The course introduces the main critical methodologies and fundamental historical knowledge necessary to understand the artistic languages of modernity. Through lectures and selected readings, students will retrace key stages in the development of the visual arts — from the realist movements of the mid-nineteenth century to the avant-gardes of the early XXth century — with the aim of acquiring a methodology for analyzing the poetics, movements, and languages that define modern art.
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This course introduces students to the historical developments and key figures in the visual arts of modernism - from around 1880 to 1940 - focusing on issues such as their relationship to technology and new media (photography, cinema), political and social context, urban and natural environments, and psychic life. These artistic experiences not only helped to transform the nature of aesthetic experience, opening up new forms of sensibility, but also radically redefined the understanding of individual and collective reality.
The analysis of the different trends and poetics will also provide the basic methodology for the study of the media and languages that characterise art between the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, providing the critical tools essential for reading different types of works.
Philippe Dubois, L'atto fotografico, Urbino 2009, pp. 25-108 (PDF)
Georg Simmel, La metropoli e la vita dello spirito, Armando 2011 (PDF)
Programme
MODERNISM AND MODERNISMS, 1880-1940This course introduces students to the historical developments and key figures in the visual arts of modernism - from around 1880 to 1940 - focusing on issues such as their relationship to technology and new media (photography, cinema), political and social context, urban and natural environments, and psychic life. These artistic experiences not only helped to transform the nature of aesthetic experience, opening up new forms of sensibility, but also radically redefined the understanding of individual and collective reality.
The analysis of the different trends and poetics will also provide the basic methodology for the study of the media and languages that characterise art between the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, providing the critical tools essential for reading different types of works.
Core Documentation
Stephen Kern, Il tempo e lo spazio, Il Mulino 2007: capitoli 4: Il futuro; 5: La velocità; 6: La natura dello spazio, pp. 117-226 (PDF)Philippe Dubois, L'atto fotografico, Urbino 2009, pp. 25-108 (PDF)
Georg Simmel, La metropoli e la vita dello spirito, Armando 2011 (PDF)
Reference Bibliography
XIX century (1880-1900): Federica Rovati, L'arte dell'Ottocento, Einaudi 2017 XX century (1900-1940): Federica Rovati, L’arte del primo Novecento, Einaudi 2015. Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, Benjamin Buchloh, Art since 1900, Thames & Hudson (PDF): 1900-1940Attendance
Students are free to choose to attendType of evaluation
The exam is written and takes place in the classroom. Its purpose is to evaluate the students' ability to present and analyze the themes, poetics, movements, and artists discussed in the lectures and referenced in the bibliography. Moreover, the exam aims to confirm their ability to read and interpret works of art, using appropriate critical terminology and relating them to their historical context.