On Pictures

Subject is not scheduled Not scheduled

Code	Completion	Credits	Range	Language Instruction	Semester
304EOP	credit	1	2 hours (45 min) of instruction per week, 7 to 12 hours of self-study	English	winter

Subject guarantor

Name of lecturer(s)

The course focuses on an analysis of pictorial forms in the history of Western Painting. Key elements of such an analysis are the understanding of a composition, proportions, use of colour and use of light. The historical context of specific pictures cannot be neglected completely otherwise it would be impossible to follow artistic intention and will therefore be presented as well.

Course Schedule:

1.Visual Thinking or Thinking with Pictures

2.Medieval picture

Illuminations, Bayeux Tapestry, Giotto

3.Seminar: National Gallery

Master of Vyšší Brod, Theodoric of Prague, Master of Třeboň Altarpiece

4.Renaissance I

15th century masters and northern Renaissance: Massacio, Paolo Uccello, Piero della Francesca, Benozzo Gozzoli, Fra Angelico, Sandro Botticelli, Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden

5.Renaissance II

Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Tintoretto, Titian

6.Seminar: European art in National Gallery

7.Baroque I

Caravaggio and Roman Baroque

8.Baroque II

Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Peter Paul Rubens

9.Seminar: Czech Baroque Painting

10.Enlightenment, Classicism, Romanticism

J.-L. David, J.A.D. Ingres, F. Goya, C.D. Friedrich, J.M.W. Turner

11.Realism, Impressionism, Postimpressionism

12.Avant-garde I

Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism, Surrealism

13.Seminar: Modern Painting in National Gallery

Klimt, Schiele, Picasso, Kubišta, Filla

14.Postwar Painting

Rothko, Pollock, Kiefer, Richter

Learning outcomes

The aim of this class is to show tools and means and its changes in the history of picture making on important and influential examples of Western painting.

Prerequisites and other requirements

Literature

Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception

Rudolf Arnheim, Visual Thinking

Rudolf Arnheim, The Power of the Centre

Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience

Michael Baxandall, Patterns of Intention

John Berger, Ways of Seeing

James Elkins, Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings

Matila C. Ghyka, The Golden number

Gyorgy Kepes, Language of Vision

Mario Livio, The Golden Ratio

Alberto Manguel, Reading Pictures

Erwin Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form

David Summers, Real Spaces

Evaluation methods and criteria

Essay: Analysis of a selected painting

Participation in classes and seminars

Note

Further information

No schedule has been prepared for this course