Art History

This course introduces art, images, and vision in the digital field and various aspects of the roles technology plays in our creation, circulation, and use of images today. The main focus of the course is how contemporary image technologies shape us culturally on an everyday basis and how contemporary visual art can help us understand this. The course introduces works of art and theoretical approaches in the field and concretely analyzes how works of art and other image practices use specific image technologies. By combining theoretical insights and concrete analyses of works of art and everyday image practice, the course provides critical understandings of how humans and machines make sense of images today.

Like the human body, the human skin has an elaborate history, and now—perhaps more than ever—it calls for serious critical study. This course takes skin as a point of contact between historical and contemporary encounters. Skin troubles notions of identity, notably in legend and art. In more recent times, skin is a contentious site of systemic racism. Thematically structured, this course addresses a wide range of issues, including skin as corporeal and conceptual threshold; skin as multisensory organ; skin as artistic support; architectural skin; flaying; sacred skins; skin as anatomical curiosity; skin art; skin pigment; the skin of materials; second skins; literary skin; skin and the self.

This course focuses on Chinese art and visual culture from the late imperial period to the 21st century against the backdrop of major socio-political and economic changes in China and the world. Through the study of material forms and the contexts in which they were created, the course looks at the ways in which art, artists, and their audiences responded to the challenges of modernity, reform, revolution, war, marketization, and globalization. The phenomenon of Chinese contemporary art, its collection, and connoisseurship, and the role of art schools, museums, bienniales, galleries, and auction houses is also examined.

This course considers art from around the world in order to understand the ways in which different religions, power structures, and intercultural relations impacted upon artists, objects, and audiences. Students learn about the key works and ideas that underpin this period in the history of art. Lectures are supported by readings and activities on the course website. In tutorials, students put ideas and skills into practice. Some of the tutorials take place in Edinburgh's museums and galleries. 

Teaching objectives of this course:

To guide students to appreciate Chinese bronzes, and understand the thoughts, technology, aesthetic intention, cultural beliefs contained in the bronzes, and understand the cultural status of Chinese bronzes in the material history of the world.

Expected learning gains of this course:

(1) By training students' observation and cognitive ability of bronze ware, students can basically understand the emergence, use and development of bronze ware and their historical and cultural background, and master the knowledge system of bronze ware.

(2) Students have a general understanding of the type characteristics, technical connotation and artistic characteristics of Chinese bronzes, have some thoughts about the culture carried by ancient Chinese bronzes, some experience and inheritance of traditional culture, and some understanding of the expression of beauty.
(3) Taking ancientbronze ware as an example, students are guided to deepen their understanding of the status of Chinese material culture and civilization in the history of world civilization.

This course examines how art functions as collective expression of cultures, nations, and communities across history, and develops skills in visual literacy and analysis; image-based communication; and the psychology of visual perception.

This course is a challenging introductory course and is specifically for non-History of Art students. The specific content changes each year, but the course introduces students to various themes and issues in architectural practice and patronage from the medieval period to the present day, focusing on buildings and sites in London such as Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral, Chiswick House, the South Bank Centre, the Barbican, and Canary Wharf.

This course provides a survey of Baroque, Rococo, and Enlightenment art in Europe and beyond. Students begin with a study of 17th-century Italian art and architecture, discussing artists such as Gianlorenzo Bernini, Francesco Borromini, Annibale Carracci, and Caravaggio. From Italy the focus shifts to Spain, Flanders, and Holland in order to explore portraiture, allegory, and historical painting looking at artists such as Velazquez, Rubens, Van Dyck, and Rembrandt. Students also touch upon issues of artistic identity and the status of women artists during the period. A number of lectures are then dedicated to the parallel tradition of Islamic art, and the baroque beyond Europe's borders. Following thematic lectures on collecting and printmaking, the focus shifts to art in France. The course ends with lectures on the classical tradition in British art and architecture and the Enlightenment. 

This course explores the emergence and key concepts of the global market for art from the 18th to the 21st centuries through a discussion of its history, disruptions, and innovations. The course takes a thematic approach delivered via specific case studies to map the key concepts, individuals and institutions, and the various business models, and ethical and legal considerations that underpin the contemporary market. Students gain an understanding of the globalized art market economy through a comparative study of different geographical market regions across time, including the emergence of new global art market centers and the rise of the millennial collector. Throughout, the auction house and the unique behind-the-scenes access afforded to students of Sotheby’s Institute of Art, provides a detailed and practical case study of the history, development, and future of this market.

This is a tutorial to the lecture course INTRODUCTION TO ART HISTORY. This course offers an introduction to the major questions in the history of modern and contemporary art in the West, based on a historical and artistic panorama ranging from the Renaissance to the end of the 19th century. It addresses several themes and questions, including what art history is; what roles figure, movement, and nature play in representation in the West; what an artist and an art critic is; what place the museum and the market occupy in our relationship to art; and what the terms "modern art" and "contemporary art" mean. The course identifies the descriptive and critical terminology developed in France and abroad to comment on artistic productions, as well as the history of terms within the art world. It also mobilizes the fields of general knowledge in art history and archaeology to document and interpret an artistic production and an archaeological object.