- Inter-faculty Studies in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology
- Bachelor's degree, first cycle programme, Computer Science
- Bachelor's degree, first cycle programme, Mathematics
- Master's degree, second cycle programme, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology
- Master's degree, second cycle programme, Computer Science
- Master's degree, second cycle programme, Mathematics
Self-Reflexivity, Medium and Meaning in 20thCentury Art: Philosophical Responses to Modernism in the Visual Arts 3700-AL-SMM-OG
One way to understand the history of modern art is therefore as a history of attempts at innovative self-definition in dialogue with a history of philosophical responses to these attempts by art-historians, artists, critics, and philosophers. In this course we will study some of the representative movements and figures participating in this dialogue.
I. Introduction
I.1 Modernity, the Modern, and Modernism
Reading: Stanley Cavell: Music Discomposed
I.2 Sculptural Beginnings
Reading:
Herbert Read: Modern Sculpture, a Concise History (selections)
Rosalind E. Krauss: Passages in Modern Sculpture (selections)
Clement Greenberg: Modernist Sculpture, Its Pictorial Past
Adolf von Hildebrand: The Problem of Form in Painting and Sculpture (selections)
J.P. Sartre: The Quest for the Absolute
II. Impressionism and the Transformation of Perception: Manet, Monet, and Seurat
Reading:
Georg Simmel: The Metropolis and Mental Life
Charles Baudelaire: The Painter of Modern Life (selections)
Michel Foucault: Manet and the Object of Painting
Clement Greenberg: The Later Monet
Michel Fried: Manet's Modernism (selections)
III. Cézanne and the End of Scientific Perspective
Reading:
Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Cézanne's Doubt; Eye and Mind (selections)
Andrew Harrison: Making and Thinking: A Study of Intelligent Activities (selections)
Richard Shiff: Cézanne and the End of Impressionism: A Study of the Theory, Technique, and Critical Evaluation of Modern Art (selections)
Clement Greenberg: Cézanne
IV. The Crisis of the Self and the Search for Authenticity: Gauguin, Van Gogh, and Csontváry
Reading:
Clive Bell: The Artistic Problem
Georg Lukács: Paul Gauguin; Aesthetic Culture
Martin Heidegger: On the Origin of the Work of Art (selections)
Meyer Schapiro: The Still Life as Personal Object - a Note on Heidegger and Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh: Letters to Theo (selections)
V. Abstraction and the Erotic: Picasso, Matisse, and Modigliani
Reading:
José Ortega y Gasset: The Dehumanization of Modern Art (selections)
Clement Greenberg; On the Role of Nature in Modernist Painting; Picasso at Seventy Five; Abstract, Representational and So Forth; Collage
John Berger: Modigliani and Love
Robert Pippin: Fatalism in Film Noir: Some Cinematic Philosophy. 3. Sexual Agency in Fritz Lang's Scarlet Street
FILM: Scarlet Street (1945, d. Fritz Lang)
VI. The Limits of Objecthood: Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism
Reading:
Arthur Danto: The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art; The End of Art; The Transfiguration of the Commonplace (selections)
Michael Fried: Art and Objecthood
Tom Wolfe: The Painted Word
Peter de Bolla: Serenity: Barnett Newman's `Vir Heroicus Sublimis'
VII. Art and Social Transformation
Reading:
Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier: Architecture and Utopia (text TBA)
Clement Greenberg: Avant-Garde and Kitsch; Towards a Newer Laocoön
T.J. Clark: Clement Greenberg's Theory of Art
René V. Arcilla: Mediumism: A Philosophical Reconstruction of Modernism for Existential Learning. Ch.3. Strangerhood
Type of course
Prerequisites (description)
Learning outcomes
Familiarity with basic problems, texts, and methods pertaining to philosophical responses to modernism; analytical essay writing skills
Assessment criteria
Presentations; participation; writing
Bibliography
Recommended General Works
Gay, P. (2008). Modernism: The Lure of Heresy. London and New York: W.W.Norton & Company Inc.
Heller, Á. (1999). A Theory of Modernity. Blackwell Publishers.
Le Pichon, Y., & Ferrier, J.-L. (1999). Art of the 20th century : a year-by-year chronicle of painting, architecture, and sculpture. Editions du Chene.
Readings
Arcilla, R. V. (2011). Mediumism: A Philosophical Reconstruction of Modernism for Existential Learning. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Baudelaire, C. (1995). The Painter of Modern Life. In J. Mayne (Ed.), The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays. New York: Phaidon Press Ltd. Retrieved from http://www.columbia.edu/itc/architecture/ockman/pdfs/dossier_4/Baudelaire.pdf
Berger, J. (1985). The Sense of Sight. New York: Vintage International.
Berkowitz, R. (n.d.). The Origin of the Work of Art, by Martin Heidegger. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/2083177/The_Origin_of_the_Work_of_Art_by_Martin_Heidegger
Danto, A. (1999). Philosophizing Art: Selected Essays. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, LTD.
De Bolla, P. (2003). Art matters. Harvard University Press. Retrieved from
Foucault, M. (2009). Manet and the Object of Painting. London: Editions de Seuil, Tate Publishing.
Frascina, F. (Ed.). (1985). Pollock and After: The Critical Debate. New York: Harper & Row Publishers.
Fried, M. (1996). Manet’s Modernism: or The Face of Painting in the 1860s. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Fried, M. (1998). Art and Objecthood. In Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Retrieved from http://atc.berkeley.edu/201/readings/FriedObjcthd.pdf
Gogh, V. van, & Leeuw, R. de. (1997). The letters of Vincent van Gogh. Penguin Books.
Greenberg, C. (n.d.). Art and Culture: Critical Essays. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press Ltd.
Harrison, A. (1978). Making and Thinking: A Study of Intelligent Activities. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Copany.
Hildebrand, A. von. (1907). The Problem of Form in Painting and Sculpture. New York: G.E. Stechert & Co.
Kadarkay, A. (Ed.). (1995). A Lukács Reader. John Wiley and Sons, Australia Lt.
Krauss, R. E. (1981). Passages in Modern Sculpture. Mit Pr; Auflage: Revised.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1993). Cézanne’s Doubt. In G. A. Johnson & M. B. Smith (Eds.), The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader: Philosophy and Painting (pp. 59–75). Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1993). Eye and Mind. In The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader: Philosophy and Painting (G. Johnson, pp. 121–149). Evanston, Illinois.
Ortega y Gasset, J. (1968). The Dehumanization of Art and Other Essays on Art, Culture, and Literature. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Pippin, R. B. (2012). Fatalism in American Film Noir: Some Cinematic Philosophy. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press.
Read, H. (1985). Modern Sculpture: A Concise History. London: Thames & Hudson.
Rosenbaum, S. P. (Ed.). (1993). A Bloomsbury Group Reader. Oxford Uk, and Cambridge USA.
Sartre, J. P. (1948). The Quest for the Absolute. In The Aftermath of War (Situations III) (pp. 333–354). London, New York, Calcutta: Seagull Books.
Schapiro, M. (1999). Worldview in Painting: Art and Society (Selected Papers). New York: George Braziller.
Shiff, R. (1984). Cézanne and the End of Impressionism: A Study of the Theory, Technique, and Critical Evaluation of Modern Art. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Simmel, G. (1950). The Metropolis and Mental Life. In D. Weinstein (Ed.), The Sociology of Georg Simmel (pp. 409–424). New York: Free Press.
Wolfe, T. (1975). The Painted Word. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.
Additional information
Information on level of this course, year of study and semester when the course unit is delivered, types and amount of class hours - can be found in course structure diagrams of apropriate study programmes. This course is related to the following study programmes:
- Inter-faculty Studies in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology
- Bachelor's degree, first cycle programme, Computer Science
- Bachelor's degree, first cycle programme, Mathematics
- Master's degree, second cycle programme, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology
- Master's degree, second cycle programme, Computer Science
- Master's degree, second cycle programme, Mathematics
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: