Advancing a Canon-less Art History through AP Art History

In 2015 the College Board revised the curriculum for AP Art History and selected 250 artworks to form the basis for the course and its exam. Likely responding to the diversity challenges that affect art history in its various embodiments from museums to k-12 classrooms, the new AP-curriculum emphasizes cross-cultural connections and balances Western and non-Western artworks to an approximate ratio o 5-to-4 (140 Western vs 110 non-Western). While presenting a truly global survey to the students is most welcomed, the College Board's decision to censor the Western canon may serve them poorly. “Cardinal” artworks missing from the AP list include Mona Lisa, the Aphrodite of Knidos, the Laocoön, the Arch of Constantine, St. Peter's, Michelangelo's Pietà and David, and the Death of Marat. The College Board also "benched" consequential artists such as Artemisia Gentileschi, Poussin, Canova, Pollock, and Rothko, and expunged classic comparisons including the Cimabue-Giotto's Madonna, Ghiberti-Brunelleschi's Sacrifice of Isaac, and the Michelangelo-Bernini's David. In short, many bright high school students--24,475 took this AP exam in May 2019--will get college credit and enroll in upper-division courses without mastery of basic references in traditional history of art and visual culture, and without a sense that there was a canon in Western art history, despite the problems that it poses. My paper will present a detailed case and argue that CAA, who once used to provide the slides sets for AP Art History, should consider formally reviewing and advising the College Board about their new canon-less art history.