Study information

Art, Industry and the Modern, 1840-1900

Module titleArt, Industry and the Modern, 1840-1900
Module codeAHV3010
Academic year2019/0
Credits30
Module staff

Professor John Plunkett (Convenor)

Dr Tricia Zakreski (Convenor)

Duration: Term123
Duration: Weeks

11

Number students taking module (anticipated)

15

Module description

Through a focus on key nineteenth-century art movements, prominent modes of representation, and developments in visual technology, this module explores how art, industry and modernity were intertwined in ways that not only created a new world of popular art, but also changed the period’s understanding of subjectivity and perception. It explores how Victorian artists, authors, designers, craftsmen and prominent thinkers engaged with the key question of how to represent ‘modern life’ at a time when traditional hierarchies and forms of art were disintegrating, verbal and visual modes were being drawn closer together, and industrial progresses promised to bring art and beauty to the masses.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module studies the intersection between the visual, literary, and decorative arts in Victorian Britain; it focuses on how these arts developed in conjunction with industrial innovation and the changing features of modern life. It aims to introduce you to a range of disciplinary perspectives on the connection between art and industry in the Victorian period and the revolutionary impact of industrial innovation upon the fine arts. In so doing, it will also examine the influence of technological, social and cultural change on the understanding of vision and perception in the nineteenth century.

The module brings together a diverse range of fields including the fine and applied arts, engraving, architecture, science and optical toys and photography, and will consider a wide range of images of Victorian modern life in paint and in print. As well as studying individual texts in depth, we will investigate links between texts, images and their social and cultural contexts. The module will be taught through a 2 hour seminar and a 1 hour session that will include lectures, workshops with materials held in special collections, and a field trip to discover the Victorian architecture of Exeter.

The hands-on approach of the workshop sessions will draw on the rich resources of the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum and the collections of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum. Thisis designed to work across disciplines. Art History and Visual Culture students will be given the tools necessary to read and interpret literary texts, and for English Literature students will be introduced to the study of visual and material culture as a way of enriching their understanding of the literary cultures of the period. 

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

  • 1. Demonstrate an advanced critical understanding of key texts, artists, art movements and authors from the nineteenth century
  • 2. Demonstrate an advanced awareness art works and the essential characteristics of art production of this period
  • 3. Demonstrate critical engagement with important theoretical concepts related to aesthetics, technology, visual culture and perception in the nineteenth century

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

  • 4. Demonstrate an advanced ability to analyse nineteenth-century visual and literary texts and relate them to their historical and cultural context
  • 5. Demonstrate an advanced ability to work within a multi-disciplinary framework, and to interrelate texts and discourses specific to their own discipline with issues in the wider context of cultural and intellectual history
  • 6. Demonstrate an advanced ability to understand and analyse relevant theoretical ideas, and to apply these ideas to literary and visual texts

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

  • 7. Through seminar discussion and presentations, demonstrate advanced communication skills, and an ability to work both individually and in groups
  • 8. Through essay-writing, demonstrate appropriate research and bibliographic skills, an advanced capacity to construct a coherent, substantiated argument, and a capacity to write clear and correct prose
  • 9. Through research for seminars, essays and presentations demonstrate advanced proficiency in information retrieval and analysis, an advanced capacity to make critical use of secondary material, to question assumptions, and to reflect on their own learning process

Syllabus plan

Topics covered are thematically grouped, and whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will include some or all of the following topics:

Block 1: Art and Industry:

  • South Kensington: Industrial Art and Design
  • Gothic Revival: Ruskin and Medievalism
  • Photography – A Mechanical Art?
  • Arts and Crafts

Block 2: Perceiving the ‘Modern’:

  • Realism and the Observer
  • Eyes, Lies and Illusions: Optical Devices and Technologies
  • Shop, Drawing Room and Studio: Professionalism and the Spaces of Work
  • Aestheticism and the ‘Impression’

Block 3: Word/Image:

  • Cartoons, Illustrations and other Graphic Tales
  • Narrative Painting and the Pre-Raphaelites
  • Decadent Bodies: Aubrey Beardsley  

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Scheduled Learning and Teaching ActivitiesGuided independent studyPlacement / study abroad
332670

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

CategoryHours of study timeDescription
Scheduled learning and teaching activities33Seminar (11x1hr and 11x2hr)
Guided independent study33Study group preparation and meetings
Guided independent study70Seminar preparation (individual)
Guided independent study164Reading, research and essay preparation

Summative assessment (% of credit)

CourseworkWritten examsPractical exams
10000

Details of summative assessment

Form of assessment% of creditSize of the assessment (eg length / duration)ILOs assessedFeedback method
Group project352000 word equivalent1-3, 5-7, 8-10Feedback sheet with opportunity for tutorial follow-up
Object biography151000 words1-3, 5-7, 8-10Feedback sheet with opportunity for tutorial follow-up
Essay503500 words1-3, 5-7, 8-10Feedback sheet with opportunity for tutorial follow-up

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Original form of assessmentForm of re-assessmentILOs re-assessedTimescale for re-assessment
Group ProjectIndividual Project1-3, 5-7, 8-10Referral/deferral period
Object BiographyObject Biography1-3, 5-7, 8-10Referral/deferral period
EssayEssay1-3, 5-7, 8-10Referral/deferral period

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Basic reading:

Extracts will be available on the ELE website comprising relevant reading for seminars. Key primary texts will include:

 

Amy Levy, The Romance of a Shop (1888; Broadview, 2006)

Oscar Wilde, Salome [with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley] (1894)

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Lady of Shalott” (1842 version)

Robert Browning, “Fra Lippo Lippi” from Men and Women (1855)

John Ruskin, ‘On the Nature of Gothic’ from The Stones of Venice (1853)

 

Secondary Reading

Armstrong, Isobel. Victorian Glassworlds: Glass and Imagination, 1830-1880. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008.

Armstrong, Nancy. Fiction in the Age of Photography: The Legacy of British Realism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1999.

Auerbach, Jeffrey. The Great Exhibition of 1851: A Nation on Display. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1999.

Beaumont, Matthew, ed. Adventures in Realism. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007

Byerly, Alison. Realism, Representation, and the Arts in Nineteenth-Century Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997

Crary, Jonathan. Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the 19th Century. MIT Press, 1992.

Kriegel, Lara. Grand Designs: Labor, Empire, and the Museum in Victorian Culture. Durham, N.C.: Duke UP, 2007.

Novak, Daniel. Realism, Photography, and Nineteenth-century Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2008.

Siegel, Jonah. Desire and Excess: The Nineteenth-Century Culture of Art. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2000.

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

Key words search

Victorian; visual culture; art and technology; popular culture; design and modernity.

Credit value30
Module ECTS

15

Module pre-requisites

None

Module co-requisites

None

NQF level (module)

6

Available as distance learning?

No

Origin date

01/02/2015

Last revision date

03/03/2018