Postgraduate Course: From Jacobitism to Romanticism, The (re)invention of Scotland in visual and material culture (HIAR11022)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | History of Art |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
http://www.arthistory.ed.ac.uk |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | In recent years, literary historians and to a lesser extent, art historians, have written of(f) aspects of Scottish culture as part of a 'myth' fabricated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Perhaps most controversially for Scots, part of their national dress - the tartan kilt - has been (mis)understood as an English invention of the late eighteenth century.
This course aims to get to grips with the peculiarities and particularities of these so-called 'romantic myths' of Scotland as they were (re)invented in visual and material form. It will go beyond the theoretical framework of Roland Barthes' Mythologies to reinstate their antiquity and also their much-neglected basis in reality. We will examine a number of paintings by distinguished alumni of the Scottish School, including works by Henry Raeburn and David Wilkie. But the course privileges a thematic approach to these Scottish artists and their painted output rather than a biographical one. Our timeframe will be hinged on key historical events in Scotland's history: from the 1715 and 1745 Jacobite rebellions, to the visit of George 4th to Edinburgh in 1822 and on into the later nineteenth century when the 'land of cakes and whisky', the 'region of mist and snow' became the favoured retreat of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The visual and material culture generated in response to these historical events will be extended into that surrounding the literary phenomena that was the publication and illustration of Sir Walter Scott's poems and novels. Scott's many representations - in portraits, marble busts and sculptures and his monument in Princes Street - will be studied as part of the transformation of Scotland into 'Scott-land'.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
| It is intended that studends acquire a good knowledge and understanding of the material studied through preparing a series of short seminar presentations on selected topics, reading the texts recommended in the bibliography, week by week and engaging actively in general discussion during seminars. The students are urged to use archive, gallery as well as library sources and thus get used to documentary research and the analysis of primary sources from the beginning of the MSc degree. One-to-one tutorials are used to help them select the subject of the course essay and to monitor the progress of their research and thinking. The other purpose of these tutorials is to aid them make the transition from undergraduate to postgraduate study and to develop their self-confidence and sense of their potential contribution as art historians. |
Assessment Information
| Principal means of assessment is a 4,000 word essay. |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Not entered |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Not entered |
| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Viccy Coltman
Tel: (0131 6)50 8426
Email: |
Course secretary | Mrs Lucy Hawkins
Tel: 0131 221 6026
Email: |
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