England
In the first block, you'll explore the different ways in which art can be understood, practised and experienced in the modern world. Starting from the invention of the art museum or public gallery in the mid-eighteenth century, it shows how this type of institution has helped to define the work of art as a special category of object ever since. It examines a range of artistic practices, from painting and sculpture to ceramics and film, and considers the hierarchies and exclusions that determine why some images and objects are singled out for special veneration as art. Examples featured range from the Louvre Museum to the Hepworth Wakefield, from Josiah Wedgwood to Sonia Boyce.
This block explores the transformation of visual cultures brought about by the massive diffusion of non-art images, thanks to a series of new reproductive technologies such as lithography, photography and digital image-making. It covers the expanded field of images that shape the modern visual environment, including not only works of art by figures such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Hannah Höch but also advertisements, scientific illustrations, political satire and family photographs. By analysing these images, you'll explore how modernity has been characterised by the mass reproduction of images, transforming not only how images are made but also how they are used and interpreted.
In this block, you'll explore how art has been transformed since the late eighteenth century as artists have sought to engage with different aspects of modern life, from revolution and industrialisation to sexual politics and disability rights. You'll also be introduced to important concepts such as ‘modernism’ and ‘avant-garde’, which have been used by art historians to analyse and explain these artistic transformations. Key figures featured include Edouard Manet, Marcel Duchamp, Tina Modotti and Jackson Pollock. Overall, the block provides an engaging and accessible introduction to modern art, taking in developments not only in Europe and the United States but as far afield as Mexico and Japan.
This block explores the new and growing fascination with the past that has developed since the late eighteenth century in reaction to the upheavals of modernity. In studying the block, you will examine artefacts, images and institutions from a range of historical and geographical contexts that each engage with the past in some way. As you will discover, this engagement with the past is nevertheless profoundly shaped by the values and concerns of the present. The block also provides an introduction to heritage studies, an interdisciplinary field of inquiry closely related to art history. Examples featured range from paintings by the Pre-Raphaelites to dresses by Laura Ashley, from an open-air museum in Stockholm to a Shinto temple in Japan.
In the final block, you'll explore the contribution that art and visual cultures have made to the growing awareness of a rupture between humans and the natural environment over the course of the modern period. In so doing, you will examine a broad range of materials, from paintings to performance art, taxidermy to urban planning. The block examines the contribution of historical figures, such as William Morris, alongside the work of more recent artists and designers, such as the architect Buckminster Fuller and the photographer Edward Burtynsky. You'll also be introduced to the concepts of ‘The Anthropocene’ and ‘ecocriticism’, and consider how they can be used to analyse art and visual culture.