ART, ARCHITECTURE AND SPECTACLES IN CLASSIC CHINA

This module surveys various aspects of the visual arts (painting, calligraphy, sculpture, woodblock prints, , graphic design, advertising images, photography, performance, video, installation, new media) in China from the Opium Wars (1839-1842 and 1856-1860) to the present day, and how these relate to political, social and economic developments in the period. We will look at how visual artists have reacted to the introduction of elements alien to Chinese culture and how they have used, reinterpreted or adapted inherited traditions.

By attending teaching activities and private study of the suggested and assigned reading, students are expected to achieve the following learning results:
1. Learning and comprehension
- Knowledge of the developments of Chinese art from the mid 19th century to the present.
- Awareness of major figures in 20th century Chinese visual arts.
- Awareness of the main conceptual tools to analyse modern and contemporary Chinese art.
2. Application of learning and comprehension
- Ability to identify and analyse critically artists, movements, trends and phenomena in the period.
- Ability to analyse and interpret visual images for their social and political content.
- Ability to apply key intellectual concepts to the related terminology and to the methods of contemporary art.
3. Judging skills
- Ability to analyse critically information and argument.
- Ability to construct and present an academic argument.
- Improved planning and organisational skills.
4. Learning skills
- Ability to consult critically the reference texts and their bibliography.
- Ability to identify the main research sources related to modern and contemporary Chinese art.

General knowledge of the history of China from the mid 19th C. to the present and of Chinese art in general.

Chinese art in the age of imperialism: from the Opium Wars to the fall of the Qing dynasty (1842-1911)
Art for the New Nation (1911-1928)
The Nanjing decade (1928-1937)
Art in Wartime (1937-1949)
Art and ideology in the Maoist period (1949-1976)
Resurficing: scepticism, formalism, modernism, experimentation
85 New wave Movement
The internationalization of Chinese contemporary art
The globalization of art in the new millennium

Basic reading list compulsory for everybody:
- ANDREWS, Julia F.; SHEN, Kuiyi, The Art of Modern China, University of California Press, 2012.
- GLADSTON Paul, Contemporary Chinese Art. A Critical History, Reaktion Books, 2014.

The complete reading list will be provided at the beginning of the course.
Visual and audio-visual material will be provided during classes on the course website on Moodle platform

Each student will be assigned 1 paper and 1 book that will have to be presented to the class.
The paper presentation constitutes 10% of the final mark; the book presentation constitutes 30% of the final mark; the final exam (60%) will be an oral discussion based on the readings included in the bibliography and on the topics discussed during classes.

The course includes lectures, seminars and students’ presentations. Slides and audio-visual material will be uploaded on Moodle. If during the semester there will be exhibitions or other events related to the subject of the course, we will organize a visit.

English

Students who have degrees other than Chinese Studies are very welcome, but will have to catch up on Chinese history and art.
The teaching language will be English if foreign students will take the class.

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