Art and visual culture: medieval to modern

What is art? What is visual culture? How have they changed through history? This free course, Art and visual culture: medieval to modern, explores the fundamental issues raised by the study of western art and visual culture over the last millennium. It moves from discussing the role of the artist and the functions of art during the medieval and Renaissance periods to considering the concept and practice of art in the era of the academies, before finally addressing the question of modern art and the impact of globalisation.

• Introduction
• Learning outcomes
• 1 Medieval to Renaissance
• 1 Medieval to Renaissance
• 1.1 Art, visual culture and skill
• Art and ‘ars’
• Medieval and Renaissance visual culture
• Art and adornment
• Artistic quality
• Reputation and skill
• Alberti on painting
• The Medici as patrons and collectors
• 1.2 Artists, patrons and workshops
• Painting, the liberal arts and humanism
• Artists and patrons
• Patterns of artistic employment: workshop, guild and court employment
• 2 Academy to avant-garde
• 2 Academy to avant-garde
• 2.1 From function to autonomy
• Bürger’s functions of art: the sacral
• Bürger’s functions of art: the courtly
• Bürger’s functions of art: bourgeois art
• 2.2 From the Baroque to Romanticism
• Baroque ‘style’
• Rococo ‘style’
• Neo-classical ‘style’
• 2.3 From patronage to the public sphere
• Patronage
• From patronage to the open market
• Habermas and the public sphere
• The art museum and the painting of current events
• 3 Modernity to globalisation
• 3 Modernity to globalisation
• 3.1 Autonomy and modernity
• Greenberg and autonomy
• The emergence of modern art in Paris
• Responses to the modern world
• 3.2 National, international, cosmopolitan
• Contradictions
• A move to New York
• The local and the global
• Conclusion
• References
• Acknowledgements