- Department: History of Art
- Credit value: 20 credits
- Credit level: I
- Academic year of delivery: 2023-24
- See module specification for other years: 2024-25
This module investigates the relationships between materiality and the function and experience of artworks in northern Europe between the late fourteenth and the late sixteenth centuries.
Occurrence | Teaching period |
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A | Semester 1 2023-24 |
The medium of an artwork—the matter with which it is made—can have a profound impact on how it is experienced and interpreted. This module investigates a variety of artworks made in northern Europe between the late fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, asking how their construction and design relate to their materiality, and how these factors in turn relate to how artworks were viewed and used. We will investigate themes such as the similarities and distinctions between painted and sculpted altarpieces; how viewers/readers might have interacted with single-sheet prints in comparison with images in manuscripts or books; the potential experiences of living with tapestries and embroidery in a domestic context vs seeing stained glass windows and metalwork reliquaries in a church. We will study well-known artists and artworks as well as less familiar examples, asking why art history has sometimes privileged certain objects more than others, and how far attitudes towards them have changed in the twenty-first century.
By the end of the module, students should have acquired:
Knowledge of varied objects made in northern Europe between the late fourteenth and sixteenth centuries and the contexts in which they were made and used
Understanding of how the construction and design of objects in specific materials relates to their functions
Ability to evaluate how viewers/users in this period could have interacted with artworks in different media
Task | % of module mark |
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Essay/coursework | 100 |
None
Task | % of module mark |
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Essay/coursework | 100 |
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