Course overview
This online course investigates eighteenth-century art and visual culture during the age of the Enlightenment and is enriched by local, national, and international museum and gallery collections. Structured around modules on Rococo, Neoclassicism, and Romanticism, weekly topics are framed by the dynamic social, political, and intellectual revolutions of the era. Case studies include changes in art and emotions, decorative arts and mass production, Grand Tourism, printmaking and satire, revolutionary propaganda, art and empire, trade between East and West, and power imbalances in depictions of gender, sexuality, and race. These themes are interrogated with a decolonial lens that challenges and reconstitutes the traditional focus on Europe to encompass multiple art historical narratives of production and reproduction, representation and absence, and past and present reception and interpretation of diverse images and objects in colonial America, Asia, and Australia.
Course learning outcomes
- Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the social, political, and globalised contexts framing eighteenth-century art and visual culture.
- Identify and apply principal art historical methods and concepts in research, speaking, and writing about art.
- Analyse and interpret historical images and objects and archival texts.
- Develop critical and creative thinking skills and formulate insightful arguments and conclusions independently and collaboratively.
- Engage with disciplinary-specific research tools and innovative modes of digital humanities scholarship relevant to eighteenth-century art and visual culture.
- Appreciate cultural diversity and complexity in past and present historical contexts.