Icons of Western Art (WCIV2600)

Week 11. Reading Week

Use this week to make progress with research and writing toward your Research Essay assessment.

During this week, I will be available for consultation. Arrange a 10 minute meeting to discuss ideas and sources for your Research Essay. These meetings will fulfill the participation credit for reading week (week 11). To fulfill the participation requirement for this week, you will be able to make an appointment with me to discuss ideas and sources for your project on Tuesday or Wednesday (8-9 October). If you are unable to meet during one of the times listed on the appointment schedule (available in class), please feel free to email me directly to make alternate arrangements. 

Meetings will be held in my office: Forgan Smith Tower, Level 4, Rm 412.

Week 1. Introduction to Art History

This lecture introduces the concept of 'Art' in western history and discusses the term 'icon' relative to art. Art History as a field of study will be discussed and an outline of the course content, expectations, and assessments will be provided.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 2. Ancient Egypt: Thutmose, Nefertiti Bust, 1

This lecture provides a brief overview of Egyptian art, with an emphasis on the relationship between art and patronage, word and image, naturalism and idealisation. We will also discuss the reception of Egyptian art in Greek antiquity and early modern Europe, and the roles it has played in broader narratives of Western civilisation.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 2. Ancient Egypt: Thutmose, Nefertiti Bust, 1

The seminar will take a closer look at the famous Nefertiti Bust in Berlin s Neues Museum. What kind of balance does the work strike between naturalism and idealisation? How does this balance relate to the Egyptian understandings of images outlined by Tyldesley, and to earlier traditions of art making in Egypt? In addition, we will discuss the circumstances of the work s rediscovery and display in Berlin, as well as debates over its restitution to Egypt. What made this work an icon of Western civilisation for early twentieth-century Europeans, and what are the ethical implications of this identification, both then and now?

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 3. Ancient Greece: The Parthenon, 447-432 BC

This lecture introduces the transition from archaic to classical style in Greek art, ending with a survey of the architectural and sculptural program of the Parthenon in Athens. To conclude, we will consider the afterlife of the Parthenon as a church, mosque, museum, and object of debate over restitution.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 3. Ancient Greece: The Parthenon, 447-432 BC

This seminar will begin with a classroom discussion of the Parthenon and its sculptures, followed by a visit to the RD Milns Antiquities Museum to view ancient Greek artifacts. In the classroom, we will discuss the style of the Parthenon and its sculptures in philosophical, religious, and political perspective, as well as the work s legacy in the present. In the Museum, we will discuss the broader relationship between style and chronology in Greek art of this period, and begin reflecting on the differences between viewing works of art on screens and in-person.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 4. Greek Art in the Roman World: Laoco n

This lecture introduces the reception of Greek art in the Roman world, surveying its diverse political, religious, and aesthetic functions. We will look at both the adaptation of Greek art to characteristically Roman forms, such as the triumphal arch, as well as the museum-like display of Greek masterpieces in elite collections. To conclude, we will consider debates over the dating, attribution, and context of the famous Laoco n group at the Vatican.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 4. Greek Art in the Roman World: Laoco n

In this seminar, we take a close look at the Laoco n group and the history of its reception. By what stylistic means do the artists express pain and suffering in this work? How is the subject expressed differently in sculpture, painting, and literature? What can subsequent quotations and reuses of the work tell us about its meanings? To conclude, we will consider a variety of contexts that subsequently transformed the work into an icon, from its rediscovery in 1506 to its display in France following Napoleon s incursions into Italy.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 5. Inventing Christian Art: Hagia Sophia

This lecture outlines the Christianisation of the Roman Empire and the transfer of the capitol from Rome to Constantinople. What differentiates a pagan temple from a church? What is an icon and how does it relate to previous traditions of pagan imagery? What role did iconoclasm play in crystalising a distinctly Christian concept of the image, and what roles did pagan art continue to play in Christian society?

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 5. Inventing Christian Art: Hagia Sophia

In this seminar we will discuss the most iconic church of the Byzantine Empire, Hagia Sophia. How does the design reflect the needs of Christian liturgy? How do light and other environmental effects factor into the design? What roles do images play within the space of the church? How did iconoclasm shape the image program as we see it today, both in the Byzantine period, and later under the Ottomans? In conclusion, we will also discuss current debates over the building, concerning its status as a museum and/or place of worship.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 6. Italian Renaissance: Michelangelo

This lecture situates the Italian Renaissance within previous traditions of art-making in Latin Christendom, with an emphasis on linear perspective, the revival of pagan antiquity, and broader contextual developments, such as the Protestant Reformation and the European reception of Indigenous American art. Special attention will be paid to major works by Leonardo and Raphael.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 6. Italian Renaissance: Michelangelo

This seminar is devoted to the two phases of Michelangelo s work in the Sistine Chapel: the ceiling frescoes and the Last Judgment on the altar wall. We will start by considering how and why the Creation of Adam has taken on such an iconic status, and discuss its meaning in relation to the broader program of the ceiling. We then turn to the Last Judgment, with particular attention to the religious controversies stirred by the painting, and its relation to contemporary papal legislation on the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 7. Northern Renaissance: Hieronymus Bosch

This lecture introduces Northern Renaissance painting from Jan van Eyck to Pieter Bruegel the Elder. In particular we will focus on the diffusion of oil painting as a medium, the rise of printmaking, and the roles of images in popular settings, such as carnival festivities and peasant revolts, in the era of the Protestant Reformation.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 7. Northern Renaissance: Hieronymus Bosch

In this seminar we take a close look at the "Garden of Earthly Delights," a painting of many mysteries, down to its very subject matter. What is the relationship between pleasure and horror in Bosch's work? What kind of position does it stake out in relation to previous religious imagery? For example, what are the implications of the triptych format? How can we understand the relationship between realism, fantasy, and everyday life in Bosch s work? In addition, we will think about the role that portraiture played in the art of this period.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 8. Baroque Art: Artemisia Gentileschi

This lecture provides a brief survey of the Baroque style across Europe and the colonial world, and of the social status of the artist in early modernity. We then look more closely at works by several female painters who achieved widespread fame in this period, only to be forgotten by later generations of art historians, concluding with a brief survey of Artemisia Gentileschi s career.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 8. Baroque Art: Artemisia Gentileschi

In this seminar we will take a close look at Artemisia Gentileschi s engagement with the figure of Judith and how her treatment of this and other subjects changed over the course of her career. What challenges does Artemisia pose to earlier and contemporary artists, such as Donatello and Caravaggio, and what role should gender play in the interpretation of her work? Drawing on Nochlin and Garrard s essays, we will also discuss broader issues of feminism and canon-formation in art history.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 9. The Art of Revolution: Jacques-Louis David

This lecture introduces French academic painting, Salon exhibitions, and the rise of art criticism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It then turns to the roles that art and iconoclasm played in the French Revolution, while drawing comparisons to simultaneous developments in the revolutionary art of the Americas. To conclude, we will briefly set up David s career and the circumstances surrounding the Death of Marat.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 9. The Art of Revolution: Jacques-Louis David

How does David's painting relate to earlier traditions of Christian painting, both at the level of iconography and function? How should we understand the ritual functions of the work in relation to the revolutionary iconoclasm that flourished alongside it? How does this combination iconoclasm and the making of icons contribute to the formation of a canon of revolutionary art, according to Cohen-Aponte? And how does it relate to the subsequent unfolding of modernism, according to Clark?

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 11. Romanticism and Abolition: J.M. Turner

This lecture situates Turner s career in relation to several major artistic movements of the nineteenth century, from romanticism to impressionism. It then turns to the artistic context of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, situating the painting in relation to both abolitionist discourse and the emergent formalism of a critic like John Ruskin.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 10. Romanticism and Abolition: J.M. Turner

How does Turner's "Slave Ship" relate to contemporary conceptions of the sublime? What limits of representation does Turner visualize in the work, both perceptually and emotionally? How does his approach differ from that of the slave ship icon discussed by Finley? When comparing these two iconic images, what can we say they capture, and what do they occlude? How have these occlusions been addressed by subsequent generations of artists and writers, according to Finley?

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 12. Indigenous Perspectives on Western Art

In this lecture we welcome Professor Sally Butler, who will discuss a range of approaches that contemporary Indigenous artists are taking to iconic works of Western art, such as Leonardo s Last Supper and Van Gogh s Starry Night.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 12. Indigenous Perspectives on Western Art

In this seminar we will discuss a variety of adaptations of iconic works of Western art by Indigenous artists from Australia, the broader Pacific region, and North America. How do these artists balance critique and admiration, difference and identification, when confronting the heritage of Western art? What light do these works shed on Indigenous traditions, Western traditions, and the relationships between them?

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 13. Modernism: Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937

This lecture introduces Picasso s work from the development of cubism to the increasingly political turn of his art from the 1930s onward. It concludes by considering the divergent directions that art was beginning to take at this time in capitalist, communist, and fascist regimes.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09

Week 13. Modernism: Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937

To begin the discussion, we ask what Guernica represents, part by part, figure by figure, on both a literal and figurative level. How does the modern form of the painting relate to the novelties of modern warfare? How does the painting relate to its initial venue of display at the World s Fair in Paris? We will also consider the afterlife of the painting in New York and its eventual return to Spain, as well as the political functions that its many copies and adaptations continue to play in the world today.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07, L09