History of Art

Credit Points

20

Course Coordinator

Dr Tom Nichols

Pre-requisites

Available to level 5 students

Overview

The course will analyse art, artefacts and collections of Italian art in Scotland. Case studies of Orcagna, Botticelli, Raphael, Titian, Giorgione,Domenichino and Canaletto. Students will visit Scottish collections to view these works.

Structure

One x 2-hour seminar for 10 weeks.

Assessment

Continuous assessment 100% [1 X 5,000 word essay (90%)and tutorial participation (10%)]

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr Jane Geddes

Pre-requisites

N/A

Co-requisites

Fieldwork 2, HA5505

Overview

Structure

Day trips to Glasgow; one week trip to Paris, guided tours and discussions of galleries, museums and architecture. Some personal Financial contribution required.

Assessment

4000 word essay. Continuous assessment 100%.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr T Nichols

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in programme year 5

Overview

Unlike most other art history courses, this is a text-based course, focusing on a number of selected 'key texts' relating to art history theory.

Structure

Three hours of seminars per week.

Assessment

Continuous assessment 100%. 1 essay of 4,000 words.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Jane Geddes

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in programme year 5

Overview

The course enables students to engage in specialised advanced study with leading authorities in their fields while learning subject-specific research skills.

Structure

1 2-hour seminar for 10 weeks.

Assessment

Continuous Assessment (100%) 4,000 word essay

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

John Gash

Pre-requisites

Available to students in programme year 5

Overview

Provides training in making decisions about attribution, fakes and forgeries. Modern methods of authentication such as technical analysis will also be examined. The course is appropriate both for budding professional art historians and those hoping to enter the art trade.

Structure

One two-hour seminar per week for ten weeks

Assessment

One 4,000 word essay (90%)
class participation (10%)

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr J Morrison

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 5

Overview

The course examines 'visual culture' in its broadest sense, placing art objects within the contexts of their material and economic production, social function and aesthetic reception. Works of art, museum artefacts and collections, archaeological sites and landscapes and art/archaeology in situ are studied, together with their relationship to the divergent identities of Scotland. The intellectual and aesthetic concerns inherent in the development of these identities and in the creation of the works, objects and collections analysed will also be considered.

Structure

1 x 2 hour seminar per week for 8 weeks; 2 x 1 hour lectures in total; 1 field trip

Assessment

Continuous assessment (100%; 1 x 4000 word essay (90%); class participation (10%)

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr Tom Nichols

Pre-requisites

Available to level 5 students

Overview

This course focuses on North European Art in Scotland. Case studies will be drawn from major works in Scottish collections, such as Hugo van der Goes, Lucas Cranach, Durer, Rembrandt and Rubens. Students will visit Scottish collections to view these works.

Structure

One two-hour seminar per week for 10 weeks.

Assessment

Continuous assessment 100% [1 X 4,000 word essay (90%)and tutorial participation (10%)]

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr Amy Bryzgel

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in programme year 5.

Overview

This course will examine artistic production as a form of self-definition by artists throughout the 20th century in Eastern Europe and Russia. From the use of art to bring together the reunified nation of Poland after 200 years of partitions, or the use of art and cultural production to support the recognition of Latvia as an independent nation, artists throughout this tumultuous century have consistently turned to the visual arts as a way to create a national cultural identity for themselves and their compatriots. This course will examine works of art by Eastern European artists in Scottish collections. In their individual projects, students will have the opportunity to explore 20th-century artists from other regions that have also utilised their work as a way of creating a sense of self in a local, regional or national context.

Structure

One 2-hour seminar per week over 8 teaching weeks

Assessment

Seminar participation 10%; 1 paper 4000 words 90%

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Mary Pryor

Pre-requisites

Available to students in programme year 5

Overview

This course is designed for students with a Business background who wish to study Art and Business for their degree. It provides a basic overview of western art history and its methods.

Structure

Two lectures and one tutorial per week for the semester

Assessment

Continuous Assessment 50%, Exam 50%

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Jane Geddes

Pre-requisites

Available to students in programme year 5

Overview

This course exposes students to the realities of the art market and financial aspects of art dealing and conservation, It includes visits to galleries and auctions, during which students interview key practitioners in the field. The presentation project develops personal marketing skills.

Structure

One two-hour seminar per week for 10 week, or equivalent contact to include excursions

Assessment

30% Presentation, 70% Essay, 2500 words

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Jane Geddes

Pre-requisites

Available to students in programme year 5

Overview

Fieldwork trips are undertaken during the course of the year to places including Edinburgh, London and Paris, and locations chosen by the student with approval from the co-ordinator. They provide opportunities for students to visit galleries, assess marketing and commercial opportunities and understand the global nature of the art market. Some personal financial contribution required.

Structure

Assessment

100% continuous assessment, in the form of a 4000-word report at the end of the second session

Credit Points

20

Course Coordinator

Prof Peter Davidson

Pre-requisites

Available to level 5 students

Overview

This course offers a wide range of hands-on discovery relating to the University collections. It allows students to explore a variety of media and gain an understanding of the research potential within the University archive and museum.

Structure

One two-hour seminar per week for 10 weeks.

Assessment

Continuous assessment 100% [1 X 5,000 word essay (90%)and tutorial participation (10%)]

Credit Points

20

Course Coordinator

Dr T Nichols

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 5

Overview

Students will take a methodologically progressive, thematic approach to the realm of visual culture in the early modern period. The course will examine 'visual culture' in its broadest sense, placing art objects within the contexts of their material and economic production, social function and aesthetic reception. Topics for consideration may include the study of early modern visual imagery in the following contexts: workshops and academies, visual types and contexts, aesthetic categories and values, patrons and publics, republics and courts religious tradition and reform, printmaking and book illustration, social elites and marginals. The emphasis throughout will be on the ways in which visual image embodies social and cultural codes, but also on the way in which it mediates these in a proactive manner.

Structure

1 x 2 hour seminar per week for 10 weeks.

Assessment

Continuous assessment (100%) [1 x 5000 word essay (90%); class participation (10%)]

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr Jane Geddes

Pre-requisites

Fieldwork 1, HA5005

Overview

Structure

One day trip to Edinburgh; 5 day trip to London, guided tours and discussions about art galleries, museums and buildings. Some personal financial contribution required.

Assessment

4000 word review of an exhibition or site. Continuous assessment 100%

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr Helen Pierce

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in programme year 5

Overview

This postgraduate level module presents a survey of Scottish art and artists of the period c.1550-1730, tracing the development of visual forms following the complex impact of Reformation iconoclasm, to the foundation of the Edinburgh Academy of St Luke, and the entry of Scottish painters into a European mainstream and market. The primary focus of this course is painting, with formal portraiture shaping the case studies of George Jamesone and John Michael Wright, the former active in Aberdeen and Edinburgh, his pupil Wright completing an apprenticeship in the capital before periods of work and patronage in Rome and London. Decorative painting is also a significant topic, considering the range of emblematic and allegorical ceiling and wall work which survive across Scotland, combining often distinctive local styles with designs taken from European prints and pattern books.
This course will develop students’ skills of visual analysis through extensive object-based study of sources from the University’s collections and within Aberdeen. It will also encourage students to place these primary visual sources within the context of historical material, and historiographical debates: what made, and indeed continues to make, Scottish art Scottish? How did it both stand alone from, and relate to, early modern artforms in the rest of Britain, and in continental Europe? The notion of Scottish art as a particular, stylistically discrete aesthetic is explored, as are the potential pitfalls in shaping such an aesthetic, both then and now.

Structure

1 x 2 hour seminar per week for 8 weeks, and seminars discussing field trips to Edinburgh (one day) and Aberdeen which take place as part of Fieldwork course

Assessment

100% Continuous assessment: 1 essay of 4000 words, 90%; Class Participation 10%

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr Jane Geddes

Pre-requisites

For students already accepted for MLitt degrees in History of Art, Visual Culture, and Medieval Studies

Overview

The course will highlight the Aberdeen Bestiary and St Albans Psalter, our premier University resources, placing them in historical context. The aim is to cover a wide range of illustrations from the Bible, liturgical books, scientific and visionary books. The process of copying images, the requirements of the patron, sources of iconography and style will be explored. In an age of overwhelming male patronage, the female contribution will also be examined.

Structure

One two-hour seminar per week for 10 weeks.

Assessment

Continuous assessment 100%. 1 X 4000 word essay (90%). Tutorial participation (10%)

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Helen Pierce

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in programme year 5

Overview

This course examines Scottish art and artists between c.1550 and 1750. It covers the artists George Jamesone and John Michael Wright, as well as decorative painting schemes. It explores the impact of Reformation iconoclasm and historiographical debates about what makes Scottish art Scottish.

Structure

One two-hour seminar per week for ten weeks

Assessment

One 4,000 word essay (90%)
class participation (10%)

Credit Points

60

Course Coordinator

Dr J Geddes

Pre-requisites

Available to students in Programme Year 5

Co-requisites

History of Dissertation I: Sources and Source Criticism

Overview

The course consists of one-to-one supervision with a member of staff. Students will be expected to produce a dissertation of 15,000 to 20,000 words.

Structure

4 x 1 hour supervision sessions in total

Assessment

Continuous assessment: dissertation (100%)

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr J Geddes

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 5

Co-requisites

History of Art Dissertation II: Research and Writing

Overview

The course consists of one-to-one supervision with the member of staff best equipped to advise the student on her/his dissertation topic. It will involve detailed and critical discussion of primary and secondary materials suited to the research interests of the student (as developed over the preceding semester) with the aim of providing the student with the fullest preparation for researching and writing the dissertation in the summer and research beyond.

Structure

6 X 1 hour supervision sessions (one per fortnight)

Assessment

Continuous Assessment (100%) [critical bibliography (90%) Draft outline of dissertation (10%)]