(A) Compulsory paper
Theory and Methods in the History of Art
(Convenor: Dr Geraldine Johnson)
This M.St. core course will provide an advanced introduction to the major methodological issues and traditions of the discipline of art history through an examination of texts produced from antiquity to the present day. The course is organised around a series of 'critical terms' related to the production and reception of art. Students will discuss these terms and assigned readings in small weekly classes. The convenors also will offer a related lecture series entitled 'Art History: Concepts and Methods,' which will present the 'critical terms' in their historical and intellectual context. In lectures and classes, the convenors will consider works of art from a variety of cultures in order to demonstrate how historiographical and methodological questions are integral to the practice of art history.
(B) Option papers
The Apparatus of Art History
(Convenor: Dr Geraldine A. Johnson)
This course will consider the visual historiography of the discipline of art history. Over the past two decades, there has been increasing interest in studying the history of art history. This scholarship, however, has tended to focus on the textual tradition of the discipline. As we shall see, it can be equally rewarding to attend to the visual history of art history, that is, to the various visual practices and reproductive technologies (from casts, prints and drawings to photographs, slides and digital images) used in art historical research, teaching and publications. At the start of the course, we will explore a branch of film studies known as apparatus theory. Our consideration of the apparatus of art history will begin with an examination of pre-photographic strategies for disseminating information about art objects, such as prints, drawings, plaster casts and written descriptions. We then will study the ways in which photography has been implicated in the reception and interpretation of works of art. Are photographs of art objects visual documents or works of art in their own right? In what ways have notions of artistic authorship and originality been influenced by the photographic reproduction of works of art? How have developments in camera, film and printing technology affected the types of images available to art historians, and what will be impact be of new media such as video and digital images? Other topics we will consider include the design strategies used in different types of art historical publications, the ways in which images are deployed in pedagogical settings, and the display practices evident in museums and other public and private spaces.
Authenticity and Replication in Art and Visual Culture
(Convenor: Professor Craig Clunas)
The paper is designed to give students exposure at postgraduate level to a central issue of the visual arts in an explicitly inter-disciplinary and cross-cultural framework. It will use a series of case studies to explore a range of discourses and objects engaged with the idea of ‘the real’ or ‘the authentic’ in both images and objects. The historical and geographical contexts to be addressed will range widely, from ancient Greece and Rome, to early modern China and to contemporary art, including works seen as part of a high art canon as well as works deemed inauthentic or fraudulent: no previous exposure to these historical contexts will be assumed. The theoretical foundation of the course will be provided by a reading of the relevant work of Walter Benjamin, Baudrillard and Deleuze, but will also embrace recent writing in anthropology. The course will make particularly extensive use of visits to view actual objects and images in Oxford collections.
The eight lectures and eight classes will address the following topics and case studies:
(1) Authenticity as an issue: framing the debate; (2) The artist’s hand: authenticity and connoisseurship in China and Europe; (3) Realism and representation; (4) Authenticity and the sacred; (5) Case study: Chinese calligraphy and reproduction before photography; (6) Case study: the oriental carpet and cultural authenticity; (7) Authenticity and art history from the plaster cast to the digital image; and (8) The return of the real in contemporary art.
French Painting, 1880-1912: Histories and Debates
(Convenor: Dr Alastair Wright)
The course examines the development of Post-Impressionism between 1880 (the moment of the “Impressionist Crisis”) and 1912 (when Cubist collage produced a major deflection in the interests of the French avant-garde). Rather than tracing a history of styles or individuals, we will consider how artistic practices intersected with contemporary developments in science, industry, and other forms of cultural expression. Issues to be addressed include: the relationship between Neo-Impressionism and modern technologies of vision; the development of new forms of image distribution, from mass-reproduced illustration to cinema; the reconfiguration in Symbolist art and literature of earlier conceptions of vision; the impact upon the arts of new forms of mass culture/politics and the shifting role of painting in the public sphere; and the various Post-Impressionist endgames played out in the early years of the 20th century. The writings of artists and their contemporaries will be examined alongside recent art-historical work. We will also read a number of theoretical texts on questions relevant to the materials of the course, paying particular attention to: the intersection of power/knowledge in scientific and technological discourse; the disciplinary logic of new visual technologies; and the relationship between modernism and mass culture. The course will make extensive use of objects and images in Oxford collections.
The eight lectures/classes will address the following topics: (1) Post/Impressionism: Framing the Debate; (2) Technologies of Vision: Neo-Impressionism and Science; (3) Symbolism in Literature and the Visual Arts; (4) Modernism and Mass Culture; (5) Case Study: Camille Pissarro and the Politics of Vision; (6) Painting in the Public Sphere: Art and Politics under the Third Republic; (7) Symbolism and the “Primitive”; (8) 1905 and Beyond: Post-Impressionism, Pastiche, Belatedness.
Gothic: Artistic Originality and the Transmission of Style in Medieval Art
(Convenor: Dr Gervase Rosser)
This course addresses two problems central to the history of art: the roots of artistic invention, and the transmission of styles and techniques. In a context in which artistic practice was dominated by training in the workshop, what was the scope for originality, and what was the catalyst of stylistic change? These issues are brought into sharp focus by the changing visual culture of late-medieval Europe, between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries. The available literature on these themes is rich, yet inconsistent and inconclusive: the course addresses questions which are very much open.
Because the Gothic style crossed freely between different media, the course will consider artistic production in a variety of contexts. Drawing examples principally from France, Germany, Italy and England, the eight lectures and eight classes will address the following topics: (1) Making medieval art: crafts and artisans; (2) Gothic architecture: the invention of a style; (3) Manuscript illumination: workshops and methods; (4) The Gothic artist’s response to nature; (5) ‘International Gothic’: culture without borders? (6) Monumental painting: spatial illusions; (7) Visions: seeing with Gothic eyes; (8) Gothic art in changing historical perspective, from the 19th to the 21st century.
Visits to selected sites and museums will be included as a part of the course.
Media and Modernity: Art and Mass Culture, 1880-2000
(Convenor: Dr Alastair Wright)
The course addresses an issue that assumed increasing importance for artists at the turn of the last century and that continues to resonate in contemporary practice: namely, the relationship between modernism and various aspects of mass culture. The first half of the course considers the development of modernist painting, photography and cinema between around 1880 and the First World War. The second half of the course turns to the echoes of these issues in European and American modernism from the 1960s to today. The writings of artists and their contemporaries will be examined alongside recent art-historical work. The course focuses on a number of theoretical texts on questions relevant to the materials of the course, paying particular attention to the intersection of power/knowledge in scientific and technological discourse, the disciplinary logic of new visual technologies, and the shifting relationship between modernism and mass culture.
Reception of classical art
(Convenor: Professor Donna Kurtz)
From the Renaissance the discovery of classical antiquities inspired contemporary artists; some copied closely, some restored the ancient in a contemporary style, while others embellished or reinterpreted freely. The course focuses on sculpture, painting and architecture in Britain with a selection of comparanda on the continent. Sculpture is examined 'to scale' in marble (e.g., Flaxman, Thorwaldsen and Canova) and in lead for the garden (e.g., Scheemakers, Cheeres), in miniature (the gem-engravers, e.g., Marchant and Burch, the Pichlers), and in porcelain figurines (e.g., Volpato and Doccia).
Painting is examined through the survival of ancient texts and through the shapes, techniques, decorative motives and iconography of clay vases, particularly Athenian and South Italian. Comparisons are made with European porcelains (e.g., Wedgwood, Gotha, Capodimonte) and with furniture and wall-painting decorated in a classical style.
Architecture is examined through the Greek temples visited on the 'Grand Tour' and replicated in miniature (plaster or cork models) for sale to the travellers and through those excavated in Greece from the early 19th century. The sources of influence for major exponents of the neoclassical style (e.g., Smirke, Soane, Cockerell, Klenze ) are compared and special attention is given to museums.
Theories of Vision: The Eye and the Gaze
(Convenor: Dr Hanneke Grootenboer)
Starting from Heinrich Wölfflin’s idea that vision itself has a history, and that the revelation of these visual strata must be regarded as the primary task of art history, this course examines profound historical shifts in the understanding of vision in art, philosophy and optics from the discovery of perspective to the invention of photography. On the basis of a wide range of both early modern and contemporary theories of vision, this course focuses particularly on the ways in which images reflect on, or have contributed to, a changing understanding of perception; looking at materials ranging from (late) Medieval religious imagery to late eighteenth-century panorama painting depicting battlefields; and concentrating on visual material that somehow “does” something to the eye, in terms of satisfying, soothing or challenging it, or even confusing and deceiving it. Readings include classical texts on perspective and vision such as Nicolas de Cusa, Alberti, Descartes, Diderot, and Berkeley, as well as on twentieth-century philosophy of perception such as Merleau-Ponty, and the much used and abused notion of the gaze as coined by the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.
Women, Art and Culture in Early Modern Europe
(Convenor: Dr Geraldine Johnson)
This course will explore the various roles played by women in the production and reception of art and architecture in fifteenth-, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. After many decades of relative neglect, the significance of women's contributions to the art and culture of Early Modern Europe has been the subject of increasing scholarly attention. By drawing on this wealth of new research, this course will examine the careers of professional women artists working in Northern and Southern Europe, such as Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Leyster and Lavinia Fontana. We also will consider influential women patrons and collectors, such as Queen Elizabeth I, Isabella d'Este, and Maria and Catherine de' Medici. Another topic that will be addressed is the representation of women in the visual arts, not only as sitters for state portraits and marriage paintings, but also as saints, sinners and goddesses. Finally, we will look at women as beholders of works of art as, for instance, when paintings and decorated household furnishings were commissioned in order to be viewed and appreciated by young brides and mothers-to-be in the domestic sphere.
