HISTORY OF APPLIED ARTS

The course familiarizes its participants with the scholarly approaches addressing objects, their forms of use and their material transformations. With respect to the classes of Medieval Art History and Early Modern Art History, it considers a broader spectrum of arts and offers an opportunity to refresh, complement or acquire notions of iconography, typology and history of styles.

• ability to recognize the main art techniques of the pre-industrial era, starting from examples preserved in Venetian collections
• ability to test hypotheses on their making process, detect its material traces and discuss the reasons why a specific technique / medium / process was preferred
• improvement of the participants' communication skills through object-based presentations focused on historical and geographical themes

Students with diverse academic backgrounds are welcome. Knowledge of Western art before 1800 is not compulsory.

The introduction will address issues raised by the hierarchization of the arts, their organization in systems and their interpretation according to material and technical criteria. The body of the course will illustrate the main techniques developed for object making in the period spanning the sixth to the eighteenth century. Examples of goldsmithery, glyptics, mosaic, glassmaking, intarsia, wood-carving, coinage, metalwork and ceramics will be discussed.

Compulsory readings:

- Fabrizio Crivello (ed.), Arti e tecniche del Medioevo, Einaudi, Torino 2006 (BAUM: 709.02 ARTTM)

- Corrado Maltese (ed.), Le tecniche artistiche, Mursia, Milano 1983 or other editions (BAUM LIBRITESTO DEP 09301)

- Paul O. Kristeller, The Modern System of the Arts: A Study in the History of Aesthetics, part I, in "Journal of the History of Ideas", XII, 1951, pp. 496-527 (JSTOR)

Reference sources:

- Benvenuto Cellini, I trattati dell'oreficeria e della scultura, ed. by Carlo Milanesi, Felice Le Monnier, Firenze 1857 (BAUM: CIRCFIL A 0384)

- Giorgio Vasari, Introduzzione […] alle tre arti del disegno cioè architettura, pittura e scoltura, e prima dell’architettura, in Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori, Giunti, Firenze 1568, ed. by R. Bettarini, P. Barocchi, Sansoni-S.P.E.S. Firenze 1966-87, I (1966), pp. 145-175 (capp. 28-35). Online edition: http://vasari.sns.it/consultazione/Vasari/indice.html

Further literature will be provided during the first classes.

A presentation, a short assignment and a in-class exam.

1. Presentation: a 5-10 minute in-class / museum presentation focusing on an "work of art" selected together with the instructor. Students who cannot attend the classes shall agree additional activities with the instructor.

2. Assignment: a bibliography detailing at least 3 publications concerning the topic of the presentation. The stylesheet for this bibliography is the same provided for the MA theses. The deadline for its delivery (as pdf file) is the end of the course.

3. In-class exam: questions about the compulsory readings and the PowerPoint presentations provided by the instructor, plus two questions testing the critical skills and technical notions acquired during the preparation of the presentation.

The final note will consider:
participation (10%)
the students' presentations (15%)
in-class exam, general questions (40%)
in-class exam, questions about the objects presentated (35%)

Dialogic lectures for the introduction and seminars for the rest of the classes. Each participant shall present a research that will be discussed with the others, as much as possible, in front of the objects.

Visits to the city museums of Venice represent the core of the teaching activity, even for those students who cannot attend the classes. Specific agreements with the museums shall reduce the costs for the students who cannot be admitted free of charge. Further information will be provided at the first meeting.

Italian

written and oral