| Unit name | Histories, Theories, and Critical Interpretations of Art |
|---|---|
| Unit code | HARTM0013 |
| Credit points | 40 |
| Level of study | M/7 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 4 (weeks 1-24) |
| Unit director | Professor. Price |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of History of Art (Historical Studies) |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
History of Art has its own history as a discipline: it has grown over several centuries to comprise a whole series of approaches with different aims, assumptions, and methods. Thus unit explores how History of Art has become the discipline it is nowadays by tracing its development from its 'origins' in the eighteenth-century. The unit also covers the main areas on which the discipline has focussed and their related methods: the notion of the artist, ideas about taste and beauty, and theories of the relation between art and history at large. It especially addresses the question of meaning in art, and how different theories of meaning - social history of art, semiotics, psychoanalysis, feminisms, philosophical aesthetics, and visual culture may be some of these - present competing pictures of how and what works of art mean.
Aims:
The unit aims to provide an introduction to the various strategies for viewing works of art and for their interpretation. The development of art history as a discipline (its historiography) will provide a strong strand in this examination. Current interpretational models will be examined closely but the possibly enduring values of older patterns of investigation will also be considered.
Students will learn to think critically about the discipline of History of Art, to recognise that art-historical narratives and practices are themselves historically conditioned and subject to change, and to reflect on their own processes of research and learning. By bringing the whole cohort together every week, the unit will help to orientate students socially and academically, and to equip those who may be new to the discipline with sufficient knowledge and confidence.
10 x 1.5 hour fortnightly lectures across 20 weeks.
Attendance at 10 x 1.5 hour departmental research seminars.
