| Unit name | Vision |
|---|---|
| Unit code | HART30040 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | H/6 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Dr. Donkin |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of History of Art (Historical Studies) |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
The unit explores changing understandings of vision, asking how far the way in which we perceive objects and experience sight is culturally constructed. Attention will be given to the technologies used to view and create images and the impact of these on the finished work, such as the role of lenses in the development of seventeenth-century Dutch painting or the Claude Glass on the formulation of picturesque landscapes in the eighteenth century. The unit will also explore the relationship between art and science as it relates to the workings of the eye, and/or the links between art and religion expressed in ideas of visionary experience and interior sight. ThIn any given year, the unit may explore these themes over time, and/or may concentrate on a particular period such as the Renaissance or the nineteenth century.
On successful completion of this unit students will have developed 1. a wider knowledge of the changing understandings of the notion of vision in Western culture; 2. an awareness of how to approach a controversial topic; 3. the ability to set individual issues within their particular context; 4. the ability to analyse and generalise about issues of continuity and change; 5. the ability to select pertinent evidence/data in order to illustrate/demonstrate more general historical points; 6. the ability to derive benefit from and contribute effectively to group discussion; 7. the ability to identify a particular academic interpretation, evaluate it critically and form an individual viewpoint; 8. the acquisition of advanced writing, research, and presentation skills.
Seminars - 2 hours per week
24-hour written examination (summative, 100%), which will assess ILOs 1-8.
S. Alpers, The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century (London 1983). J. Crary, Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1990). M. Kemp, The Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat (New Haven, 1990). R. Nelson, ed., Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance: Seeing as Others Saw (Cambridge, 2000). C. Otter, The Victorian Eye: A Political History of Light and Vision in Britain, 1800-1910 (Chicago, 2008).
