LMKB_a418 To Look and to See: Tradition of Visual Arts

Faculty of Arts
Spring 2023
Extent and Intensity
0/2/0. 4 credit(s). Type of Completion: k (colloquium).
Teacher(s)
Mgr. et Mgr. Stanislava Fedrová, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
doc. PhDr. Zbyněk Fišer, Ph.D.
Department of Czech Literature – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Mgr. Veronika Bromová, Ph.D.
Supplier department: Department of Czech Literature – Faculty of Arts
Timetable
Thu 14:00–15:40 D51
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
The capacity limit for the course is 60 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 16/60, only registered: 0/60, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/60
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
Looking and Seeing: The Traditions of Visual Arts

Theorists of visual culture have, in the post-modern period, remarked on the imbalance between the multiplicity of visual experience and the ability to analyse what one can see. Art historians have, from an even earlier time, shown that the recipient’s vision can never be fully divorced from the paradigms of culture and recognition that had been impressed on them, and it is equally impossible for representative art to disregard certain paradigms and conventions. Not even perspective can be called a transposition of the actual world – it does not simply show the world as it appears to the observer: it is a conventional type of representation. For these conventions to be read or understood, the viewer needs to acquire certain knowledge: seeing, in this sense, is not a skill that occurs naturally. Visual literacy (a term coined by W. J. T. Mitchell) includes basic visual competencies as well as culturally derived skills and a certain kind of expertise, that is, a cultivated experience and technique of observation.

These are the premises from which the aim of the course is derived. It is not a crash course in art history “in a nutshell,” rather it contains reflections of specific phenomena. As to the selected genres, their inclusion is predicated by the theoretical issues within these particular means of representation, as well as on their historicity and the changes in perception. Furthermore, the topics include representative conventions and paradigms, means of depiction, and key visual strategies. The course will work with visual art – image – in the Western environment, reaching modernism ad occasionally 20th and 21th century.

The course is aimed at laypeople and amateurs, in the classical sense of these terms: laypeople being common people not versed in art history, and amateurs being lovers and friends of visual art. It may also attract those who strive to become amateurs, either out of passion for the visual experience, or owing to the notion of the usefulness of visual literacy in current culture, and the interdisciplinary and intermedia approaches to its interpretation.
Learning outcomes
Students will
- acquire the method of analytical observation of a particular object of art,
- be able to perceive unique aspects of a particular art piece and its place in the contexts of cultural tradition and continuity,
- will be able to identify conventions in depiction as well as the paradigms that the piece utilises,
- acquire the prerequisites for innovative interpretation of intermedia relationships of various art forms,
- reinforce their ability to articulate singular issues as well as the basic parameters of discussion concerning cultural phenomena in interdisciplinary communication,
- be able to apply the knowledge and competencies acquired in courses concerned with intermedia relations, transmedia approaches and cultural studies.
Syllabus
  • 1. Still-life: the surface and the essence of things
  • 2. Landscape and nature: literal v. figurative “description”
  • 3. Portrait: portrait v. type; function of a portrait; portrait and status
  • 4. Self-portrait and self-stylization
  • 5. Body language: gestures and facial expressions
  • 6. Perspective: symbol, metaphor, convention, structure, display mode…
  • 7. Aesthetic illusion and sensory illusion
  • 8. Symbolism of depicted people, situations, etc.
  • 9. Light: the peak, the fall and the comeback of light as a great subject matter of painting
  • 10. Colour: the brushstroke and the mass of colour
  • 11. Story and time: images do not tell stories
  • 12. Tradition of comparisons between arts: ut pictura poesis and paragone
  • 13. The viewer: seeing and observation
Literature
    recommended literature
  • BERGER, John. Způsoby vidění. Praha: Labyrint, 2016, 150 pp. info
  • BARTLOVÁ, Milena. Skutečná přítomnost : středověký obraz mezi ikonou a virtuální realitou. Vydání první. Praha: Argo, 2012, 407 stran. ISBN 9788025705421. info
  • DIDI-HUBERMAN, Georges. Ninfa moderna : esej o spadlé draperii. Translated by Josef Fulka. Vyd. 1. Praha: Agite/Fra, 2009, 211 s. ISBN 9788086603803. info
  • GOMBRICH, E. H. Umění a iluze : studie o psychologii obrazového znázorňování. Translated by Miroslava Gregorová. Vyd. 1. Praha: Odeon, 1985, 534 s. info
Teaching methods
lecture
Assessment methods
colloquium in the gallery
Language of instruction
Czech
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
Study Materials
The course is taught only once.
Information on the extent and intensity of the course: 0.
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
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