The Modern Portrait (U00656)

? Credit Points : 20 ? SCQF Level : 10 ? Acronym : ACE-3-HModPort

The course will explore the relatively neglected field of 'modern' transformations and extensions of the portrait genre, both in photography and in the more traditional media of painting and sculpture. The starting point is the period around 1860, when artists such as Manet and Degas began to inject avant-garde concerns into their portraits, just as photographers like Nadar and Cameron were exploring the possibilities of this still novel medium for a portraiture going beyond mere documentation of apearances. Thereafter, many notable figures have reinvented the genre in their own particular terms (for example, Van Gogh, Kokoschka, Steiglitz, Sander, Dix, Evans, Freud, Avedon, Warhol, Hockney, Close, Ruff). Some relevant and interesting work is available for first-hand study in the National Galleries of Scotland. Overall, the material raises such questions as:
- How have specific artists or movements, from Realism to Postmodernism, developed portraiture in new directions, and explored fresh motivations for recording the appearance of individuals?
- How far has artistically significant portraiture of the modern period been private in conception and consumption, as opposed to arising from a traditional framework of external commissioning?
- How far can one identify recurring themes, conventions and types?
- What are the patterns of interplay, affinity and divergence that have operated, in different periods and places, between fine artists and photographers?
- What lessons can be derived from the portrait genre concerning changing concepts of personal identity? Portraits of individuals, made in particular times and places, might be seen to encapsulate wider shifts in the understanding of what it is like to be human, reflecting shifting attitudes towards psychology, class relationships, ideology, gender, sexuality, social esteem, scientific understanding etc.
- What role do extensions of portrait formats and conventions, and the exploration of identity, occupy i

Entry Requirements

? Pre-requisites : A pass in either History of Art 2 or Architectural History 2a and 2b

Subject Areas

Home subject area

History of Art, (School of Arts, Culture and Environment, Schedule A)

Delivery Information

? Normal year taken : 3rd year

? Delivery Period : Not being delivered

? Contact Teaching Time : 3 hour(s) per week for 11 weeks

All of the following classes

Type	Day	Start	End	Area
Lecture	Monday	11:10	12:00	Central

? Additional Class Information : Seminars will take place on Wednesdays 9-10.50am and 11.10-1pm. Students will attend one of these.

Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes

These include:
- Knowledge and understanding in relation to the questions raised in the description above.
- Familiarity with the history, techniques and critical theory associated with photography, which will have featured very little to date in their studies of History of Art.
- The challenges associated with studying a field which, at present, lacks the systematic scholarly literature to which students might normally expect to have access in relation to the art of the modern period.