Undergraduate Course: Iconography and Iconology: Critical Approaches to Interpretation and Visual Analysis in Medieval and Renaissance Works o (HIAR10133)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | History of Art |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | This course will operate a case-study approach, with each seminar driven by the critical analysis of works of key art historians in the field of iconographical and iconological studies, including Aby Warburg, Erwin Panofksy, Edgar Wind, Ernst Gombrich, Jonathan Alexander, Michael Baxandall, and Salvatore Settis. Class discussions will be framed around pertinent medieval and Renaissance art works that have formed the focus of these scholars¿ outputs, such as Giorgione¿s Tempesta, Jan van Eyck¿s Arnolfini Portrait, the Limbourgs¿ Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, Albrecht Dürer¿s Melencolia I, and Raphael¿s Stanza della Segnatura. The course will also draw upon a selection of other works of art relevant to the methodological approaches and key concerns (political, historical/contextual, gendered, etc.), and this in both the classroom and the art gallery setting. By embedding the course within the wider field of visual analysis ¿ such as the contributions of the likes of John Berger and Roland Barthes ¿ the outcome will be a firm grasp of the issues involved in unpacking the ¿messaging¿ inherent to imaging systems, as well as a close critical handling of a selection of the most significant approaches within art history. |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Delivery period: 2013/14 Semester 2, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
|
Learn enabled: Yes |
Quota: 20 |
Web Timetable |
Web Timetable |
| Class Delivery Information |
1 x 2 hour Seminar per week |
| Course Start Date |
13/01/2014 |
| Breakdown of Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Revision Session Hours 1,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
175 )
|
| Additional Notes |
|
| Breakdown of Assessment Methods (Further Info) |
Written Exam
50 %,
Coursework
50 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Exam Information |
| Exam Diet |
Paper Name |
Hours:Minutes |
|
|
| Main Exam Diet S2 (April/May) | Iconography and Iconology: Critical Approaches to Interpretation and Visual Analysis in Medieval and Renaissance Works o | 2:00 | | |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
1. On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:
1. Explain the context, function and use of the key art works under consideration.
2. 2. Discuss the selected theoretical approaches in terms of their usefulness for the selected case-studies.
3. 3. Distinguish between the various iconographical and iconological theoretical approaches in a holistic manner and describe the interactions between the different scholarly approaches under consideration.
4. 4. Engage critically and analytically with a wide range of sources, both textual (English-language) and visual.
5. 5. Make connections between iconological approaches to the history of art within the expanded field (art history, history, social and political history, gendered) in order to engage with the notion of interpreting ¿meaning¿.
|
Assessment Information
| 1 x 2 hour examination (50%) and 1 x 2500 word essay |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
1: ¿Reading Images¿? An introduction to iconography and iconology
2: The need for interpretation: iconology and the medieval image
3: The mode of interpretation: Erwin Panofsky and Albrecht Dürer¿s Melencolia I
4: The content of interpretation: Aby Warburg, Edgar Wind and Humanist Mythologies
5: Interpretation in context: Ernst Gombrich and Raphael¿s Stanza della Segnatura
6: Testing interpretation: selected art works in the National Gallery of Scotland
7: The limits of interpretation: Michael Baxandall, the ¿Period Eye¿ and cultural conditions
8: The interpretative mystery: Salvatore Settis and Giorgione¿s Tempesta
9: The problem of interpretation: Jan van Eyck¿s Arnolfini Portrait
10: Conclusions? Interpreting iconology in the expanded field
|
| Transferable skills |
Advanced visual skills, communication skills (written and oral), research skills, analytical and interpretative skills, logical thought processes, ability to assess and evaluate sources, study independently and to deadlines |
| Reading list |
Select bibliography:
BARTHES, Roland and HEATH, Stephen (ed. and trans), Image Music Text (London: Fontana Press, 1977)
BAXANDALL, Michael, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1974, c.1972)
BERGER, John, Ways of Seeing (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972)
BRYSON, Norman, HOLLY, Michael Ann, MOXEY, Keith (eds.), Visual Theory. Painting and Interpretation (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991)
GOMBRICH, Ernst, Gombrich on the Renaissance, Vol. 2: Symbolic Images (London: Phaidon, 1972)
GOMBRICH, Ernst, Symbolic Images: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance (3rd edition. Oxford: Phaidon, 1985)
HATT, Michael and KLONK, Charlotte, Art History: A Critical Introduction to its Methods (Manchester/New York: Manchester University Press, 2006)
MITCHELL, W.J.T. Mitchell, Iconology; Image, Text, Ideology (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press: University of Chicago Press, c.1986)
MOXEY, Keith and HOLLY, Michael Ann (eds.), Meanings and Methods in Art History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998)
PANOFKSY Erwin, Meaning in the Visual Arts (Garden City/New York: Doubleday, 1955. See also later editions)
PANOFSKY, Erwin, Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (First published 1939, new edition Boulder/Oxford: Westview Press, 1972). See especially Chapter 1, 'Introductory', which was also published in Panofsky's Meaning in the Visual Arts.
PODRO, Michael, The Critical Historians of Art (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1982)
SETTIS, Salvatore (trans. BIANCHINI, Ellen), Giorgione¿s Tempest: Interpreting the Hidden Subject (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990)
WARBURG, Aby, The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 1999)
WIND, Edgar, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (London: Faber, 1958, 1968. Also New York/Toronto: W.W. Norton/G.J.McLeod, c.1968/c.1958; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980)
|
| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Students meet for one two-hour seminar per week over one semester. The set reading is compulsory for all students, and students are expected to come prepared for class discussions. Each student will be asked to make a short presentation and to lead group discussion on one of the weekly seminar topics (listed above). Students are expected to read widely and independently around the material studied |
| Keywords | Iconography, iconology, medieval, Renaissance, critical analysis, methodological approaches, politic |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Thea Stevens
Tel:
Email: v1sthea@exseed.ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mrs Sue Cavanagh
Tel: (0131 6)51 1460
Email: Sue.Cavanagh@ed.ac.uk |
|
© Copyright 2013 The University of Edinburgh - 10 October 2013 4:30 am
|
University Homepage