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 Understanding Art 1: Western Art

Written by: Joseph Darracott

© Open College of the Arts 1

 Open College of the Arts
Michael Young Arts Centre
Redbrook Business Park
Wilthorpe Road
Barnsley S75 1JN

Telephone: 0800 731 2116

E-mail: enquiries@oca-uk.com
www.oca-uk.com

Registered charity number: 327446

ISBN 1 872147 80 1

Copyright OCA 1991; revised 1998; 1999; 2005; 2006

Document Control Number: UA1uwa_121108.doc

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in

any form or by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise -
without prior permission of the publisher
(Open College of the Arts)

OCA is a company limited by guarantee and registered in England under number 2125674.

Registered Office, Open College of the Arts, Michael Young Arts Centre, Unit 1B, Redbrook
Business Park, Wilthorpe Road, Barnsley, S75 1JN, United Kingdom

Cover picture: Still Life with Beer Mug, 1921. Fernand Léger, oil on canvas,
91 x 60cm. The Tate Gallery, London © DACS 1991

Back picture: The Return from Egypt III, 1993. Michael Kenny, mixed media on paper, 112 x 1153cm. After Poussin’s
Flight into Egypt. A work done during residency at Dulwich Picture Gallery, and an example of a creative variant
mentioned in Assignment 4 – Part One.

Joseph Darracott, author of this and second level art history courses for OCA, died in March 1998, aged 64.

© Open College of the Arts 2

Contents

You and your course

Welcome to Understanding Art 1: Western Art
What the pack contains
How this course is organised
Reading and viewing
Visiting
Annotation
How to start the annotation
Collecting
Projects and assignments
Your tutor
Finding time
Additional materials
Books
Sources of materials
A course calendar
On completing the course
1: Introduction
2: Religion
Assignment 1
3: Myth
4: History
Assignment 2
5: Symbol
6: Still life
Assignment 3 – part 1
Assignment 3 – part 2
7: Portraits

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 8: The figure
Assignment 4 - part 1
Assignment 4 - part 2
9: The interior
10: Landscape
Assignment 5
Completing the course ... and going further
If you want to read more
Appendix A: if you plan to submit your work for formal
assessment

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You and your course

Welcome to Understanding Art 1: Western Art

Since OCA began we have been developing practical courses in the arts in
which students learn mainly by themselves at home but take advantage of
regular support from professional tutors. To begin with, courses concentrated
on helping students to develop their own artistic abilities. But as OCA grew,
many students and potential students told us that they would appreciate a
course in art history. For some this might be as a supplement to work they are
already doing or have done with OCA in a practical subject; for others this
might be their first contact with the college. This course was our response to
these requests. But before you go further please check the contents of the
course pack you will have received against the included Course Contents
sheet.

How this course is organised

Any art history course obviously has to provide a collection of illustrative
material for students to consider and this course is no different, using both
the videos of the television programmes and the book A World History of Art.
In addition, any good teacher in a local college would alert students to other
opportunities to see works of art in nearby galleries and other buildings. We
clearly can't do this, as our students live not just all over the British Isles but
overseas as well. What we hope we can do instead is get you into the habit of
using intensively what local resources there are, reading widely outside the
course materials and making a point of using any journeys you may have to
make for holidays or business to see something new. Obviously if you can
visit large cities there will be plenty of exciting things to see, but there are no
end of pleasures for the trained eye almost anywhere and some treats such as

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sculpture parks, fine churches and large houses are as likely to be found in
the country as the city.

After providing you with a wide range of materials and suggestions for visits
we could simply have asked you to write a series of essays on various aspects
of art history, ignoring what artistic skills you may already have. Instead we
have tried, wherever possible, to involve you in practical activities that do
indeed include some writing but a lot more besides to help focus your
attention on individual works of art. We shall be interested to hear from you
what you think about this approach, and indeed suggestions for additional
activities if you wish to make them.

This course is not a conventional book on art history; it is a ‘guide book’,

firstly to help you use fully both the videos and selected chapters of A World
History of Art, and secondly to expand your interests in and enjoyment of art
as widely as possible.

The first half takes you through the history of Western art chronologically;
about half of A World History of Art is allocated for reading. The second half
takes a more analytic approach, discussing major themes of art; your textbook
will continue to be useful. It is desirable to work on the first half in the order
in which they come, but you may find that elements from the second half
could be dealt with in a different order if your visiting programme (see
below) cannot fit exactly into the order of the course. But make sure that the
Assignments for your tutor are submitted in the right order.
As you set out on your journey, the course can look like a huge mountain to
climb, but do not despair. There is a lot of work to do, but the best way of
tackling it could be to think of the five Assignments as five separate plateaux
to be reached.

Reading and viewing

There is Suggested additional reading at the beginning of each section. Fuller
bibliographic details of books mentioned there are given in the booklist later
in You and your course. We hope that you will be able to locate and read (or

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even browse through) some of the books recommended - perhaps ten or so
during the course itself - but remember that you can read further, using the
book suggestions, after the end of the course if you are pressed for time, or
books are not immediately available.

After the reading recommendations, each section is divided into three Units.
We hope that you might be able to complete each unit in about a week (six or
seven hours’ work), although there is no compulsion to do so. We shall have
more to say about time later. But you do not have to wait until you have
completed all the activities in any one unit before you go on to the next if
there is something such as a visit or getting a particular book from the library
which is holding you up.

Each unit begins with To view and To read; these list programmes from the
video and chapters from A World History of Art. Each programme lasts just
under half an hour. There then follows a brief discussion of what you will
view and read. Do read the discussion both before and after viewing the
programmes and reading chapters of A World History of Art. Our aim is to
help you develop the habit of intensive and purposeful looking.

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Visiting
In some units there is a heading To visit. You are asked to make ten visits
during the course. We suggest that you skim through this course book during
the first week of study; one of the practical things that you can do during this
time is to start to plan your visits. To help you we have summarised the visits
in the Calendar at the end of this introduction.

One visit has to be made as specified in Unit 12, because it links up with
Assignment 2. All the other visits are more flexible and there is always an
alternative plan when a visit proves impossible for you to fit in. But try and
make the visit at some time during the course, and if need be do a little
juggling of the order of the units in order to take advantage of visits. Most
important of all, seize any opportunity, at whatever stage in the course, to
make the more demanding visits. If you live in an isolated area and go to
London, say, just once a year, don't pass up a visit to a cast gallery, for
example, because you have not yet reached that stage in your course!

Annotation
Every unit has a paragraph To annotate. You will see that you need a picture
for each of the annotation exercises. The very best plan is for you to visit local
galleries to find appropriate works. You can make notes in the gallery if you
like and take home postcards. At home you can then start the annotation,
writing round the postcard or sketch; your next visit to the gallery should
include looking again at the work you choose.

If you live far from a gallery, or the gallery can't provide what you need, don't
worry. Two alternative suggestions are listed in each unit. The first
suggestion is that you use a postcard you already have, or that you buy one,
perhaps the suggestion (these choices are from national collections, where
postcards are almost always available). The second suggestion is that you use
illustrations from A World History of Art, either by photocopy or tracing.

The course stresses careful looking, so your preference will be to see an

original work against which you can measure a reproduction. However good

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a postcard may be, it cannot capture the presence of the original, and not just
in inaccuracies of colour reproduction. But you are unlikely to be able to see
an appropriate original work each week, so the suggested cards will help you
to keep a rhythm going through the course. And all the suggested cards are
naturally relevant to your studying; you might decide to order the cards
anyway as part of your visual resources.

How to start the annotation

Take an A4 sheet of paper; write at the top the information given on the back
of the card or in the caption to the picture; stick down your card, above
centre; draw a line across the bottom of the sheet.

Notes around the card:

• appreciative comments, highlighting why you chose the card
• comments about the card itself, for example the accuracy of the
colours, whether only part of the picture is shown, or what view of a
sculpture is seen
• observations about the elements used in the painting/
sculpture/building, such as:
lines - thick, thin etc
tones - dark, light, grey etc
textures - coarse, smooth etc
colours - bright, dull etc
space - deep, shallow etc
shapes - square, round etc
• observations about how these elements are organised within the
painting/sculpture/building:
to what extent is each element necessary?
how is the sense of unity maintained?
how is variety in this unity achieved?
do some elements dominate?
are there main stresses, eg dominant shapes or colours?
is there a main rhythm or repetitive element?

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• observations about marks (painters sometimes describe all activities of
drawing and painting as ‘making marks’)
• observations about technique
• observations about materials, which make crucial differences in art, but
more especially sculpture and architecture
• notes about information communicated by the artist - subject,
narrative, people or places represented, period detail, mood
• notes about the success of the image, its representational skill, whether
it tells its story well (if a narrative), or how its presence impresses you.

An example of a tonal study

Sketches around the card:

• analytical notes, that is things you can describe visually: linear, tonal,
compositional, geometric, technical.

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Sample annotation
Other examples of students annotations are at the back of this course.

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Notes and queries:
You will by now have noted things you can see from the card; but you will
also have some questions which cannot be answered by just looking. The
space below the line is for memoranda to yourself. Who is the sitter in the
portrait? Why was the statue commissioned? Where were the pictures
displayed? How does the picture compare with other works by the same
artist? Does some object represented have a special meaning? What is the
history of the work? To answer such questions may lead you to a general
survey, a monograph, a biography or a catalogue.

Particular observations:
Here is a checklist of some things to consider. They are arranged under the
five headings discussed in the second part of the course, but can apply to
annotations you do from the very beginning.

• still life: making a list of objects, objects skilfully represented as seen,

objects in a still life painting with symbolic meaning

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• portrait: face, head image, personality, hands, clothes, objects or
items which tell you about the sitter (called attributes), whether the
portrait has a symbolic purpose
• figure: anatomy, ideal figures, sources in classical art, realism,
relations between figures, gesture, gender, symbolism, eroticism
• interior: figures and settings, pictures telling a story, does the interior
reflect the power or position of the owner, evidence of works of art
collected
• landscape: locality, photographic evidence, comparisons, is the
landscape as it was seen, is it altered or idealised, informality in
subjects.

Examples:
We have done a few sample annotations in the course book, not to be copied
slavishly but just to give you an idea of what you might wish to do.

Some students find during the course that they enjoy extending this exercise.
You can use a larger sheet of paper, A3 for example, or link several A4 sheets
together. A large sheet of plain paper is an asset if you are making sketches or
diagrams. Or you could experiment with a tracing overlay, through which to
demonstrate some feature of a painting.

Collecting
After the annotation you will find that each unit has a section To collect. In
addition to what you will be collecting for the annotation you should aim to
collect about half a dozen postcards for each unit to help broaden your
interests. Postcards, despite their shortcomings mentioned above, are a
flexible way of observing comparisons and contrasts; it is easier to spread out
cards than to look at illustrations in different books. But keep an open mind;
an illustrated booklet on some topic could be excellent value.

If you keep up with the suggestions you will end up with a collection of about
two hundred cards, fairly well spread out in themes and periods but short on
architecture. But the choice is yours not ours; it should reflect your particular

© Open College of the Arts 13

tastes and be useful to you. As with all activities on this course, planning
ahead is very important if you are going to have the right cards at the right
time.

Projects and assignments

The final part of each unit is either a Project or an Assignment. Projects are
activities to help you to build on what you have learnt during the unit; you
will find that they vary greatly in form and content. On the whole Projects are
seen only by you, so you will have to develop a spirit of self-criticism in
deciding whether you have done the Project satisfactorily, but you will see
that we suggest that some Projects are sent to your tutor for brief comment.
By all means discuss project work with family and friends though; they may
be able to make helpful comments and they may even get interested in doing
the course themselves!

At five stages in the course a more substantial Assignment is called for in

place of a Project. This Assignment is sent to your Tutor and may well require
you to give more time to it and to prepare for it over a longer period than
would a Project. As so often in this course, look ahead. Always have an eye
on what the next Assignment will be and accumulate materials and ideas all
the time. The fifth and final Assignment is to be agreed between you and your
tutor, so you will need to have some ideas mapped out by the time you send
your fourth Assignment so that you can tell your tutor at that stage what your
proposals are.

You will find that we give you guidance on what to send your tutor at the end
of each Assignment. Two of the Assignments might be quite extensive
comment or analysis by pictorial, rather than verbal means, so we have
supplied you with a roll in which you can put this work if required.

Your tutor
You will have been assigned to a tutor whose job it is to support you during
your course, particularly by looking at your work on occasions.

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As soon as possible, complete your Student Profile Form and send it to your
tutor using one of the labels provided. This will help your tutor to give you
the support you need. If there is anything special you think your tutor should
know about you or your situation, you should indicate it on this form. Do not
wait for a reply from your tutor before starting the course.

As indicated above, your Assignment work and some additional material is

sent to your tutor on five occasions. But do not overburden your tutor with
more than is asked for, and avoid the temptation to write 4,000 words when
2,000 are called for, or your tutor will simply not have the time to give you an
adequate response.

By all means indicate in a covering letter any problems you are having or any
ideas that you have for future work. Your tutor should respond within two
weeks, but please bear in mind possible delays in the post. Keep your tutor
informed if you expect your next submission to be substantially delayed; your
tutor will also alert you if planning to be away on holiday so that you don't
rush to complete an assignment only for it to sit on your tutor's doormat for a
fortnight. Do not wait for your tutor's response to an assignment before
continuing with your work.

Finding time
Some of our students find it difficult to carve out the time for the course every
week; others may find that they have a little extra time available.

If you have more time we strongly recommend that you work in greater
depth on each unit, sticking to the rate of roughly one unit every week, rather
than rush on to complete the course more quickly. On the other hand if you
find that on occasion you can't find six or seven hours a week to work on the
course, don't worry; most of all don't feel that you have to abandon a unit
early because the allotted time is up and you haven't completed all the work
(unless, of course, as mentioned previously, you are held up by something
over which you have no control, such as a visit you can't yet make or a library
book not yet in). Take whatever time you need, and if you do find yourself

© Open College of the Arts 15

substantially delayed just keep your tutor informed. Our aim is not to
complete all students in a rigid time period but to give all students a much
wider understanding of art by studying at the pace that best suits them. And
we fully recognise that there is a very wide variation in the amount of time
that different students will take over the same activity, so the recommended
times of six to seven hours for each unit are bound to be general guidelines
only.

Having said this, self-discipline is important to all learning; you should plan
your timetable of work ahead and keep to it if you possibly can. It is not a bad
idea to use your diary to plan times when you will be able to work, and if you
can, to make these times fairly regular throughout the week rather than very
long ‘catching-up’ sessions in which you are bound to get tired. If you have
family at home, make sure they understand that you need some time
completely by yourself.

Additional materials
During the course and in addition to the materials we suggest that you
collect, you will probably want to acquire for yourself:

• further postcards
• catalogues and guidebooks to exhibitions and places you visit
• cuttings of interest from newspapers and magazines
• some sort of storage system as a logbook.

You will also need for the practical activities:

• A4 writing paper (you will eventually need several blocks) and a

binder
• somewhere to keep the postcards
• a camera if you have one (this doesn't need to be anything special)
• a notebook
• sketchbooks (preferably one that can fit into a pocket or handbag, and
one that is larger)
• a few sheets of white cartridge paper (weight 120 gsm or more), both
A2 and A3

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• some charcoal (with fixative) and/or HB, 2B and 6B pencils and/or a
black felt-tip pen such as an Edding pen, size 0.2
• paints and brushes (optional).

Desirable but not essential are:

• a ruler or measuring tape

• a drawing board approximately 60 by 45 cm; a firm piece of plywood
would do well
• an easel if you have one
• a bag for carrying materials out of doors
• an A3 folder to keep work in.

Books
A World History of Art - Fifth Edition is the only set text, but you will find some
other books helpful and may want to buy or borrow them. The list which
follows is only a rough guide, particularly as to prices.

Check the current edition of Books in Print to update information; larger

bookshops have it on microfiche, or you can find it in main libraries. You will
probably want to acquire some reference books. These are all in paperback:

either P and L Murray, Dictionary of Art and Artists (Penguin)

or Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Art and Artists (Thames and Hudson)

or Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford)

E G Holt, A Documentary History of Art, 3 volumes:

vol 1 (Princeton)
vol 2 (Princeton)
vol 3 (Yale)

H B Chipp, Theories of Modern Art (U. California)

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The suggested additional reading under the ten headings of the course almost
entirely consists of books in paperback; hardback editions are in some cases
available, and for long-standing favourites you may find second-hand copies.

Introduction:
John Boardman, Greek Art (Thames and Hudson)
John Summerson, The Classical Language of Architecture (Thames and Hudson)

Religion:
Michael Baxandall, Painting & Experience in 15th-century Italy (Oxford)
Italian Painting before 1400 (Art in the Making) (National Gallery, London)

Myth:
Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Painters (Oxford or Penguin)
Jill Dunkerton, Susan Foister, Dillian Gordon, Nicholas Penny, Giotto to Dürer:
Early Renaissance Painting in the National Gallery, (National Gallery, London)

History:
Robert L Herbert, Impressionism: Art, Leisure and Parisian Society (Yale)
Impressionism (Art in the Making) (National Gallery, London)

Symbol:
Marina Warner, Monuments and Maidens (Vintage)
William Tucker, The Language of Sculpture (Thames and Hudson)

Still life:
S Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches (Fontana)
John Milner, Studios in 19th century Paris (Yale)

Portraits:
Rembrandt (Art in the Making), (National Gallery, London)
R Brilliant, Portraiture (Reaktion Books)

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Figure:
K Clark, The Nude (Penguin)
Rudolf Wittkower, Sculpture (Penguin)

Interior:
Mark Girouard, Life in the English Country House (Penguin)

Landscape:
K Clark, Landscape into Art (Murray)
J Barrel, The Dark Side of the Landscape (Cambridge)
J House, Monet: Nature into Art (Yale)

A further list of books that may be of interest to you is given at the end of the
course book. In addition to books, there are an increasing number of videos,
DVDs/CDs and slide-tape texts available and which you might wish to
consider.

Sources of materials
Postcards
Postcards are especially valuable for the course. You will normally choose one
postcard for an annotation; for each unit of the course some postcards are
suggested for you to make up your own groups of cards documenting
periods or themes; and postcards are handy for comparisons, or simply to
stick on a mantelpiece or a pinboard as souvenirs.

It is rarely possible to find just the cards you would like at the very moment
you want them; but mail order can help with some advance planning.
However, remember that postcards are not always in print, even at main
galleries. Impulse buying at a gallery you visit is a good policy.

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The following addresses will be useful.
Mail Order Department, National Gallery Publications
5/6 Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5BA (more than 500 works on their postcard list,
including the Picassos on loan from the Bergruen Collection)

Mail Order Department, British Museum Publications

46 Bloomsbury Street, London WC2 (no list available, but a good range of
classical works)

Mail Order Department, Tate Gallery Publications

Millbank, London SW1 (more than 550 works on their postcard list:
distribution by Motif Editions, Shenval House, South Road, Templefields,
Harlow, Essex CM20 2BD)

Mail Order Department, The British Library,

21 Russell Square, London WC1B 3DG (more than 150 details from
illuminated manuscripts on their list)

Open University broadcasts (tv and radio)

A list of these for the year can be obtained from:

Central Enquiry Services, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA

Videos
The National Gallery has published a set of videos about the gallery's own
pictures, and sells a number of others, including one on impressionism. A
CD-ROM is also available.

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A course calendar
This is a list of some of the special activities in the course, and may be helpful
in planning ahead. Remember that apart from the visit for Unit 12, visits are
flexible and could be made at a time to suit yourself.

Before Unit 1 Send Student Profile to your tutor

2 Visit a classical building
4 Visit a Gothic church
6 Assignment 1 (video review) and course work to tutor

7 Visit an art gallery

12 Visit a townhouse
12 Assignment 2 (preferably visit report) and course work to
tutor

15 Visit a public square

15 Complete reading of specified chapters of A World History
of Art, and first viewing of video
17 Visit an artist’s studio
18 Assignment 3 (a copy or a set of analyses) and course
work to tutor

20 Visit a portrait gallery

22 Visit a cast gallery
24 Assignment 4 (a copy or a set of analyses) and course
work to tutor together with a proposal for
Assignment 5

25 Visit an interesting interior

28 Visit a landscape
30 Assignment 5 (written and illustrated paper) and course
work to tutor

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1: Introduction

Suggested additional reading

John Boardman, Greek Art (survey)
John Summerson, The Classical Language of Architecture (a method of looking at
classical architecture)

UNIT 1
Discussion
In this first unit you can take some bearings. The video and set book are
attractive starting points for the course; other resources are useful too, but
nothing is more important than the decision you have taken to find out more
about Western art. This programme of active learning has been planned to
help you carry that decision through.

The activities of the course include drawing. If you have drawing skills, you
can make use of them; but you do not absolutely need to draw, since the
practical turn taken in some projects or assignments can be answered by
rough sketches, diagrams, tracings or photographs. All of these are means for
learning to look at works of art.

I suggest that you skim through this course book in the first week to look at
what projects it contains, what resources you can use, and what planning you
can do in advance. The Open College of the Arts aims to make sure that
courses can be used by everyone wherever they live; all the same, some
students will have easier access to libraries, galleries and other places to visit
than others. The trick of successful planning is to anticipate your future needs
and opportunities.

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Time will always be important. The course is planned in 30 units each ideally
lasting about a week, and three to five extra weeks without set work should
enable you to finish your final illustrated essay. While you are doing this
course you may need to travel on business or may take a holiday. This travel
can be an important bonus for you. The ten specified visits during the course
are to different sorts of place, for example a Gothic building, a cast gallery
and a public square. On each visit you are looking out for particular things; it
will be very valuable to be able to make comparisons in different places.
Again, some episode in the video may fascinate you; perhaps you can go to
the place described and experience it for yourself.

You will finish the course with an excellent basis of varied material if you
wish to develop your studies. First the video and the set book; thirty
annotated pictures, and a further collection making up an anthology of well
over a hundred; twenty four projects, including your own photographs and
drawings; five assignments; your logbook; one sketch book and one note book
at least, and publications you have bought along the way, such as guides and
possibly some of the books suggested as additional reading. You will have
shaped this material in your own way, perhaps emphasising a historical
period, or enlarging and strengthening the material about a preferred theme,
say still life or portraiture.

A practical note at this stage is to assess your need for books. You are likely to
find librarians very helpful, but book stocks in local libraries are not limitless,
and it takes time to borrow through the national lending scheme.

Buying a book can also be slow if your bookshop has to order it from a
publisher. As a rule of thumb, I hope you can read about ten books during the
course. I make various suggestions for different lines of attack; but this is
more of a looking course than a reading course, so do not be overawed by
bibliographies. ‘Reading a book’ does not necessarily mean ploughing
through every word. Francis Bacon's seventeenth century essays contain some
wise advice:

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 ‘Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be
chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to
be read but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly with diligence and
attention.’

Your logbook
Keeping material in a logbook is a good organising aid to your studies. But
only you can decide what goes into it. Do you share your notes freely, or do
you prefer to keep them private? A logbook can be used almost like a diary,
or be a more matter of fact record of data and ideas.

Quotations are often lost unless you write them down. Have you ever kept a
commonplace book? You can use your logbook for selected quotations and
miscellaneous information which in the nineteenth century would have gone
into a commonplace book. Anecdotes, too, can find their place in a logbook;
they are easily forgotten.

The actual form of the logbook is up to you, but the best could be a box-file or
a ring-binder with transparent envelopes into which you also put copies of
the work done for the various projects and comments sent to and received
from your tutor. It is best to make your mind up about your logbook and how
you are going to organise it now as paper will start to proliferate very
quickly!

To annotate
You may like to make an informal start, by choosing a postcard of any work
of art and making some notes about it. Look at the suggestions in You and
your course and the examples at various stages in the course to help you get
going.

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Project 1
A project or an assignment is given for every unit of the course. Your first
project is in three parts.

The first is about planning. Skim through the course book and think about
how you plan to do it. There is a course calendar at the end of You and your
course to help you, and the materials you may need are also listed. Students
have found some trouble in obtaining the postcards they would like; we have
given some addresses, but you may be able to find a good local source.

What about books? I suggest that you make yourself a priority list of those
you would like to buy, those you expect to be able to borrow, and those that
might be desirable but you do not feel are indispensable. Remember all the
books listed in You and your course are paperbacks, but they are not all cheap.
The books listed at the end of the course book are suggested more for
following up the course rather than for use while doing it.

A main planning issue is time. Very few students so far have completed the
course quickly; you might think of a year as more realistic than the target of
33 to 35 weeks which is theoretically possible. What will you be doing in the
year ahead? Holidays and business trips are opportunities to make visits
which you may find easier to take out of the sequence given in the course
book.

Secondly, write down a list of questions that could be asked about works of
art. These should be in two columns. The first column contains questions that
can be answered by looking at the work - in the annotation exercise you will
be answering some of these questions by what you write around your card.
The second column has the questions that have to be answered by other
means, and these have their place below the line in your annotation exercise.
Thirdly, most important, write down what your aim is: why are you taking
this course, and what do you want to get out of it? I suggest this should be
about 500 words long (many people write about ten words to a line, and an
A4 sheet easily gives space for 25 lines). This is a fundamental piece of

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writing. Please explore your aims as honestly as you can. We shall come back
to this key document.

UNIT 2

To view
The Classical tradition:
1. The Legacy of Greece

Points to note in your viewing: the sequence of standing figures including the
Kritian boy; the figure of Zeus, which as with other identifications of Greek
figures may be wrong - Zeus is correct if he used to hurl a thunderbolt, but if
he held a trident, Poseidon is the right god; the sculpture at Pergamon which
John Boardman describes as showing ‘subtle poses, postures and actions’.

To read
A World History of Art
Chapter 4: The Greeks and their neighbours

Discussion
In this unit and the next we start by looking at the classical tradition. Greek
culture is familiar to you through many means, not least, as you are reminded
by the video, in architecture using the classical orders. A leading principle of
Greek art is also familiar. Donald Strong has written:

‘The Greeks of the fifth century believed that the highest aspirations of the spirit could
be expressed in a perfection of the human form based on harmony and proportion; that
perfection implies the perfection of a universal order.’

But the moment of fine balance in fifth century Greece was difficult to
achieve, and proved impossible to maintain. Greek art before the fifth century
had been part of a religious culture comparable with the Egyptian and
Assyrian civilisations, whose temples, devotional images, sculptural reliefs,

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and smaller figures are also impressive. There is a fascinating satisfaction to
be had in tracing the changes in Greek sculpture from early static poses of the
Kouros (p121) or the Kore (p 121) to fluent realism in the carvings of the
Parthenon (p 136-7). (All page references in this course book will be to A
World History of Art. - Seventh Edition) It is also intriguing to observe how later
sculptors of the Hellenistic period aimed more at heightened drama and
pathos, by using exciting stories and strenuous poses, say in the altar at
Pergamum (p 176).

Unluckily such comparisons can only be made from partial evidence, since so
much is lost; masterpieces by great sculptors, for example, can only be seen
darkly through the veil of later Roman copies. However, during our century
some fine bronzes have been recovered intact from the sea, like the Warrior
from Riace (p 140), some compensation for the ruinous and fragmentary state
of most ancient Greek architecture and stone sculpture. Greek painting,
highly esteemed in its own time, has vanished, though some guesswork about
it can be made from the analogy of a large number of surviving painted vases.
Here, as in sculpture, a development of increased accuracy in representing the
human figure can be traced.

John Boardman suggests in the video that to ‘understand what Greek art is
really about’ we need to know about its original setting, what was in the mind
of the artist, and what impact the art had on the mind of contemporary
spectators. Such an ambitious programme is for a lifetime’s study; but we
must all take his point about the vivid colours of Greek stone sculpture,
which in its time would have made it rather like Egyptian art, whose
splendour is familiar to us from survivals like the Tutankhamun tomb
treasures.

Are we all Greeks, as Michael Wood reminds us that Shelley wrote? At least,
the classical language of architecture is still understood and continues to be
practised, as it has been since its revival in the Renaissance. It is a language
which, once its grammar has been mastered, can be read with interest and
pleasure in the architecture of many periods. The same elements are
everywhere used, but in different combinations, in varying sizes, and with a

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wide range of plans and purposes. Here we are face to face with the principle
of compositional unity, important for organising visual elements in works of
art, as you will notice in your annotation exercises.

The impressive Doric columns of the Parthenon (p 127), a building originally

complete with other classical components of a temple, a sculptural frieze,
panels and pediments can be used as a touchstone. Its heroic architectural
ambition was to create a landmark, geographical, artistic and political. Other
buildings also aimed to match their purposes. According to the Roman writer
Vitruvius, a Corinthian order was more appropriate for a temple to Venus or
Prosperine, ‘because these are delicate divinities and so its rather slender
outlines, its flowers, leaves, and ornamental volutes will lend propriety where
it is due.’ By the middle of the sixteenth century the time was ripe for an
illustrated source book for answering architects’ problems. The Italian
architect Serlio produced one in eight volumes, the fourth being on the five
classical orders which he listed as Ionic, Doric, Corinthian, Tuscan and
Composite.

Nineteenth century buildings are sometimes heavy-handed in their use of the

orders. If you visit such a building, let me ask you to see it with forgiving
eyes. Victorian architects were also students of architectural history, and
sought a harmony which they did not find in their own times. Their
knowledge of classical principles of design is often admirable; a closer look
will usually gain a nineteenth century classical building greater respect.

You may be lucky enough to have a more beguiling classical building within
reach, perhaps a country house of the eighteenth century; the work of Inigo
Jones or John Nash in London, the planning of Bath by John Wood, or St
George's Hall in Liverpool are city centre examples. Such work, and there are
plenty of others, incorporates architectural allusions and comparisons, as do
Renaissance buildings.

To annotate
Take a Greek sculpture or a vase painting.

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Instructions for annotations are in You and your course.

Suggestions: Horsemen, Elgin Marbles (British Museum)

Horsemen, Elgin Marbles (p 134)

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Some advice on ... looking and drawing

This is not a pipe

There is a famous picture by René Magritte of a tobacco pipe, on the canvas of
which are painted the words 'Ceci n’est pas une pipe'. It is a good joke and a
useful example. In reading A World History of Art, those are not pictures you
see on the page. Viewing the video, you are not looking at Athens. And, what
is more, the portrait in the gallery is never the person.

What do you get with what you see?

Alas, none of us are rich enough or could live long enough to see all Western
art. We have to make do with substitutes. These can provide information, and
prepare us for encounters with art. Filming can give a rudimentary sense of
place and the welcome opportunity to follow a camera round a building.
From plaster casts we can gain a sense of sculptural scale. Colour
reproductions give an imperfect idea of pictures, as your annotation exercises
will continue to demonstrate.

Before photography, vicarious experience of pictures or sculpture was

through prints; they were a main source of inspiration to artists. For anyone,
engravings and mezzotints are rich providers of information about line and
tone. Some reproductive prints are also fascinating works in themselves,
translating a pictorial idea from one medium into another. For our present
purposes, any substitute for a given work of art provokes the question of how
much can be learned from it.

Are you a camera?

Your own records can help you to remember what you saw and felt, either in
the presence of a work of art, or on a visit to a building. A souvenir postcard
of a view is all very well, but with a camera you can record unusual details,
pinpoint something that interests or intrigues you. You can select for yourself,
reinforcing a personal memory.

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