The Artwork in History

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 4
• Convenor: to be confirmed
• Assessment: a 500-word essay plan and bibliography (20%) and 2000-word essay (80%)

This module revolves around a series of complex art historical case studies, from different moments in art history. You will prepare for and take part in lively seminar discussions that focus on the social and economic as well as artistic circumstance of making and exhibiting artworks, and consider their reception.

The development of your writing skills is supported by workshops on writing academic essays, and on using a range of secondary and primary sources.

Case studies typically include:

• Art in religious settings: Santa Croce in Florence, Italy
• Art academies and challenges to them: the Salon des Refusés, 1863 Paris
• Modernism: Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907 to now
• Art and design: the British Galleries in the Victoria and Albert Museum

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• demonstrate the importance of understanding the historical circumstances of the making and reception of artworks
• analyse artworks in social and historical contexts
• research and apply the arguments in a range of art historical texts in your own writing.