Course syllabus
ARTHIST 114/G Reading Images
SEMESTER 1, 2018
15 points
Course Convenor: Robin Woodward
Course Lecturers: Len Bell, Erin Griffey, Robin Woodward
Lectures: Tuesdays and Thursday 10-11am
Course delivery format:
2 hours of lectures per week
plus
and 1 hour of tutorial in weeks 2-4 and weeks 6-12. Ten tutorials in total.
Timetable and room details can be viewed on Student Services Online
Summary of Course Description:
‘You look, but you do not see’, Sherlock Holmes said to Dr Watson.
This course is about how to look at and really see visual images and objects -- about how to observe, analyse, interpret and understand paintings, monuments and sculptures,
We explore the life and work of the major Renaissance artists such as Leonardo and Michelangelo, followed by the Baroque master of light and dark, Caravaggio, and the artists of the Dutch Golden Age, Rembrandt and Vermeer. In modern society new approaches to art are examined through the work of Monet, Degas, van Gogh, Edvard Munch and Picasso. Salvator Dali and Marcel Duchamp introduce us to the world of dada and the surreal, Mondrian and Kandinsky to abstraction, and Warhol to the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertising that flourished in post war American society.
A high level of visual literacy is increasingly necessary today in order to navigate our way through the world of images, at times a flood of images in which it is easy to drown. It is not just that visual images are central to everyday life. It is rather that they are increasingly predominant, even dominating, in social and cultural life and communications. To misunderstand them is to be severely disadvantaged.
In this course students will learn how visual images are constructed, how they generate ideas and emotions, how they ‘work’ on their consumers (that is, ’us’), as well as how they can be interpreted and understood. To these ends the course involves close and intensive study of specific paintings and sculptures. As much as possible the images and objects selected for study are compelling and memorable in themselves.
‘I break up an event into little pieces and analyse it’: Li Yan, contemporary artist.
How and why can we learn so much about seeing and understanding images and objects generally from the close study of individual works? In this course images and objects are studied in terms of their structural, formal, thematic and iconographic (meaning-producing) features. They are also placed in the social and cultural contexts in which they were produced and used in order to more fully understand how the production of meanings are context-specific. The various ways the one image or object can be, or has been, interpreted and understood are studied, while the limits of verbal interpretation of images are also considered. As such, the course provides invaluable skills in observing, analysing and interpreting, skills that are fundamental to all disciplines.
Course outcomes:
A student who successfully completes this course will have the opportunity to:
- acquire knowledge of art historical styles and apply it
- understand and carry out visual analysis
- acquire skills in report writing, critical thinking, academic literacy and presentation
Assessment Summary:
Weighting of assignments and due dates
20% test in week 4 (Thursday 22 March in the usual lecture room at the usual lecture time, 10am)
30% essay due week 9 ( Monday 7 May)
50% exam at the end of the semester
Weekly Topics:
Lecture 1: Introduction to Renaissance Art in Florence and Rome
Lecture 2: The Renaissance Portrait: Ghirlandaio, Leonardo and Piero della Francesca
Lecture 3: Art for the Renaissance Palace: Botticelli, Benozzo Gozzoli and Donatello
Lecture 4: The Art of Devotion: Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel
Lecture 5: Mannerism: Bronzino and Pontormo
Lecture 6: Baroque Rome and the Catholic Counter-Reformation: Caravaggio and Bernini
Lecture 7: The Art of the Dutch Golden Age: Rembrandt and Vermeer
Lecture 8: Visual Test
Lecture 9: The Shift to France – Versailles, Rococo, Neoclassicism, Romanticism
Lecture 10: Academic Art v. Courbet and Realism
Lecture 11: The Modern City – Paris
Lecture 12: Painters and Photographers of Modern Life: Manet and Degas
Lecture 13: New Ways of Seeing: Monet and Impressionism
Lecture 14: Form and Colour: Cezanne and Seurat
Lecture 15: Visualising Emotion I: Vincent van Gogh
Lecture 16: Visualising Emotion II: Edvard Munch
Lecture 17: Primitivism: Gauguin and Tahiti, Picasso: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
Lecture 18: Expressionism in Germany and France
Lecture 19: A New Pictorial Language: Cubism
Lecture 20: The Invention of Abstraction I: Kandinsky
Lecture 21: The Invention of Abstraction II: Mondrian
Lecture 22: Sense and Nonsense: Dada and Surrealism
Lecture 23: Whatever Happened to Traditional Sculpture?
Lecture 24: Impacts in the USA: Abstract Expressionism to Pop; Jackson Pollock to Warhol
Recommended reading: This will be indicated each week
Workload and deadlines for submission of coursework:
The University of Auckland's expectation is that students spend 10 hours per week on a 15-point course, including time in class and personal study. Students should manage their academic workload and other commitments accordingly. Deadlines for coursework are set by course convenors and will be advertised in course material. You should submit your work on time. In extreme circumstances, such as illness, you may seek an extension but you may be required to provide supporting information before the assignment is due. Late assignments without a pre-approved extension may be penalised by loss of marks – check course information for details.
Course summary:
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