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DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY OF ART
Module outside the Main Discipline (Levels 1 and 2)
Art and Contexts 2005-6
ARTH 10 18599 and 18602 Level 1
and ARTH 10 18600 and 18603 Level 2
Term 2 (Critical and Historical Perspectives)
AIMS: This module provides a basic grounding in the various approaches of art history. Drawing widely on examples of art from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries, it builds up a picture of the range of historical and cultural contexts against which works of art can be set, with consideration being given to such matters as patronage and collecting. It also provides an initial introduction to some recent theoretical approaches to art history. A related module, on Content and Style, was taught in term 1.
LEARNING OUTCOMES: By the end of the module, students should be able to
· place works of art from many periods in appropriate historical and cultural contexts;
· relate works of art to questions of taste and patronage;
· begin to apply theoretical approaches to visual imagery;
· have greater competence in writing essays ort examination answers that include analytical descriptions of works of art.
· In addition, Level 2 students should be able to demonstrate a critical engagement with secondary art historical texts.
DELIVERY: Students will have a onehour lecture or class each week.
ASSESSMENT: Level 1 students are assessed by means of a one-and-a-half hour examination held in the summer term. Level 2 students will be required to submit one written assignment of c.3,500-4,000 words. The essay is due by no later than 5.00pm on Friday 24 March 2006.
TIME AND DAY: Lectures take place on Thursdays 9.00-10.00 (Barber Institute Lecture Theatre)
MODULE COORDINATOR: David Hemsoll
READING
Students are required to do the necessary reading for lectures, as indicated under individual headings. In addition, students should read and consult the textbooks listed below. The lectures and assessments will build on ideas contained in these books. These books are referred to hereafter by the author’s last name.
KEY TEXTS
Emma Barker, ed., Contemporary Cultures of Display, New Haven, 1999
John Berger, Ways of Seeing, London, 1972
Norman Bryson, Michael Ann Holly and Keith Moxey, eds, Visual Theory, 1991
Mark A. Cheetham, Michael Ann Holly and Keith Moxey, eds, The Subjects of Art History, Cambridge, 1998
Carol Duncan, Civilising Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums, London, 1995
Eric Fernie, Art History and its Methods, London, 1998 (includes a useful glossary)
Ernst Gombrich, The Story of Art, London, latest edition 1999
Grove Dictionary of Art (including online version)
Martin Kemp, ed., The Oxford History of Western Art, Oxford, 2000
Robert S. Nelson and Richard Schiff, Critical Terms for Art History, Chicago, 1996
Gill Perry and Colin Cunningham, eds, Academies, Museums and Canons of Art, New Haven, 1999
Marcia Pointon, History of Art: A Student’s Handbook, latest edition 1998
Donald Preziosi, The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology, 1998
Richard Verdi, ed., The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, revised ed. 2005
Shearer West, ed., The Bloomsbury Guide to Art, London, 1996
PLEASE NOTE: The Library is under a statutory duty to observe copyright conventions, and which are summarised as follows:
• All copying, including photocopying and scanning, should be carried out within the terms and conditions set out in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (and related legislation) or in licences held by the University. Details of these will be posted adjacent to photocopiers and can also be consulted at the web site: http://www.is.bham.ac.uk/copyright.
COURSE OUTLINE
Week 1 (9-13 January) Critical Approaches to the History of Art
Reading
Marcia Pointon
Week 2 (16-20 January) The Artist
Reading
Michel Foucault, ‘What is an author?’ in Preziosi, 299-314
Prefaces to Vasari’s Lives of the Artists and van Mander’s Painter’s Book in Fernie
Week 3 (23-27 January) Institutions: Patronage, Collecting and the Market
Reading
Francis Haskell, Patrons and Painters, London, 1963
Anabel Thomas, The Painter’s Practice in Renaissance Tuscany, Cambridge, 1999
Evelyn Welsh, Art and Society in Italy 1350-1500, Oxford, 1997, chapter 4
Week 4 (30 January-3 February) Institutions: Academies, exhibitions and museums
Reading
Stephen Bann, ‘Art History and Museums’ in Cheetham, Holly and Moxey, 230-49
Donald Preziosi, ‘Collecting Museums’ in Nelson and Schiff, 281-91
Duncan
Perry and Cunningham
Week 5 (6-10 February) Social histories of art
Reading
John Barrell, The Dark Side of the Landscape, 1980
T.J. Clark, ‘The Conditions of Artistic Creation’ in Fernie 248-53
Terry Smith, ‘Modes of Production’ and Paul Wood, ‘Commodity’ in Nelson and Schiff
Janet Wolff, The Social Production of Art, London, 1993
Berger, chapter 5
Week 6 (13-17 February) NO CLASSES
Week 7 (20-24 February)
National identity, art and architecture and
Reading
N. Pevsner, The Englishness of English Art, Harmondsworth, 1964
Week 8 (27 February-3 March) Gender and histories of art
Reading
Norma Broude and Mary Garrard, Feminism and Art History: Questioning the Litany, 1982
Whitney Chadwick, Women, Art and Society, London, 1990
Whitney Davis, ‘Gender’, in Nelson and Schiff
Linda Nochlin, ‘Why have there been no great women artists’, in Women, Art and Power, 1988
Griselda Pollock, Vision and Difference: Femininity, Feminism and the Histories of Art, 1988
Gill Perry, ed., Gender and Art, New Haven, 1999
Week 9 (6-10 March) Semiotics
Reading
Roland Barthes, ‘The Death of the Author’, Image-Music-Text, trans. Stephen Heath, 1977, pp. 142-8
Norman Bryson, `Semiology and Visual Interpretation' in Bryson, Holly and Moxey,
1730
Alex Potts, `Sign', in Nelson and Schiff, 1730
Week 10 (13-17 March) Postmodernism
Reading
Hal Foster, ed., Postmodern Culture, London, 1985 [includes essay by Jameson on Postmodernism and Consumer Society]
Week 11 (20-24 March) Focus Study: The Pre-Raphaelites
Reading
Tim Barringer, The Pre-Raphaelites: Reading the Image, London, 1998
Marcia Pointon, ed., The Pre-Raphaelites Re-viewed, Manchester, 1989
The Pre-Raphaelites, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, 1984
Re-framing the Pre-Raphaelites, Aldershot, 1996
EXAMINATION FOR LEVEL 1 STUDENTS
The examination will be based on the themes discussed this term and will take the form of specific questions, some or all of which will be accompanied by illustrations of works of art which will need to be analysed and considered.
ESSAY ASSIGNMENT FOR LEVEL 2 STUDENTS
Choose one of the following essay topics:
1. ‘There has always been a strong element of fantasy and fiction in the narrative of artists’ lives’. [Marcia Pointon, History of Art: A Student’s Handbook].
Discuss the above assertion with reference to one European artist whose work falls within the chronological limits of this module.
2. ‘Shifting the paradigm of art history involves…much more than adding new materials—women and their history—to existing categories and methods’. [Griselda Pollock, ‘Feminist Interventions in the History of Art’].
Argue for or against Pollock’s statement, including discussion of the work of at least one woman artist.
3. Using one art gallery of your choice, consider Carol Duncan’s proposition that the art museum is a ‘ritual’ space. [Carol Duncan, Civilizing Rituals on book list]
4. ‘Works of art…are not closed, self-contained and transcendent entities, but are the product of specific historical practices on the part of identifiable social groups in given conditions, and therefore bear the imprint of the ideas, values and conditions of existence of those groups, and their representatives in particular artists. [Janet Wolff, The Social Production of Art]
Using one example of an artist whose work falls within the chronological limits of this course, assess the extent to which Janet Wolff’s claim for a ‘social production of art’ can be defended.
5. ‘I believe that the emergence of postmodernism is closely related to the emergence of this new moment of late, consumer or multinational capitalism’ [Frederic Jameson, ‘Postmodernism and Consumer Society’ in Hal Foster, ed., Postmodern Culture]
With reference to specific works of postmodern visual art, refute or defend Jameson’s assertion.
The essay should be c.2,500-3000 words in length and is due (with signed declaration of authorship form) NO LATER THAN 5.00pm on Friday 24 March 2006.