About

I strive to create learning environments that help students find purposeful and ethical directions by developing their knowledge and skills in areas such as history, visual literacy, critical thinking, communication, and creativity.

 

The discipline of art history more closely resembles detective work than a lecture. The former is much more mysterious, fun, engaging and intellectual. I want students to understand the challenges and pleasures of analyzing, researching, and thinking about art, architecture, and visual culture.

 

I attempt as much as possible to design courses that ask students to:

• Collaborate.

• Cultivate inclusion, social justice, sustainability, and an appreciation for and understanding of others.

• Search for information about artists and artworks online and in the library.

• Analyze works of art by exploring tools, materials, and processes as well as principles and elements of art, content, and context.

• Visit regional museums and historic sites, including the nearby University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Toledo Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Art and the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology.

• Act out artworks physically, for example: stand as a figure stands in Polykleitos's Spear Bearer.

• Read challenging essays by some of the key scholars in the field.

• Collaborate with others.

• Recognize the subjectivity inherent in historical pursuits and the debates within the discipline of art history.

• Connect disparate bits of information into a synthetic, conceptual whole, and

• Think for themselves.

 

One of Barr’s former students summed it up this way:

 

I would personally like to thank my art history teacher for teaching me how to think critically, write properly, view objects and situations in terms of context and understand how ideas can be built on and influence the future. Oh, and all that stuff about art in the past. You’re awesome, Dr. Barr!