Perspectives in the History of Art: Classical Traditions and Contemporary Revolutions

Perspectives in the History of Art: Classical Traditions and Contemporary Revolutions will introduce students to a broad variety of works of art – from antique sculpture through to contemporary art – through a series of lectures, seminars, and exhibition visits. Through a double focus on new art and the Greco-Roman tradition, the module will demonstrate how the categories of ‘contemporary’ and ‘classical’ are less discrete – and less antithetical – than they often appear.  It will demonstrate how the sculptural forms and mythological themes of Greco-Roman antiquity have shaped the western artistic canon for two millennia, engendering ideas about the nature of art that endure to this day. The module will moreover show how contemporary art, a category that has typically been historicised in relation to the Modernist ‘ruptures’ of the past two centuries, is invariably rooted in theories and practices that found foundational expression in antiquity, and later the Renaissance.

Over the course of two weeks, students will be exposed to multiple instances of historical and contemporary art in a variety of locations in London and will moreover be introduced to some of the different ways in which the history of art (whether the longue durée development of the western tradition, or the more concise story of Modernism) has been told.

By the end of the module, you should have:

Developed a closer awareness of some of the methodologies that have been deployed by art historians over the centuries (with a particular focus on classical reception)

Developed an understanding of the different ways in which Greco-Roman antiquity has reverberated through the art of successive epochs and cultures

Developed a sense of the embeddedness of the ‘contemporary’ moment within a larger historical picture.