This course explores visual art produced in North America since the arrival of Columbus in 1492. Some pre-contact, pre-Columbian art will be included, but the course is designed to concentrate on works produced since the beginning of European colonialism and the ensuing encounter of diverse cultures, which have contributed to the rich diversity of North American art for the past five hundred years. Although course content focuses on art of the United States, works by some Mexican, Canadian, and Native American artists will be considered as well. A broad purpose of the course is to investigate the role of visual art in creating and negotiating various meanings of “America.” Major trends in American art – colonial portraiture, Hudson River landscape painting, Realism, Aestheticism, the Harlem Renaissance, Abstract Expressionism, and Postmodernism, among others – will be examined in the context of American cultural history. The course will introduce students to a multitude of artists and works in a wide variety of media, using an exploratory approach designed to foster visual literacy and historical understanding, not just memorization of minor facts or established stylistic categories. Through a combination of lectures, discussions, readings, exams, and a fieldtrip, the course provides an introductory survey of the arts in North America while encouraging students to look, think, speak, and write critically about what they see. Note: Field trips are mandatory for this class.