Undergraduate Course: History of Art 1B: Making Meaning in the Premodern World (HIAR08030)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 8 (Year 1 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | Art has shaped humanity's understandings of its place in the world for thousands of years. This course explores such issues while providing an introduction to Art History at the university level. Lectures generally cover material spanning from c.500 to c.1700, but range significantly earlier for certain parts of the world. The course builds on History of Art 1A, but can be also be taken independently. Material covered comes is global in scope, and is chosen to show how different premodern cultures made and used works of art and visual culture to more deeply understand their physical and spiritual worlds. |
| Course description |
This course introduces students to the discipline of Art History by looking at the intersections of art and knowledge amongst past cultures from across the globe. Virtually all human societies have long produced artworks to more deeply understand their worlds, grappling with natural life and what lies beyond, in scientific and spiritual terms. Case studies will come from places such as medieval and renaissance Europe and the Islamic world, premodern east and south Asia and Africa, and prehispanic and colonial Latin America. We will not only look at premodern works of art and visual culture themselves, but at the processes of their production in order to better understand relationships between making and knowing.
The course is delivered in three hour-long lectures per week over ten weeks, and weekly one-hour small-group tutorials. Lectures address key works of art from different parts of the world, and the ways scholars critically study them. Tutorials provide a chance to discuss and actively engage with ideas and objects presented in lectures, develop analytical skills and put these skills into practice with peers. Some tutorials will take place in Edinburgh's many museums and galleries and the University's own Heritage Collections.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | This Course does not require any additional costs to be met by the Student. |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Identify and discuss the materials and processes of art making from diverse places in the premodern world.
- Critically assess diverse scholarly approaches to the study of premodern art history.
- Describe and analyse visual and other historical sources in relation to their cultural, institutional and intellectual contexts.
- Confidently engage in current conversations around the conservation, curation and display of premodern art.
- Construct a well-structured argument supported by relevant evidence, and/or a synthesis of scholarly literature.
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Reading List
Elsner, Jas, Stefanie Lenk, and Georgi Parpulov, eds. Imagining the Divine: Art and the Rise of World Religions. Ashmolean Museum, 2017
Ross, Leslie D. Art and Architecture of the World's Religions. Bloomsbury, 2009
Keen, Bryan C, ed. Toward a Global Middle Ages: Encountering the World Through Illuminated Manuscripts. J. Paul Getty Museum, 2019
Paine, Alina, ed. Vision and Its Instruments: Art, Science, and Technology in Early Modern Europe. Penn State University Press, 2015 |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Research and enquiry - Formulating questions about historical sources and more recent scholarship will encourage you to handle complexity and ambiguity. You will develop habits of critical thinking and a robust, independent approach to scholarly research.
Personal and intellectual autonomy - Encountering a diverse range of sources and approaches to global premodern art will encourage an open-minded perspective and the ability to reflect on the ethical and political dimensions of art-historical scholarship.
Communication - By developing the ability to write clearly, for a range of audiences, you will become a more effective communicator, particularly regarding the language of visual analysis. |
| Keywords | Materiality,Global,Science,Religion |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Jamie Forde
Tel:
Email: Jamie.Forde@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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