GRD 101 History of Art I PDF

GRD 101 History of Art I WEEK 1 - INTRODUCTION Hello everyone, I hope, you are fine. Welcome to the first session of History of Art course. Before beginning, I wish you a nice and successful academic year....

GRD 101 History of Art I WEEK 1 - INTRODUCTION Hello everyone, I hope, you are fine. Welcome to the first session of History of Art course. Before beginning, I wish you a nice and successful academic year. 1  Asst. Prof. Mustafa Kemal İz [email protected] My name is Mustafa Kemal İz. I am from the Graphic Department. This semester, we will run the history of art course together. Our classes will be online. If you have questions related with the course, you can write me an e-mail. 2 WEEK 1 COURSE INTRODUCTION WEEK 2 Prehistoric Art WEEK 3 Ancient Egyptian & Mesopotamian Arts WEEK 4 Aegean & Ancient Greek Art WEEK 5 Ancient Roman & Byzantine Art WEEK 6 Romanesque & Gothic Art WEEK 7 Proto-Renaissance Art WEEK 8 MIDTERM EXAM Here you can see our weekly Schedule. 3 WEEK 9 Renaissance Art WEEK 10 Baroque Art WEEK 11 Neoclassicism WEEK 12 Romanticism WEEK 13 Realism WEEK 14 COURSE OVERVIEW WEEK 15 FINAL EXAM 4  Midterm: Multiple Choice Test - 40% Final: Multiple Choice Test - 60% The Scream - Edvard Munch, 1910 We will have two exams. Although our classes wil be online, our exams will be face-to-face. One of them will be midterm and the other one will be your final exam. Both of the exams will be multiple choice tests. Forty percent of your midterm exam and sixty percent of your final in total will be your final grade. 5 Each week, we will discuss the subject of that week through power point presentations like this one. I will also upload these presentations to Douonline. Before exams, it is important to read presentations and watch videos together. While watching online sessions, If you read presentations as well, it will be very helpful for the exams. … 6 We will be also watching videos in our sessions. I think videos are of great importance in terms of art history. As you can guess, There is a certain limit to what we can tell here; but thanks to these videos, we expand these limits as much as possible. By the means of videos, we both underline what we have already talked about and gain new perspectives on the issues we are dealing with. … Here you can see some online resources you can use. I think these resources are important because they are accessible to everyone. When it comes to the internet, what you see here is a very limited portion of the resources which are available to you. It is possible to add web pages of museums, art blogs, online encyclopedias to these 6 resources. …… 6  Recommended Reading And here you can see some recommended readings. Please note that these books are not required readings, but recommended ones. So, you do not have to read them. But if you read one them, particularly Gombrich’s The Story of Art, It will be very helpful to widen your perspective on art history. If you want to check out, there is much more books in our library. 7 If you have time, please go and check our library too. There are many hidden treasures in it. … 7  history of art When we say history of art, We have three notions. They are history, art and history of art. Now, let’s try to discuss these terms one by one and understand what lies beneath them. 8  What is history? Let’s begin with the term history. What is history? Is there any idea or answer? … History is more than a collection of dates and events. By history, we want to understand the past. 9 At its core, history is the study of past events. It involves exploring how societies, cultures, and individuals have changed over time. As we have said History is not just about recording facts. it's about constructing narratives that make sense of those facts. So Historians gather together evidence to tell stories. …… 9 These stories explain why things happened the way they did. In this respect, History is interpretive. I mean, it’s filtered through the perspectives of historians. This also means that history is often subjective. Different historians might tell different versions of the same events. 10 As new evidence is discovered, historical narratives can be revised. This is why history is never static; it is dynamic. It evolves as our understanding of the past grows. Here, please look at origin of the term history. You can see a lot of emphasis on story, narrative and tale. 10 As you know, nearly all of us love telling stories. In fact, as human beings we are all story tellers. Maybe it is, this act of storytelling that differentiates us from other beings. In this respect, history is the biggest and the most official story we tell ourselves. We deal with history, because we want to understand our past. We want to understand the past, because we want to gain a deeper understanding about why we are here and where we will go. Only by understanding the past, we can understand how we came here and where to go next. 11 At the end of the day, History helps us understand how societies evolve, how cultural norms shift, and how human actions shape the world. By studying history, we can learn from past successes 12 and failures. This can help us to inform decisions in the present. The past shapes the present and the present shapes the future. By the means of lessons from the past, we can develop the ability to avoid mistakes and we may create a better future. … As Spanish philosopher George Santayana once said: “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” 12 In other words, The more we learn about the past, we understand the present conditions better. It is in this sense, history is the study of human beings and their place in the world. When you study art history or history in general, you learn how to think about the facts and you learn to consider how one event affected the other. Once you learn thinking in this way you begin engaging with the world around you more actively. 13 history gives us the tools to analyze and explain problems in the past. history provides us a crucial perspective for solving both current and future problems. … 13  History, but why? As you know, our relationship with history as a course actually begins with elementary school. And this relationship continues at the university. So, it can be asked what is the point of all these effort? AS you know, Like a pebble thrown into water, Every act we made creates an effect in our lives. By the means of its effects, history is always with us. If you consider the history as the story of our own past, the way you think about the history can be change. The people or events you learn about may have lived decades or centuries ago. 14 But their actions are still in effect on how we live today. Remember, we are all stardust. A very poetic sentence! In the same but less poetical sense, we can say that we are all our history. 14  What is art? Now we can focus on our second Notion and ask What is art? Is there any answer? … If we look for a definition of art, First of all, we can say that 15 because of the changes in cultural, philosophical and social contexts, the definition of art has evolved over time. Here we have a term. It is “context”. Here the term context includes the historical, cultural, political, and social conditions in which an artwork was created. Understanding context allows us to interpret why art looks the way it does and what it meant to its original audience. …… 15 For example, We can consider art in terms of beauty. In Ancient Greece and Rome, Art was often associated with ideals of beauty, harmony, and proportion. This conception of art was influenced by philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. In these cultures, 16 Art was seen as a way to represent the perfection of nature and the human form. … In renaissance, too Beauty was considered an essential quality of art. In this period, artists were in the pursuit of beauty through mastery of perspective, anatomy, and composition. …… 16 We can consider art as a kind of Skill and Craftsmanship. In classical times such as ancient Greek and Rome, art was often identified with skill. Here the main emphasis was on the artist's technical ability. In those times, Art was considered as a kind of craft. In this respect, it was requiring training, precision, and mastery of materials. 17 So The artist was seen as an artisan or skilled craftsman. We have talked about technique and materiality. By the term materiality, We refer to the physical components of an artwork such as paint, stone, digital media. How do these materials affect artwork’s meaning and preservation? By the term Technique, We refer to the methods used by artists and Other technological advancements that impact artistic production... … 17 If we consider art as a form of expression, We can say that during the Romantic period which take place late 18th and early 19th centuries, art was seen as a means of expressing the artist's inner emotions, passions, and imagination. This romantic period was a shift towards emphasizing the artist's subjective experience. 18 We can also consider art as a kind of Social Critique Modern and contemporary art frequently challenges social norms. By addressing issues like war, gender, race, Artists made critiques of political structures by the means of their artworks. For example, Art Movements such as Dada, Surrealism, and Pop Art 19 used art to question the status quo. Here artists were reflecting their disappointment with society. According to this view, art is not just something which is beautiful; art should also provoke thought, discussion, and sometimes discomfort. 19 When we come to present day, it is possible to say that art is deeply tied to individual identity and experience. Artworks are reflecting personal narratives, cultural heritage, or political statements. Contemporary art often blurs boundaries between personal and political. More than this, Contemporary art often invites the audience to engage with the work. 20 In this respect, contemporary art practices break down barriers between the artist, the artwork, and the viewer. Think about interactive installations, digital media, or performance art. In these art practices, the viewer's participation completes the work. 20 Finally in the digital age, art encompasses a wide range of media, including video, digital art, and internet-based projects. This also broadens the definition of art. So the possible definitions of art begin to include virtual experiences, augmented reality, and other emerging technologies. 21 Finally we can ask what art history is. When we come to the issue of art history, we can say that Art history is the study of art and visual culture which include painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, film, digital media, and more. Art history examines artworks as expressions of human creativity. Here it is important to note that 22 These artworks are also reflections of the social, political, and cultural contexts in which they were made. In this respect, art history investigates the deeper meanings and influences of artworks. So art history considers not only how art looks; but also why it was made and what it represents. Art history goes beyond description; It also involves interpretation. As you can easily guess, Art history draws from various fields, including history, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and archaeology. So art history is a rich, multidisciplinary study. One of the primary goals of art history is to place art within its historical, social, and cultural context. 22 This approach reveals how art reflects the ideas, values, and conflicts of its time. Art history seeks to uncover the meanings behind artworks. This involves delving into the iconography of an artwork. Here we have another terms which is iconography. Iconography is the study of symbols and themes in art. It helps decode the meanings behind images. We can do this by understanding the cultural, religious, and mythological references embedded within artworks. Art history also explores how artistic styles and techniques evolve over time. 22 At this point, we can ask Why should someone study art history? First of all we live in a visual world, So It is important to understand the language of this world. This is called visual literacy. Visual literacy is the ability to interpret, comprehend, and communicate through visual means. It involves understanding the visual information, including images, photographs, videos, diagrams, charts, and other visual media. Visual literacy is an essential skill in today's world, especially with the advent of the internet and multimedia technologies. 23 Visual literacy involves the ability to analyze and interpret visual content. This includes understanding the meaning, context, and symbolism conveyed by visual elements. Moreover Visual literacy is not just about understanding visuals; it also involves effectively using visual media to convey information and ideas. This can be important in fields such as graphic design, marketing, and education. In short, Visual literacy is the ability to read, use and create visual images. Works of art are the most beautiful traces we left on the world. In this sense, to read and track these traces, Visual literacy is one of the most effective tools. At this point, art history is the most proper school in which You can learn visual literacy. 23