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Survey of 20th Century Spanish Art and Film

Overview

Module description

Through a focus on key authors and works, this module will introduce you to central aspects in twentieth-century Spanish art and film placed in their historical and cultural contexts. It will also give a grounding in the technical analysis of cinema and art.

The art component will focus on a selection of paintings and sculptures. These will be studied within the context of the European Avant-garde (Cubism, Surrealism and Abstraction) and contemporary installation; and will introduce you to relevant developments in art history and theory, and to technical issues such as form, space, composition, colour, physical structure, modelling, casting and installation.

The film component offers a survey of main trends in the history of twentieth-century Spanish cinema, and will familiarise you with basic technical and theoretical issues in film study. This includes editing, sound, framing, camerawork, lighting, mise-en-scène, costume, genre, self-referentiality and intertextuality, the construction of a national (or regional) cinema, censorship and spectatorship.

Indicative module content

  • The avant-gardes
  • The Civil War
  • Francoism
  • Democracy

Art objects

  • Salvador Dalí: The Accommodations of Desire (1929); The Persistence of Memory (1931); Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936); Spain (1938); The Enigma of Hitler (1939)
  • Joan Miró: Painting on White Background for the Cell of a Recluse (1968); Burnt Canvases (late 1973); The Hope of a Condemned Man (1974); Fireworks triptych (1974)
  • Juan Muñoz: If Only She Knew (1984); Minaret for Otto Kurz (1985); Wasteland (1987); First Banister (1987)
  • Pablo Picasso: Guernica

Films

  • Luis Buñuel/Salvador Dalí: Un chien andalou
  • Víctor Erice: El Sur
  • André Malraux: Sierra de Teruel
  • Carlos Saura: La caza