Paris Through Its Museums

Every summer, students from around the world flock to AUP for an immersive study experience in Paris. Some of these students are AUP students looking to get a jump on their majors and earn a few more credits while many more are students from other universities wanting to discover Paris through a study abroad program facilitated by their home universities. As diverse as these students are, they all have one thing in common: They want to learn in Paris.

One of the most popular classes in the summer session at AUP is “Paris Through Its Museums” offered by the Art History department. In this course, students delve into the history of some of the world’s greatest works of art using the richness of Paris’ museums as the principal teaching resource. With the guidance of expert faculty, students study the history of Western Art through a close examination of major works in a variety of media.

This summer, Professor Iveta Slavkova took her Paris Through Its Museums class to more than fifteen museums. On one of these visits, Professor Slavkova’s group met at the Petit Palais, just a short walk from AUP. In this spectacular building, erected for the World Fair in 1900, students had the opportunity to see firsthand exquisite examples of Greek antiquity – bronzes and pottery and a few Russian orthodox icons. While Professor Slavkova pointed out the evolution in design and material use, she discussed how today we can use these pieces of antiquity to recreate the past and better understand the present.

“I am convinced that being able to see into the art works,” Slavkova said, “whether it be modern or ancient, religious or secular, makes us better understand the world. Beyond the pleasure of looking at masterpieces and learning about their history, this course, and art history in general, aims to make the student observe critically the world of images we live in today.”

The focus of the visit was two of the most prominent 19th century Realists in France: Gustave Courbet and Jules Dalou. They studied a few of the major paintings by Courbet, which were bequeathed to the museum by his sister. The Petit Palais is the home of two of his best known sensual paintings: The Sleep (1866) and Young Ladies on the Bank of the Seine (1857), as well as a portrait of the philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1863), pointing at the strong political engagement of the provocative painter. Afterward, their attention was turned to the rich fund dedicated to sculptor Jules Dalou – the author of the famous monument at Square de la Place de la Nation in Paris – and commented on the very progressist, moving and never finished monument to the working class he projected at the end of his life.

“This course has been an incredible experience,” says Grace Crapps, an exchange student from Springhill College in Mobile, Alabama. “We’re traveling every week to these museums with a professor who knows the history, can answer all of our questions, and shows us a side of this art that we wouldn’t have known otherwise.”

At AUP, there are a number of other courses, such as Paris Through Its Museum, that use Paris as a classroom. Summer courses at AUP are organized into two three-week programs (one program in June and another in July) and one six-week program through both months. All AUP summer session courses are transferable for academic credit in the US academic system and housing can be requested through the university.

For more information on Paris Through Its Museums and other summer sessions courses at AUP, check out our Summer Program pages.