and Mughal miniatures from India and 
Persia.
• Written Response: Choose two or more artists who employ both 
Western and Eastern spatial perspectives in their work and 
compare and contrast them.

Unit 4:  Portraiture  
Introduction to the differences between the Western tradition 
of portraiture, which includes chiaroscuro and idealization, and 
historic portraiture found in Persia, India, Japan, and China 
which does not depict a light source and is highly stylized.  
Students are also introduced to the influence of photography to 
portraiture. The student will complete one portrait from life 
within the context of the Western tradition. A second portrait 
will be completed working from a photograph, incorporating 
elements from non-western portraiture. Themes that address 
public vs. private identity, the physical vs. the psychological, 
or interconnectedness vs. isolation will be examined.
• Art Historic Portrait Painting: Students are exposed to 
numerous examples of portraiture throughout history from various 
cultural traditions before the advent of photography.
• Advent of the camera: Western painters at the end of the 19th 
Century often felt threatened by a potentially rival visual 
medium of photography and were faced with finding ways to use 
the photograph. The most significant transformation in painting 
resulted by artists starting to find new ways to delineate form 
and new areas of expression. These painters started taking 
advantage of photography by pushing the age-old portrait genre 
in new directions while openly embracing photography as a tool 
for image generation. 
• Written Response:  Themes to be explored: 
idealizations of physical beauty across cultural lines, beauty 
in consumerism and its impact on society, and portraiture and 
social status.