BA Art History and History / Course details

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.

• 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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