DU2050 Seminar: Portraiture and identity in Early Modern Europe

Faculty of Arts
Autumn 2021
Extent and Intensity
0/2/0. 4 credit(s). Type of Completion: k (colloquium).
Taught in person.
Teacher(s)
doc. Mgr. Pavel Suchánek, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
doc. Mgr. Pavel Suchánek, Ph.D.
Department of Art History – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: doc. Mgr. Pavel Suchánek, Ph.D.
Supplier department: Department of Art History – Faculty of Arts
Timetable
Mon 12:00–13:40 K32
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
The aim of the course is to discuss the transformation of portraiture in the 18th century. The subject of study will be how portraits can construct a new social identity of the portrayed, what they say about the changes in the 18th-century society, in what space they were perceived and what social and cultural interactions they provoked. Students will analyze a range of portraits and more general themes related to them, and will have the opportunity to present their own as well as group work.
Learning outcomes
After completing the course, a student will be able to:
- identify and summarize key strategies in the field of the early modern portraiture;
- identify and describe the main issues and ways of using and dealing with early modern portraits;
- reconstruct and interpret the ideological content and meaning of the early modern portraiture.
Syllabus
  • The seminar will be structured around a series of panels that focus on particular types of portraits and particular themes related to them:
  • Methodologies; what is a portrait
  • Functions of portraits (portrait as a work of art, document, proxy, gift, commemoration, political tool)
  • Portrait, power and social status (portraits of rulers, burgeoisie, artists and scientists, celebrities, underclass)
  • Family, civic and institutional portraits
  • Gender and portraiture (gender identity; body; concepts of beauty, stereotypes)
  • Self-fashioning and self-presentation
Literature
  • Bluestockings displayed : portraiture, performance and patronage, 1730-1830. Edited by Elizabeth Eger. 1st pub. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, xv, 309. ISBN 9780521768801. info
  • ADAMS, Ann Jensen. Public faces and private identities in seventeenth-century Holland : portraiture and the production of community. 1st pub. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, xii, 398. ISBN 9780521444552. info
  • LEVY, Allison M. Re-membering masculinity in early modern Florence : widowed bodies, mourning and portraiture. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006, xx, 194. ISBN 0754654044. info
  • WEST, Shearer. Portraiture. 1st pub. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, 256 s. ISBN 0192842587. info
  • Women, art and the politics of identity in eighteenth-century Europe. Edited by Melissa Lee Hyde - Jennifer D. Milam. Burlington: Ashgate, 2003, xviii, 310. ISBN 0754607100. info
  • WOODS-MARSDEN, Joanna. Renaissance self-portraiture : the visual construction of identity and the social status of the artist. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998, viii, 285. ISBN 0300075960. info
  • POINTON, Marcia R. Hanging the head : portraiture and social formation in eighteenth-century England. 2nd print. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997, ix, 278. ISBN 0300073682. info
  • Portraiture : facing the subject. Edited by Joanna Woodall. 1st pub. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997, xv, 282. ISBN 0719046122. info
  • Femininity and masculinity in eighteenth-century art and culture. Edited by Gillian Perry - Michael Rossington. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994, viii, 262. ISBN 0719042275. info
  • BRILLIANT, Richard. Portraiture. 1st pub. London: Reaktion Books, 1991, 192 s. ISBN 9780948462191. info
Teaching methods
group projects, presentations, class discussion
Assessment methods
Students are required to write a case study and participate on final group project, orally present his/her research and attend the class discussion
Language of instruction
Czech
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