Theories of Art

Recommended Prerequisites

Art History knowledge, knowledge of English (reading).

Teaching Methods

The teaching method is based on text analyses, the production of writen reports and the production of a final synthesis paper.

Learning Outcomes

To contribute to the understanding of the question about the definition of Art.

To know the essential of the relation between the Beaux Arts system and the construction of an unitarian ideia of Art.

To develop analytical skills that allows the understanding of the different approaches to Art History, their philosophical and historical contexts.

To build tools to analyse art works in context.

To develop discoursive skills trough the knowledge of the theorectical vocabulary on Art.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1. The definition of Art. Art and the Arts.
2. Coleridge and the Suspension of Disbelief
3. The Beaux Arts system and its collapse in the XIX Century
4. A model for the theoretical construction on art: painting
The birth of a painting theory in the Renaissance
The birth of art criticism: Diderot
5. Winckelman and the birth of Art History. The different models of Art History: form, style and idea
6. Romanticism and the birth of the beholder. Gesamtkunstwerk and the art/life duality.
7. The avant-garde logic and the manidesto strategy
8. The Russian Avant-Garde: the great political experiment
9. The fenomenological model
10. The modernism crisis and the migration of the theoretical questions
11. The finalist theories.

Head Lecturer(s)

Ana Isabel Nistal Freijo

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Research work: 30.0%
Synthesis work: 70.0%

Bibliography

De Duve, Thierry, The Definitively Unfinished Marcel Duchamp: Cambridge, Massaschussets, 1992

Chip, Herschel B., Theories of Modern Art : Berkeley, 1968.

Harrison, Charles and Wood, Paul (ed), Art in Theory, 1900-1990: Oxford, 1992

The Russian Avant-Garde. Academic Papers from the conference: Moscovo, 2001.

Battock, Gregory (ed), Minimal Art: a critical anthology: Berkeley, 1968

Gullar, Ferreira, Experiência Neo-Concreta: S. Paulo, 2007.

Agamben, Giorgio, Image et Mémoire, Écrits sur l’Image, la Dance, et le Cinéma: Paris, 2004.

Belting, Hans, Art History After Modernism. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2003

Berman, Marshall, All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity. Londres, Nova Iorque, 1982

Bois, Yve-Alain, Painting as Model. Cambridge, Mass, 1990

Bürger, Peter, Theory of the Avant-Garde. Minneapolis, 1983.

Danto, Arthur, After the End of Art, Contemporary Art and the Pale of History, Princeton, 1997.