| Unit name | The Modernity of Ancient Sculpture |
|---|---|
| Unit code | HART30219 |
| Credit points | 40 |
| Level of study | H/6 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Professor. Prettejohn |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of History of Art (Historical Studies) |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
Modernism in the visual arts is often defined as a liberation from the classical inheritance. This unit is premised on the opposite assumption: that the modern study of ancient sculpture and the making of modern art are inextricably intertwined. It explores how the concerns of the modern art world changed perceptions of ancient sculpture, and, conversely, how modern artists responded to new archaeological discoveries and new theories about ancient sculpture. The unit begins with four introductory seminars and proceeds to a sequence of paired seminars (two per week for eight weeks), in chronological order from 1750 to the present; each pair explores a key moment in the modern reception of ancient sculpture, from the perspectives both of classical scholarship and of modern artisitc reception. The unit draws on primary texts as well as recent scholarship on the reception of classical antiquity in the modern world.
Aims:
The unit aims to explore the interrelationships between the study of ancient art and modern artistic practice, through a sequence of focussed case studies, in chronological order from 1750 to the present. The four introductory sessions aim to introduce students to reception theory in relation to the visual arts, including concepts such as `influence`, `appropriation`, `imitation`, `pastiche`, `revival`; the case studies aim to apply these concepts in specific art-historical contexts. The essays and class presentations (which constitute the formative assessment) are based on the case studies, and aim to refine and deepen students’ skills in the comparative analysis of works of visual art and to develop students’ skills in the use of primary research materials.
On completion of the unit students should have a broad knowledge of key developments in the study of ancient sculpture in the period since 1750. They will be able to demonstrate, through comparative visual analysis, the ways in which modern artists have both responded to those developments, and contributed to scholarly understanding of ancient sculpture. They will be able to interpret and analyze verbal accounts of ancient sculpture, and texts on the history of ancient art, written in the period since 1750. They will have a solid understanding of key issues in reception theory as it has been applied in recent scholarship to the study of ancient art.
2 x two-hour seminars per week.
Formative assessment: two x 3000-word essays, 1 x 20-25-minute class presentation
Summative assessment: a written three-hour examination (100%)
Richard Brilliant, My Laocoön: Alternative Claims in the Interpretation of Artworks, U of California Press, 2000
Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900, Yale UP, 1982
Charles Martindale and Richard Thomas (eds.), Classics and the Uses of Reception, Blackwell, 2006
Alex Potts, The Sculptural Imagination: Figurative, Modernist, Minimalist, Yale UP, 2000
Elizabeth Prettejohn, Beauty and Art 1750-2000, OUP, 2005
Johann Joachim Winckelmann, History of the Art of Antiquity (1764), trans. Harry Francis Mallgrave, Getty Research Institute, 2006
