Winter semester
Subject: Florentine Art: a Turn to Nature and Return to the Antiquity, 1400-1500
Summary: The seminar highlights the influence of ancient visual sources and the study from nature in the art of the early Renaissance. It explores how the path towards a "brighter future" was paved with ideas from the past. The surviving visual and written remains of classical antiquity inspired works of architecture, sculpture, and painting. Artists such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, Filippino Lippi, Michelangelo, and many others studied the ancient remains that remained visible for centuries, while humanists and wealthy patrons collected antiquities. At the same time, the demand for a more naturalistic depiction of the world led these artists to imitate nature and its creative processes. A wide variety of theories concerning the relationship between art and nature that circulated in Renaissance treatises are discussed as well as the concepts of natura naturata and natura naturans.
Selected bibliography
Aymonino, Adriano, Anne Varick Lauder, Drawn from the Antique: Artists and the Classical Ideal, Λονδίνο, Sir John Soane’s Museum 2015.
Baxandall, Michael, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style, Οξφόρδη, Oxford University Press 1988.
Bober, Phyllis Pray, Ruth Rubinstein, Susan Woodford, Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture: A Handbook of Sources, Λονδίνο, Harvey Miller Publishers 2010.
Bomford, David (επιμ.), Art in the Making: Underdrawings in Renaissance Paintings, Λονδίνο, National Gallery Publications 2002.
Bomford, David, Jill Dunkerton, Dillian Gordon, Ashok Roy, Art in the Making: Italian Painting before 1400. Λονδίνο, National Gallery Publications, 1989.
Burke, Peter, The Italian Renaissance: Culture and Society in Italy. Cambridge, Polity Press, 1999.
Nethersole, Scott 2019, Art of Renaissance Florence: A City and Its Legacy, Λονδίνο, Laurence King Publishing 2019.
Randolph, Andrian, Engaging Symbols: Gender, Politics, and Public Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence. New Haven and Yale Yale University Press 2002.
Rubin, Patricia Lee, Images and Identity in Fifteenth Century Florence. New Haven: New Haven and Yale, Yale University Press 2000.
Rubin, Patricia Lee , Alison Wright, Renaissance Florence: The Art of the 1470s, Λονδίνο, National Gallery 1999.
Winter semester
Subject: Public Monuments in Interwar Greece
Summary: Sculptural monuments (heroes, busts, statues) erected in public spaces throughout interwar Greece are examined. The seminar also addresses the relevant legislation, the ceremonies of their unveiling and the problems of their preservation.
Selectied bibliography
Κωτίδης, Αντώνης, Μοντερνισμός και “Παράδοση” στην ελληνική τέχνη του μεσοπολέμου, Θεσσαλονίκη, University Studio Press, 1993.
Λυδάκης, Στέλιος, Η νεοελληνική γλυπτική. Ιστορία – Τυπολογία, Αθήνα, Μέλισσα, 2011.
Μιχαηλίδου, Μαίρη, Μνημεία – Ηρώα – Ανδριάντες. Μελέτη για την υπαγωγή τους σε ενιαίο φορέα, Αθήνα, Άποψη, 1989.
Μπόλης, Γιάννης, Δημήτρης Παυλόπουλος (επιμ.), Το Εργαστήριο του Γλύπτη, Αθήνα, Μητροπολιτικός Οργανισμός Μουσείων Εικαστικών Τεχνών Θεσσαλονίκης – MOMus, 2022.
Παυλόπουλος, Δημήτρης, Από τον Ιερό Λόχο στον Κωνσταντίνο ΙΒ΄. Νεότερα Αθηναϊκά Γλυπτά, Αθήνα, Gutenberg, 2020.
Χρήστου, Χρύσανθος, Μυρτώ Κουμβακάλη-Αναστασιάδη, Νεοελληνική Γλυπτική, 1800-1940, Αθήνα, Εμπορική Τράπεζα της Ελλάδος, 1982.
Spring semester
Subject: Art and History: Representations of History in 20th- and 21st- Century Art I
Summary: What stories do artworks tell? The work of art, the museum, the monument, the exhibition, and the artist are all historically defined concepts. Whose stories do they present? How have visual artists represented the experiences of violence and destruction caused by the two World Wars of the “short” 20th century? How do contemporary artists address historical events, the “silences” of history, and the “sensitive”, contested, and traumatic historical past in their work? How does contemporary art engage with memory, the archive, oral history, and historical research? Why do contemporary artists often assume the role of amateur historians, aiming to create alternative narratives of the past? In this seminar, we will analyze the ways in which historical events and narratives are represented, interpreted, and challenged in 20th- and 21st- century art. We will also consider how artistic representations of history and memory shape our understanding of the past. By examining a wide range of artworks –from painting and sculpture to digital media and performance– and engaging with relevant scholarship, we will explore the shifts from conventional history painting to the so-called “archival” and the “historiographic” turns in contemporary art.
Selected bibliography
Bennett, Jill, Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma and Contemporary Art, Stanford, Stanford University Press 2005.
Bourke, Joanna (επιμ.), War and Art: A Visual History of Modern Conflict, London, Reaction Books 2017.
Callahan, Sara, Art + Archive: Understanding the archival turn in contemporary art, Manchester, Manchester University Press 2022.
Desai, Dipti, Jessica Hamlin Rachel Mattson, History as Art, Art as History. Contemporary Art and Social Studies Education, New York, Routledge 2010.
Didi-Huberman, Georges, The Eye of History: When Images Take Positions, Cambridge/MA, MIT Press 2018.
Farr, Ian (επιμ.), Memory. Documents of Contemporary Art, London & Cambridge/MA, Whitechapel Gallery & MIT Press 2012.
Gibbons, Joan, Contemporary Art and Memory. Images of Recollection and Remembrance, London & New York, I.B. Tauris 2007.
Kernbauer, Eva, Art, History, and Anachronic Interventions Since 1990, London & New York, Routledge 2021.
Salber, Mark Phillips, Jordan Bear, (επιμ.) What Was History Painting and What Is It Now? Montreal/Kingston/London/Chicago, McGill-Queen's University Press 2019.
Saltzman, Lisa, Making Memory Matter: Strategies of Remembrance in Contemporary Art, Chicago, University of Chicago Press 2006.
