Undergraduate Art History 2019-2020

This introductory course will trace major developments in the history of art in the western world from Classical art and architecture in ancient Greece to the beginnings of photography in the nineteenth century. Aspects of European art to be explored, through painting, prints, sculpture and architecture, will begin with Stone-Age cave painting and then range from Greek Classicism to Medieval Gothic cathedrals, the rebirth of Classicism in the Renaissance to the grandeur of the Baroque, the ornament of the Rococo, and the revolutionary order of Neo-Classicism. Download Course Guide

View our course video: (Video) HA1004 - Introduction to Art History

Beginning with the Romantic period, and the art of Victorian Britain, this course will trace major developments in Western art through to the late twentieth century. Nineteenth-century modernism and modernity in France will be explored through Realism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and the art of fin-de-siècle Paris. Twentieth-century movements will include German Expressionism, the wildness of Fauvism, the analytical eye of Cubism, the anarchy and dreams of Dada and Surrealism, and the rise of American painting with Abstract Expressionism. The move to postmodernism will be traced through Pop Art and beyond.  Download Course Guide

Video: (Video) HA1508 - Modern Art

This course will survey western European art from circa 1100 to 1600. It will cover the styles known as Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Mannerism and Baroque. It will examine media including architecture, sculpture, metalwork and painting. The iconography of the Christian church forms the basis much of this art, but classical mythology and vernacular themes are also significant. Major themes include those of pilgrimage and church reform, the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. It provides a fundamental understanding of the cultural world in which Aberdeen University began. Download Course Guide

This course focuses on six major artistic masterpieces considered in their original and critical contexts. All the works considered have achieved fame or notoriety and have had a major impact on the history of art and culture. Works discussed may include the Bayeux Tapestry, Leonardo's Mona Lisa, Caravaggio's Calling of St Matthew, Courbet's Stonebreakers and Duchamp's Fountain.  Download Course Guide

This course is organised around a series of tutor-led class visits to sites of special art historical significance. The class will visit key locations in and around Aberdeen, and there is also a trip to Edinburgh. A range of important works of art and architecture will be studied in situ, and this study will be supported by staff lectures on related topics. The material on the course will be organised in relation to broad themes that will introduce students to major issues in the discipline of art history.  Download Course Guide

Unlike most other art history courses, this is a text-based course, which will focus on a number of selected ‘key texts’ by a range of authors from the history of art.  In most classes, the chosen texts, which you will read in advance, will be examined in relation to a small number of pre-chosen images.  Discussion will focus on the way in which the issues raised in a prescribed text can usefully illuminate (or otherwise!) the given images.

The first half of the course is devoted primarily to the work of Caravaggio. It locates his art in the naturalistic traditions of Lombardy and Venice, but  stresses the aesthetic gulf that separates Caravaggio from his artistic sources.

Central issues include debate about whether Caravaggio was an exponent or critic of Counter Reformation ideology; the extent to which his pictures were painted directly from posed models; the nature and function of his famed 'chiaroscuro'; and how his 'realism' differed from the more 'classical' naturalism of his rival, Annibale Carracci. The course then focuses on Caravaggio's so-called 'followers'.

Throughout the honours programme, you will be encouraged to reflect on your developing skills and knowledge as an art historian.  Through tutor-led and self-directed visits to various locations, the Fieldwork course will foster a wide appreciation of past and current issues in the art world, beyond the classroom.  The course will include not only a study of art and architecture but also a consideration of their context, display, function and interpretation.

This module develops students' knowledge and understanding of early modern European painting, providing a chronological overview of elite portraiture and diplomatic commissions in England between 1530 and 1650.  Artists studied in their English contexts include Hans Holbein, Nicholas Hilliard, Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony Van Dyck. Furthermore, this module asks important questions about the persuasive and diplomatic possibilities of the visual arts, the relationship between painter and patron, and the impact and legacy of foreign artists on British painting and visual culture through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and beyond.

This course traces the twentieth-century rise of American painting, in relation to contemporary developments in Europe.  Beginning with America's own art tradition and its initial responses to European Modernism, the course will capture the spirit of 1920s’ Realism and 1930s’ Regionalism and Social Realism before the outbreak of World War II.  We will examine how the Abstract Expressionism of Pollock and Rothko made post-war New York the new centre of Western art.  Finally, the course will consider 1960s’ Pop Art and the arrival of the post-modern climate.

The first half of the course is devoted primarily to the work of Caravaggio. It locates his art in the naturalistic traditions of Lombardy and Venice, but  stresses the aesthetic gulf that separates Caravaggio from his artistic sources.

Central issues include debate about whether Caravaggio was an exponent or critic of Counter Reformation ideology; the extent to which his pictures were painted directly from posed models; the nature and function of his famed 'chiaroscuro'; and how his 'realism' differed from the more 'classical' naturalism of his rival, Annibale Carracci. The course then focuses on Caravaggio's so-called 'followers'.

In Fieldwork 2, you will continue your study of works of art and architecture in situ by undertaking a final fieldtrip. This can be as part of a tutor-led group visit, to Paris for example, or as a planned and agreed independent trip. You will complete your Flog with reflections on summer activities and then begin selecting the material for your Fieldwork ePortfolio.  Unlike the Flog, this must be written in an academic style and will give you the opportunity to show how your thoughts and ideas as an art historian have been developing throughout the course. 

This module develops students' knowledge and understanding of early modern European painting, providing a chronological overview of elite portraiture and diplomatic commissions in England between 1530 and 1650.  Artists studied in their English contexts include Hans Holbein, Nicholas Hilliard, Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony Van Dyck. Furthermore, this module asks important questions about the persuasive and diplomatic possibilities of the visual arts, the relationship between painter and patron, and the impact and legacy of foreign artists on British painting and visual culture through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and beyond.

This course traces the twentieth-century rise of American painting, in relation to contemporary developments in Europe. Beginning with America's own art tradition and its initial responses to European Modernism, the course will capture the spirit of 1920s’ Realism and 1930s’ Regionalism and Social Realism before the outbreak of World War II. We will examine how the Abstract Expressionism of Pollock and Rothko made post-war New York the new centre of Western art.  Finally, the course will consider 1960s’ Pop Art and the arrival of the post-modern climate.

Your dissertation is intended to give you the opportunity to carry out a piece of sustained research on a topic of your own choice and to demonstrate to the examiners your ability to present the results of such research in a proper, scholarly manner. Your research may be of various kinds.  It may address works of art (or a single work of art) directly, through first-hand study in galleries, museums, or private collections, or it may be of a more literary kind, addressing critical or theoretical problems. Or it might involve both.