BA Art History and History

Year of entry: 2024

Course unit details:
Romanticism

Course unit fact file
Unit code AHCP33192
Credit rating 20
Unit level Level 3
Teaching period(s) Semester 2
Available as a free choice unit? Yes

Overview

The first section of this course examines the nature of Romantic aesthetics and art criticism, before turning to a detailed consideration of the creations of individual artists. The second section of the course explores different critical formulations of Romanticism since the middle of the nineteenth century and proceeds to engage with recreations of Romanticism within modern culture. Particular attention will be paid to key artists, designers and thinkers:  Blake, Delacroix, Friedrich, Runge; Gauguin, Munch, Redon, Rossetti, Van Gogh; Morris, Crane and Ashbee; Baudelaire, Swinburne, Aurier, Nietzsche, and Yeats. Detailed study will be made of key examples of Romantic art and of such Romantic concepts as creation, execution, expression, imagination, incarnation, individualism, subjectivity, vision, vitalism, and the role of these in the critical development of the discourses on Romanticism.

 

Aims

  • to  give an understanding of the nature of Romantic art in general and of its critical, cultural and artistic reception in particular;
  • to analyse dynamic processes of identity formation in Romantic visual culture;
  • to examine the impact of Romantic art and aesthetics on later art forms;
  • to encourage the development of critical and argumentative skills in written and oral contexts.

Syllabus

Sessions may  include:

The Wonder World: Romanticism and Aesthetics

Creating Romanticism: Art Criticism  from Hazlitt to Baudelaire

Romanticism and Composite Art (Blake)

Romanticism; or, Living Form and Anti-Pictorialism (Blake) Romanticism: the Book of Nature (Palmer and The Ancients)

Romanticism: the Book of Nature  ( Friedrich, Runge and Delacroix)

Recreating Romanticism:  (Rossetti, Gauguin and Redon)  

Recreating Romanticism  (Munch and Van Gogh) 

‘Dionysian’ Romanticism (Nietzsche to Read)

Romanticism and Vitalism

Exhibiting Romanticism

Regenerations: Romanticism, Mythos and Modern Culture

Neo- Romanticism and the Modern Imagination

Romanticism Today

Critical Overview and Exam Revision   

Teaching and learning methods

Lectures, seminars, workshops, projects, and directed reading  

Course unit text , recorded lectures, images and seminar powerpoints will be available via Blackboard 

Knowledge and understanding

By the end of this course students will be able to:

  • Critically analyse examples of Romantic art and to place them in the appropriate critical and historical spaces
  • Critically examine examples of Romantic art writing
  • Understand some of  the contexts in which Romanticism is renewed after 1850
  • Understand some of the curatorial and institutional contexts in which Romantic painting is displayed from 1850

Intellectual skills

By the end of this course students will be able to:

  • Reflect critically on relevant art historical and cultural scholarship
  • Develop skills of linguistic criticism and interpretation

Practical skills

By the end of this course students will be able to:

  • Strengthen research skills through assessed work
  • Further skills for the analysis of primary sources from the period
  • Engage with on-line research using relevant websites and databases contained in the course unit guide bibliography

Transferable skills and personal qualities

By the end of this course students will be able to:

  • Work independently
  • Collaborate in seminar group work
  • Develop and complete assessments to specified deadlines
  • Participate constructively in seminar discussions and projects

Employability skills

Other
Self-awareness and critical thinking, key employability skills, will be developed by placing the subject of romanticism within the wider world of art galleries, exhibition histories and curatorial cultures. The assessment culture will spotlight these matters by including tasks that require candidates to consider how cultural institutions model cultural value through exhibition catalogues and gallery displays.

Assessment methods

Assessment taskFormative or SummativeLengthWeighting within unit (if relevant)
Essay PlanFormative500 words0%
Essay 1Summative1500 words40%
Essay 2Summative2500 words60%

 

Feedback methods

  • Written feedback on essays and essay plan
  • Additional one-to-one feedback (during consultation hour or by making an appointment)

Recommended reading

Abrams, M. H., The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition, New York, 1953

Bloom, Harold, Romanticism and Consciousness , New York, 1970

Curran, Stuart, (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Romanticism, Cambridge, 1993

Frye, Northrop, Fearful Symmetry, New York, 1947

Harrison, Charles, et al( eds), Art in Theory 1648-1815, Oxford, 2000,

Harrison, Charles, et al( eds), Art in Theory 1815-1900, Oxford, 1998

Hartley, Keith, (ed.), The Romantic Spirit in German Art, 1790-1900, Edinburgh, 1994

McGann, Jerome, The Romantic Ideology, Chicago, 1983

Podro, Michael, The Critical Historians of Art, New Haven, 1982

Rosenblum, Robert, Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition, New York, 1975

Trodd, Colin, Visions of Blake: William Blake in the Art World, 1830-1930, Liverpool, 2012

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Lectures 22
Seminars 11
Independent study hours
Independent study 167

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Colin Trodd Unit coordinator

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