History of Art

Students take 40 credits as follows:HA2003, HA2005, HA2007, HA2009, HA2010, HA2011 and HA 2012.

If you are choosing the 40-credit pathway, it is strongly advised that you speak to the appropriate staff member about your research project proposal in October.

Dr. Sabine Kriebel, Second-Arts Convener

This module examines concepts of modernity and modernism in the visual arts. The course is chronological, moving through the various movements in modern art from Impressionism to Surrealism, and examines this visual history by focusing both on the developing aesthetic debate and on the impact of social, scientific and political developments on art practice.Works are studied with key texts that influenced and defended ideas of the modern, including works by Emile Zola, Charles Baudelaire, Clive Bell, and Roger Fry.

NB: A class trip to Berlin is planned for November 2006. 

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The module investigates the development of Italian Renaissance art and architecture within the context of patronage, politics, and society. The artistic milieu of a republican city-state, such as Florence or Siena, is compared with the very different climate of a princely court, such as the Montefeltro duchy of Urbino or the Gonzaga marquisate of Mantua. As a result, we will question why art and architecture may be seen to give visual expression to the democratic ideals promoted by a city-republic or to the culture of magnificence cultivated by the ruler of a princely court. Other major themes of the course are the impact of the culture of classical antiquity, the dissemination of northern European ideals of chivalry, and the changing status of the artist.

NB: a class trip to Florence is planned for February 2007.

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The course investigates the emergence and development of landscape as an independent artistic genre in the Western tradition. The lectures engage with a broad range of ideas, including landscape as an expression of the ideal, landscape as a vehicle for social comment, and landscape as an expression of man?s relationship with nature. We will also consider the importance of landscape within the development of Modernism and its role within contemporary visual culture. As a result, you will develop a critical perspective on the concept of landscape and its representation in art from the Renaissance to the present. 

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We will investigate how and question why the distinct category of the portrait has changed and has been interpreted in the last 2,000 years. Taking into account the wider historical and cultural context, the lectures explore the notion of portraiture as a supreme interaction between creator and subject by addressing questions such as the portrait as a ?likeness?, as a memorialising process, and as a reflection of a social situation where issues of gender, identity or modernity can inform the argument. By the end of the course you will develop a sharper critical perspective on the category of portraiture in the Western tradition.

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The module, which provides you with the opportunity to develop a particular line of research within the visual arts and to extend your research skills, is only open to students who have opted for the Major Pathway in the History of Art. A member of the teaching staff will supervise your 8,000-word project, the title of which must be agreed prior to a notified date in the first teaching period and which should be submitted to the senior executive assistant in the History of Art by the last working day in April 2007.

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Location: WW5

The module examines the shift in aesthetic values and its impact on art practice from Modernism to Postmodernism. Central to this shift is the question as to whether art after Modernism can be understood in the context of it being Post, Anti, or Late Modernist. The course will also look to how much of art after Modernism engages in a wide variety of practices and debates.

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We examine the work of writers on art from Antiquity to the present, and in so doing we consider the impact and context of different critical approaches to the study of the History of Art. Texts to be examined may include writings by Pliny the Elder, Theophilus, Bernard of Clairvaux, Cennini, Ghiberti, Alberti, Vasari, van Mander, Bellori, Winckelmann, Ruskin, Morris, Morelli, Burckhardt, Riegl, Wöllflin, Fry, Warburg, Panofsky, Baxandall, T.J. Clark, Belting, and Alpers. The course introduces you to the changing historical priorities in the discipline as well as to the different historical approaches to the artworks themselves.