Traditional areas of study integrated with modern fields of theory and research.
The Department of History of Art and Visual Studies
Our department studies areas traditionally central to the discipline such as ancient, medieval and Renaissance art, and the integration of recent fields of theory and research to the study of global visual culture. Students further their understanding of the discipline of art history, its roots, its methodologies, as well as its historical and critical connections with other disciplines.
“Colonial Crossings: Art, Identity, and Belief in the Spanish Americas,” opening July 20 at the Johnson Museum, brings a nuanced view to a complicated period in Latin American art, and it is doing so with the help of student curators.
The field of game studies is growing at Cornell, including an expanded set of classes, workshops and symposia and a growing library collection of games.
Ananda Cohen-Aponte was named a Getty Scholar for the 2024-2025 annual theme of Extinction to support the completion of her book, Insurgent Imaginaries: The Art of Rebellion in the Late Colonial Andes.
Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' (the Cayuga Nation). The Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign Nations with a historic and contemporary presence on this land. The Confederacy precedes the establishment of Cornell University, New York state, and the United States of America. We acknowledge the painful history of Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' dispossession, and honor the ongoing connection of Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' people, past and present, to these lands and waters.
This land acknowledgment has been reviewed and approved by the traditional Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' leadership.
Image caption: Eave hanging (ider-ider) with scenes from Butterfly Lovers (detail). Bali, Negara. Mid-20th century. Cotton embroidery on cotton cloth. 27 x 292 cm. Acquired through the George and Mary Rockwell Fund. 2007.031.079. Collection of Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art.