Baker is an absolute psychopath. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt so many times, but he's a bigot, he's not understanding, and this class broke me. To start I want to talk about the lectures. He took them off a week after posting them, forcing students to stay on track. The papers/ tests were absolutely soul-crushing. This class has 4 papers so you're basically constantly working on one of them. For the midterm, we only had 24 hours to write 9 pages of formal analysis of two paintings. I am a slow writer and I'm always worried about my grades so I literally spent 16 consecutive hours researching and then writing. I had to skip classes to get it done. For the final, we had 48 hours to write 7 pages on two sculptures which wasn't as bad considering I had more time to think about what I really wanted to say. Don't even get me started on how disrespectfully he speaks to students. He also was constantly making creepy remarks about the female body in nude paintings. The way he objectified the female body was most disgustingly noticeable in Manet's "Olympia" and Gauguin's "Spirit of the Dead Watching" (which is a nude painting of a thirteen-year-old which yikes). He also glorified a sculpture about rape and a sculpture made in Nazi Germany. He assigned a reading that had the N-word in the first sentence (it was about primitivism). Honestly, how is this guy still working here. IF YOU ARE SEEING THIS, SAVE YOURSELF AND DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS.

Baker's lectures are very engaging. He is extremely passionate about art, and it comes out through the way he talks. I enjoyed going to lectures. I found him intimidating though, so I never went to his office hours. The class is quite challenging. There is a lot of required reading for each week, so you definitely have to keep up. Discussion is super helpful (attendance is mandatory anyways). My TA was great at explaining the material in detail (Baker only goes over the main points). Midterm and final were a bit tough-- you have to memorize around 70 works of art for each exam (title, artist, year), and there are some essays as well. I recommend this class only if you are interested in learning about art (don't take it just because you need a GE), because there is definitely a lot of work involved, and it would be painful to work so hard for a subject that you don't care for. I personally like art, but I think I will wait a while before taking another art history class because this one was just so challenging, especially since I am a science major.

Professor Baker is a great Professor! One of the great professors I have met in life. He loves what he teaches and he is always passionate while giving the lectures!And if you love art you HAVE TO take this class. This is the class that you will never regret taking.

I purchased these books halfway through last quarter (F 2014) brand new. I am one of those students who thinks I can go without purchasing the books and that I can just go to the library and use them temporarily for the readings. mmmm not so much for this class. And every time I went to the library to rent it out for a few hours, someone else in the class ALWAYS beat me to it.

Anyways, I have all 6 books :

Caught by the Tail
The Banquet Years
Rites of Spring
The Originality of the Avant-Garde
The Dada Seminars
The Dada Painters and Poets

They have no writing in them. literally like 6 weeks old. perfect condition. When you go to buy them, you find them to cost you $120 on amazon with amazon prime(because you need them right away. truly, you do. the readings are too long to get behind). and go online and quote me on that price!

Get em for me right away for $90 total. You can totally see them for yourself first so you know they are seriously brand new.

sophiakicko@gmail.com
7608890771

I took History of Photography with Baker, and was initially extremely excited to study under him. About a week into the course, I unfortunately couldn't keep up my enthusiasm. I'll admit the man is truly passionate about the subject, and does his best to inspire the class-- but I would have to say that 75% of what we discussed just seemed pompous and utterly subjective... sometimes I don't think HE even knew what he was trying to say. We had a midterm that he didn't return to us until ninth week, and a final ten page research paper. The amount of reading was astronomical, and difficult to incorporate into the research paper. All in all, it was a disappointing class. I don't think I would take Baker again.