Postgraduate Course: PARADIGM SHIFTS: MODERN ART AND SCIENCE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (HIAR11050)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | History of Art |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | The course will investigate the relationship between modern art and science during the Short Twentieth Century (c.1907-1970), paying particular attention to how developments in painting and sculpture conceptually dovetailed with discoveries in the natural sciences. Typically, the history of art and the history of science have been analyzed separately; art and science being viewed as discrete products that occupy divergent subject domains. Yet this viewpoint is itself a legacy of late 19th-century modernism and has been increasingly subject to review. In this spirit, the course shall focus upon the communalities in the practices that have produced art and science in the 20th century and address how both were rooted in and constitutive of the wider cultures they inhabited. With a wide-angled lens, the course will study how major avant-garde developments in the 20th century (including Cubism, Fauvism, De Stijl, Vorticism, Futurism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Conceptualism) were affected by disputes and breakthroughs ongoing in the sciences. Artistic engagement with science took a variety of forms, ranging from fragmented picture-planes (such as was typified by the Cubist response to ether physics and fourth-dimensional geometry) to the usage of impermanent materials in outdoor settings (that characterized the Land Art movements usage of evolutionism as a conceptual system for art-making in the 1960s). In this respect, the course will show how new styles in modern art were often dependent upon the novel conceptions of space, time and matter that emerged out of 20th-century science. |
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? | Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
| By the end of the course students will have acquired a sound knowledge of important avant-garde movements in 20th-century art and their conceptual relationship to a range of scientific theories. Students should be able to discuss how and why artists of the 20th century made use of science, as well as understand the broader cultural context in which such interdisciplinary exchange took place, framed by an understanding of the theory that underpins contemporary research into art/science interrelations. Students will have to present seminar papers at various points during the course, whilst being given the opportunity to discuss artworks and art historical concepts in class. It is anticipated that through this course students will be able to make use of the research facilities available in Edinburgh (such as the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art) and become adept at using archival and library resources. |
Assessment Information
| 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 Edward Juler
Tel: 0131 651 1460
Email: |
Course secretary | Mrs Lucy Hawkins
Tel: 0131 221 6026
Email: |
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