Understanding Art

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Walking around an art gallery, it’s impossible not to be struck by all the diverse styles. Behind these lie materials, practices and techniques that often transcend art historical times and places. In this course, take a closer look at six different approaches to art-making, from ancient Rome to Japan and contemporary Australia.

Looking at art like this will develop your understanding across a variety of collections and exhibitions in contemporary galleries and museums. Looking at works by Donatello can help you understand how Western art has long seen the male nude, for example, and learning about the technique, sophistication and control of Chinese and Japanese ink wash painting reveals the inspiration behind award-winning works by contemporary Australian artists.

Throughout the course we’ll return to key themes, such as the collaborative nature of artistic practice, the way in which tradition creates innovation, women’s lesser-known contributions in certain media, and the challenge of capturing a fleeting, delicate moment in an enduring physical form.

The course comprises weekly 1-hour recorded lectures and weekly 1-hour guided discussion sessions. The lectures focus on the historical context and on explaining the media and techniques, as well as the relationships between the artists under discussion. The guided discussion sessions will focus on ‘reading’ a selection of works by the artists.

There are two options for booking on this course: you can choose to access the recorded lectures + discussion classes or, if you prefer, listen to the recorded lectures only. Discussion groups are limited to 10 participants.

REQUIREMENTS

This course does not require any assumed knowledge, only a willingness to learn and an interest in art. Discussion sessions require access to Zoom, a device with a camera (such as a tablet or computer with a webcam), and an internet connection.

COURSE CONTENT

Week 1: Bronze and the male nude (Nick Gordon)
Lecture: In the Mediterranean of the ancient world, bronze was a preferred medium for sculpture and a sure sign of a patron’s wealth and power, but its strength, ductility and ability to be repurposed meant that over time, fewer works in bronze survived. In the fifteenth century in Florence, Donatello, Verrocchio and others revived life-sized sculpting in the medium to explore the representation of the male nude, with an enduring impact on how we continue to see it in art today.
Discussion: Classical sculpture, Donatello, Verrocchio

Week 2: Steel and sculpture in Australia (Nick Gordon)
Lecture: Industrial and yet with a capacity to look organic, versatile and incredibly durable, steel has been a medium of choice for Australian sculptors since modernists began to explore its potential in the twentieth century.
Discussion: Margel Hinder, Inge King, Paul Selwood, Braddon Snape

Week 3: Mosaic (Kathleen Olive)
Lecture: Mosaic is a painstaking medium, the elements of its carpets of semi-precious stones and vitreous glass paste gathered from sometimes distant sources and assembled by large teams of skilled workers moving seamlessly from floors to walls to ceilings. In Western Europe, it became a dominant visual language of the early Christian church, spreading from Syria, Palestine and the Mediterranean to the Middle East and encompassing both the highly figurative and the gloriously abstract.
Discussion: Takako Hirai, Jack Whitten and the mosaics of Ravenna

Week 4: Ink (Kathleen Olive)
Lecture: Initially an accompaniment to text, monochromatic washes of ink became an art form in their own right in seventh-century China and were studied and imitated with great interest in Japan as Zen Buddhism spread both the medium and its potential spiritual significance. Working with the white of the paper as much as with the black of the pigment, artists carefully control line, tonal washes and the power of gestalt in expressive calligraphy, landscape paintings and even sculpture.
Discussion: Sesshu Toyo, Lindy Lee, Qin Feng

Week 5: Photography, photojournalism and the moment (Kathleen Olive)
Lecture: Theorists initially speculated that the new medium of photography could be too easily reproduced, with images thus losing their power, but as Depression and world war led to an impulse to capture and understand human experience, photography became one of the modern age’s most powerful new media. Working with time as measured in instants, photojournalism has the potential to preserve and politicise an entire epoch, particularly at the intersection of capitalism, war and poverty.
Discussion: Dorothea Lange, Henri Cartier Bresson, Robert Capa and Magnum Photos

Week 6: Collage (Nick Gordon)
Lecture: Collage is almost as old as paper itself, but it took on dramatic new significance when artists exploited its potential to reflect the political fragmentation, melting pot and image-saturated nature of the twentieth century. While doing this, collage went beyond paper to use a wide range of media - photography, screen printing, textiles, building materials and even jacquard tapestry.
Discussion: Hannah Hoch, David Noonan, Njideka Akunyili Crosby