TAD2114

Romantic sensibility and the 'other' 2B

3 points - One 1-hour lecture/seminar, and one 1-hour tutorial per week - Second semester- Caulfield and Gippsland, internal and distance - Prerequisites: TAD1101, TAD1102 - Corequisites: None - Prohibitions: TAD2104, TAD3104, TAD3114 - Elective

Objectives On successful completion of this subject students should be able to (1) understand the richness and diversity of artistic production and cultural works of the baroque, rococo and romantic periods and recognise their formal, stylistic and conceptual characteristics; (2) have appropriate analytical, critical, writing and communication skills necessary for the articulate discussion of artworks and consider their pertinence to a contemporary practice; (3) comment critically and perceptively on themes and genres, content and meaning, and the place and function of works within their specific artistic, historical, ideological and social contexts, noting the differences between them and the context of contemporary studios; (4) to identify both continuities and discontinuities in the history of art and ideas, and draw links between history, tradition and contemporary artistic practice; (5) discuss critically how contemporary artists have responded to the romantic legacy, and consider its pertinence to postmodern culture.

Synopsis This subject is conceived as a complement to the TAD2113. Taken together, the TAD2113 and TAD2114 provide a good overview of western European art and architecture from the 14th to the 20th centuries. While the TAD2113 attempts to trace the philosophical and artistic continuities throughout the history of western visual culture, TAD2114 will focus on the discontinuities: those moments of rupture and resistance that subvert, or challenge, the seamless 'story' of the grand master narrative that is classicism, the dominant cultural model of western representation. Contemporary and historical critiques of enlightenment rationalism form the conceptual framework of the subject, which focuses on Italian and French art from the 16th to 19th centuries, with some coverage of the baroque, rococo and romanticism in Northern Europe as well. Themes, concepts and genres that explore the 'other' (the irrational, the bizarre and the grotesque, the exotic, the intuitive, the erotic, the senses, the morbid, the demonic, the dionyssian, the 'abject', the decadent, aesthetics and the 'feminine', the 'gothic', romantic landscape and the sublime, still-life etc.). An introduction to baroque, rococo and neo-gothic architecture and decorative arts will be included, as well as to the work of the new-romantics and neo-expressionists of the twentieth century transavantgarde. Postmodern and post-colonial revisionist readings will further re-evaluate issues of representation and gender, aesthetic theories, attitudes to the body, colonisation and orientalism, and the romantic notion of creative genius. All these speculations are located in the context of contemporary studio practice. All these speculations are located in the context of a contemporary studio practice.

Assessment One class paper/visual analysis of 1000 words: 30% - One 1200-word essay: 40% - One visual test/exam: 30%

Recommended texts

Bryson N Tradition and desire: From David to Delacroix Cambridge University Press, 1987
Honour Romanticism Penguin
Jencks C Postmodernism: The new classicism in art and architecture Academy Editions, 1987
Levey M Rococo to revolution: Major trends in eighteenth- century painting Thames and Hudson,1986
Martin J R baroque Harper and Row, 1977 [recently republished by Penguin as part of their Style and Civilization series]
Rosenblum R The northern romantic tradition Thames and Hudson, 1983
Said E Orientalism Penguin
Schor N Reading in detail: Aesthetics and the feminine Methuen, 1987
Tansey R G and Kleiner F S Gardner's 'Art through the ages' Harcourt, Brace and Company, 10th edition, 1996
Wittkower R Art and architecture in Italy 1600 - 1750 The Pelican History of Art, Penguin, 1985

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