Masterpieces of Western Art

“Mas­ter­pieces of West­ern Art” has been a degree require­ment at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty since 1947. The long-estab­lished  course is not your tra­di­tion­al his­tor­i­cal sur­vey. Rather, it focus­es on a select num­ber of artists and mon­u­ments, with the larg­er goal of help­ing stu­dents think crit­i­cal­ly about art. Over on iTunes, you can find some videos from the course. They cov­er the Amiens Cathe­dral, Raphael, Michelan­ge­lo, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling­wa­ter. These videos aren’t in lec­ture for­mat. Instead, they’re per­haps bet­ter described as visu­al tours. Although the clips don’t real­ly form a coher­ent whole, there are cer­tain­ly some good nuggets here. For 200 free uni­ver­si­ty cours­es, see our big list here.

Relat­ed Con­tent

Art­Bab­ble: The New Des­ti­na­tion for Art Videos

The Gates of Hell

The Art His­to­ry Web Book

World Dig­i­tal Library

The Frank Lloyd Wright Lego Set