Università Roma Tre

THE GAZE OF MODERNITY

The course analyzes the historical developments and the key personalities of the visual arts from the historical avant-gardes to the 1960s, focusing on themes such as the relationship with technology and new media (photography, cinema, television), with the unconscious and the body, the dialectic between visible and invisible, the relationship with natural and urban spaces, etc. The analysis of these themes will also provide the basic methodology for the study of the history of the different languages that characterize twentieth-century art, providing the critical tools necessary for the reading of different types of works of art.

• Federica Rovati, L’arte del primo Novecento, Einaudi 2015
• Alessandro Del Puppo, L’arte contemporanea. Il secondo Novecento, Einaudi 2013

Other essays will be indicated during the classes.

Poetics and politics of the gaze

The course analyzes poetics and crucial junctions of the visual arts in the modern era – from Impressionism to the historical avant-gardes, until the 1960s – focusing on themes like the act of seeing, the device of the gaze, the dialectic between the visible and the invisible. The analysis also provides the necessary methodological approach to the study of the history of the various languages of contemporary art, furnishing indispensable tools for the interpretation of different types of artworks.

Texts of a general character:
1) F. Rovati, L’arte del primo Novecento, Einaudi, Torino 2015
2) D. Riout, L’arte del ventesimo secolo. Protagonisti, temi, correnti, Einaudi, Torino 2002

3) In-depth readings:
• J. Crary, Le tecniche dell’osservatore, Einaudi 2013, IV capitolo, pp. 102-140 / - J. Crary, Techniques of the Observer. On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth, The MIT Press, Massachusetts 1990, IV, pp. 97-137 [PDF fornito dalla docente]
• V.I. Stoichita, Dello sguardo ostacolato. Per una storia dell’Impressionismo, in “Annali della Fondazione Europea del Disegno”, Il Melangolo, Genova 2009, pp. 65-87 [PDF fornito dalla docente]
• V.I. Stoichita, La pittura impressionista vista da e con Schapiro: Caillebotte e l’intreccio visivo, in Meyer Schapiro e i metodi della storia dell’arte, a cura di L. Bortolotti, C. Cieri Via, M.G. Di Monte, M. Di Monte, Mimesis Edizioni, Milano – Udine 2010, pp. 105-113 [PDF fornito dalla docente]

4) Online gathering of images projected during lectures (available at the end of the course).