Contextual and Critical Studies

Stage 1 Semester 2Jan to May

2008

Reading Images

and Objects

‘Isms’

• 1882• Manet• Bar at the Folie-

Bergeres• ImpressionISM

The STORY of Art

• Pre-history• The Classical Period• Medieval Art• The Renaissance• The Baroque• The Neo Classical• Romanticism………….

Ad infinitum

• Impressionism• Post Impressionism• Fauvism• Expressionism• Cubism• Surrealism• Abstract Expressionism• Minimalism

Ad infinitismismismism…

• MODERNISM• POST-MODERNISM• POST-POST-MODERNISM…

“The End of the History of Art ”

Hans Belting – 1984

“- the commitment to the concept of all-embracing, universal ‘history of art’ –

suddenly strikes us as peculiar”

(H. Belting. The End of the History of Art. 1984)

“Contemporary art is too pluralistic in intention and realization to allow itself to be captured along a single dimension”

Danto. 1997.

there is “a recent loss of faith in a great and compelling narrative, in the way things must be seen” Belting. 1984.

the objects and images of the past can be, and have been, “read” in an increasing number of different ways - “no single approach can

be definitive” (L. Schneider Adams. 1996)

“When an article analyses the images of women in paintings rather than the qualities of the brushwork, or when a gallery

lecturer ignores the sheen of the Virgin Mary’s robes, the new art

history is casting its shadow”

Rees, A. and Borzello, F. 1986

Returning the male ‘gaze’

….society uses design as a mode of social communication”

Contesting contemporary power

Hans Belting

“Our theme is rather the emancipation from received models of the historical

presentation of art….”(AND design)

The End of the History of Art ? 1984.

Looking and Seeing more than before….?

Some writers, some perspectives

• Clement Greenberg • Le Corbusier • Roland Barthes• Robert Venturi• Walter Benjamin• John Berger

Lecture and Seminar 1• Lecture 1• Monday, 4 February• 1.00pm• Lecture Theatre 225, Business School

• Seminar 1• Wednesday 6 Feb or Wednesday 13 Feb• Come prepared, having done the reading