Art History

This course offers a survey of art and architecture up to the end of 17th century, with a focus primarily, although not exclusively, on the Western world. It provides an introduction to the critical analysis of artworks, including painting, mosaic, fine metalwork, manuscripts, sculpture, buildings and the built environment. The course considers such matters as the iconography of major religious and mythological subjects, issues of style and the functions of works of art and architecture. Art works are considered in the context of influential factors such as historical period, geographic location, inter-cultural influences and the prevailing social, political, and religious environments.

This course provides a firm foundational understanding of the development and history of photography;  themes and genres in modern and contemporary photography, and some first-hand experience of the challenges involved in producing a photographic image. The goal of the course is to develop a deeper understanding of the photographic medium—its relationship to technological development, and its aesthetic, cultural, and political relevance. 

This course offers an overview of Iberian Art from its beginnings to the present day. It explores architecture, painting, and sculpture from various styles and eras including: Islamic, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Golden Age, and Baroque. 

This course is team-taught by lecturers in the School of Art History & Cultural Policy. Dublin is home to a rich variety of museums; its collections survey the entire history of Irish art but also include outstanding examples of European and non-Western art. The city and its environs is itself renowned for its architecture and sculpture. Over the course of two lectures per week, this course fosters an enhanced appreciation of, and a direct engagement with, local art works and monuments among students who are not majoring in art history. Although short readings are assigned, the principal demand made upon students outside of class hours is to visit local sites/collections relevant to material discussed in class. This course is introductory in nature, and aimed at students with no previous experience of art history.

This course examines the material culture of modern China from the Republican period to the Reform era, with a focus on the Maoist era from 1949 to the late 1970s. By focusing on the design, production, consumption, and circulation of the material culture everyday life, this course will make sense of how the profound changes experienced during the twentieth century translated into the material, aesthetic, and cultural experiences of everyday people in China. It looks at how objects came to signify abstract concepts such as socialist modernity, feudal backwardness, or revolution, and ask how material goods can carry multiple associations, from the ideological to the aesthetic. The class will examine a variety of objects, including ceramics, consumer goods, enamelware, interior design and decor, lantern slides, photographs, posters, and textiles, paying particular attention to the relationships formed with objects and the cultural meanings ascribed to them.

This course is part of the LM degree and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course consists of lectures and visits and is divided into two parts. Part one provides an overview of the history of art, mainly Italian, from the end of the fifteenth century (High Renaissance) to the beginning of the nineteenth century. It focuses on artists, movements, and main topics, particularly seen from the point of view of the revival of antiquity; and at the same time provides the tools for understanding and analyzing the works of art, studying them within their cultural, social, and political context, and in their style, iconography, and technique. Part two deals with the spiritual “infrastructure” and visual network created in the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries in Italy by the Benedictine Cassinese Congregation (1419 – 1570 ca).

Berlin is an inspiring metropolis, a place of attraction for creative people and art and culture professionals from Germany and all over the world. Artists of all kinds, designers (including fashion), and technology experts are just as much a part of it as publishers, galleries, the music industry, or the film industry. Berlin is a focal mirror, a projection surface and a platform for a "creative class" (Richard Florida) and at the same time an urban-cultural incubator of a new lifestyle, of creative working practices of aesthetic capitalism. This seminar provides an overview of the creative industries in Berlin - their diverse fields, individual industries and players, and their self-image.