Introduction to the Study of Art

3 ECTS credits
75 h study time

Offer 2 with catalog number 1020888AER for all students in the 1st semester at a (A) Bachelor - preliminary level.

Semester

1st semester

Enrollment based on exam contract

Possible

Grading method

Grading (scale from 0 to 20)

Can retake in second session

Yes

Taught in

Dutch

Faculty

Faculty of Languages & Humanities

Department

History, Archaeology, Arts, Philosophy and Ethics

Educational team

Tine Meganck
Marlise Rijks (course titular)

Activities and contact hours

26 contact hours Lecture
60 contact hours Independent or External Form of Study

Course Content

This course surveys the historiography and methodology of the art history from Pliny to Postcolonialism. You will be introduced to the instruments and techniques to analyze an artwork, the sources, archives and texts that inform us about an artist and his public, and about the physical and social context of art. Looking at art always supposes a relation between an object and a viewer. This was the case at the moment of creation and remains so in later times. This implies that the interpretation of an artwork was and is not always the same. This is why we will discuss different methods to study art as they have been formulated over the course of history. People have written about art since at least the ancient period, as part of the history of nature, in artistic biographies and travelogues. In the 19th century a more historical thinking about art arose, while art history developed as an academic discipline. More systematic methods were articulated, such as style analysis and connoisseurship, formalism, iconography and iconology, gender, global art history,... Today art historians use mostly a combination of methods and approaches, as each artwork raises different questions.

Course material

Digital course material (Required) : Syllabus literatuur ter aanvulling of verdieping, Canvas

Additional info

The students have to take notes. Digitized course material (PP’s and notes by the lecturer) will be available on Canvas.
The lecturer will provide additional publication references in class.
It may happen that students have to read and analyze a text independently.
Handbook (optional): Michael Hatt and Charlotte Klonk, Art History. A critical introduction to its methods (Manchester University Press, 2006, ed. 2017)

Learning Outcomes

General competencies

To successfully complete the course, the student will have to

demonstrate a basic knowledge of the historiography and methodology of art history, and of influential thinkers and texts about art from antiquity to the present (art biographies and developmental models, treatises, academies, connoisseurship, formalism, archival and material technical research, iconographical and iconological analyses, social art history, feminism and gender, global art history,…)
be able to situate and evaluate relevant primary and secondary historical sources and methods
critically assess primary and secondary art historical literature from antiquity to the present

Grading

The final grade is composed based on the following categories:
Written Exam determines 100% of the final mark.

Within the Written Exam category, the following assignments need to be completed:

Written Exam with a relative weight of 100 which comprises 100% of the final mark.

Note: Written exam

Additional info regarding evaluation

“100% WRITTEN EXAMINATION. The exam may include open questions and questions that refer to images or citations seen during class as well as to indivually prepared readings (self-study); terms and concepts seen during class are expected to be known and understood.”

Allowed unsatisfactory mark

The supplementary Teaching and Examination Regulations of your faculty stipulate whether an allowed unsatisfactory mark for this programme unit is permitted.

Academic context