Syllabus
Course Schedule 1. History of Fine Art History Basic historical overview of the history of the field, focused on the following thematic units: A / The beginnings of the historiography of art in antiquity and the Middle Ages (exemplary biographies of artists and their ego-documents), humanistic foundations of art history and "genetic" narration by Giorgio Vasari and late Renaissance and Baroque authors B / History of Enlightenment and Romanticism: the discovery of stylistic development, the beginnings of art expertise and exact methods, new themes and problems C / Great schools and personalities of the 19th and 20th centuries: emancipation of art history as an independent scientific discipline, positivism and cultural history, Vienna School of Art History D / History of Art versus Contemporary Modern Art: Onset of Psychological and Sociological Methods, Application of Science Practices E / "The End of Art History" and the Perspective of the Field in the 21st Century (Arthur C.
Danto and / or Hans Belting). 2. History of Art in the Era of Visual Studies An overview of the main methods of art history used in contemporary discourse: A / Picture and text: dependence of interpretation on the cultural context of its origin, B / From Cultural History to Social Art History C / Visual Strategies in Presentations of Nation, Race, Civilization Circle and Political Ideas ("From Papal Donkey to Cartoon Muhammad") D / Visual culture in gender discourse. 3.
Artwork and visual information as a source of knowledge about society in the past and present A / How to talk with the image: connoisseurship (style, technique, attribution, description) B / How to "understand" the image: basic categories (content and form) and basic methods (style analysis, iconology, iconography, semiotics) C / Life of a work of art: patronage and collecting, art market, exhibitions and art museums D / Specifics of "non-classical" carriers of visual information (photography, film, television, new media) - what are "new" and "old"? E / Manipulation and instrumentalization of the work of art: counterfeiting, marketing, censorship and self-censorship.
Annotation
The purpose of the course is to help form a "visually literate" individual who will be able to structure and critically receive visual information and work with it - ideally for the benefit of both his and his pupils. The knowledge base should enable the graduate to combine knowledge in the field of art history, or visual culture with historiographic practice, to equip him with the elementary skills necessary to interpret and criticize the sources of iconographic nature and to convey his orientation in an environment where a lot of visual information grows as fast as their manipulation potential.
Of course, the fundamentals of the subject must continue to be based on classical fundamentals of the interpretation of fine art. However, their necessity does not lie in the need to confess in the hermetic and exclusive world of works of art, but in the world that surrounds us during everyday life.
Therefore, the course axis is not a chronological encyclopaedic overview of styles, personalities and canonical works, but a catalog of selected problems and methodological approaches.