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2023/2024

Artistic Heritage: Paths for Study and Techniques for Analysis

Code: 43006 ECTS Credits: 12
Degree Type Year Semester
4313768 Analysis and Management of the Artistic Heritage OB 0 1

Contact

Name:
Rafael Cornudella Carre
Email:
rafael.cornudella@uab.cat

Teaching groups languages

You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject. Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2023.

Teachers

Mariano Carbonell Buades
Rafael Cornudella Carre
Nuria Fernandez Rius
Joan Duran Porta

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites.


Objectives and Contextualisation

The Module 1 program has a research character and constitutes the first pillar of the course as far as initiation in research is concerned. The module is organized around 3 seminars focused on a topic of study. The objective of the seminars is to bring the student closer to the process of “manufacturing” of research in artistic matters; its phases, methodologies, sources and techniques are examined, as well as the diversity of points of view that come together or that should be taken into account in a research process.


Competences

  • Define, plan and carry out a research project in the field of art history and artistic heritage that is critical, original and in line with current scientific practice.
  • Discriminate between important research and dissemination of culture.
  • Honestly and realistically evaluate the rigorousness of one's own work.
  • Integrate knowledge and use it to make judgements in complex situations, with incomplete information, while keeping in mind social and ethical responsibilities.
  • Organise time and resources to conduct research projects: setting goals, timing and tasks to be completed.
  • Reconstruct and critically analyse the positions of the principal current researchers into the artistic heritage, using their characteristic categorisations and vocabulary.
  • Solve problems in new or little-known situations within broader (or multidisciplinary) contexts related to the field of study.
  • Systematically assimilate and synthesise the information that is of the greatest importance for research and professional practice.
  • Understand the analysis methods used in research into the artistic heritage, and art theory and history.
  • Use acquired knowledge as a basis for originality in the application of ideas, often in a research context.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Conduct a research project that is well-grounded and well-planned.
  2. Differentiate between the analysis methods used by art historians to study and interpret the artistic heritage: formal, stylistic, iconographic and comparative.
  3. Discriminate between important research and dissemination of culture.
  4. Honestly and realistically evaluate the rigorousness of one's own work.
  5. Identify the major methodologies needed to carry out a research project: one's own and others.
  6. Integrate knowledge and use it to make judgements in complex situations, with incomplete information, while keeping in mind social and ethical responsibilities.
  7. Interpret works of art holistically.
  8. Know the disciplines and analysis methods within artistic heritage interpretation: palaeography, epigraphy, archaeometry and the different analyses used by restorers.
  9. Know the types of argument and the methods used by other researchers to present their results and use this knowledge to guide one's own research.
  10. Organise time and resources to conduct research projects: setting goals, timing and tasks to be completed.
  11. Solve problems in new or little-known situations within broader (or multidisciplinary) contexts related to the field of study.
  12. Systematically assimilate and synthesise the information that is of the greatest importance for research and professional practice.
  13. Use acquired knowledge as a basis for originality in the application of ideas, often in a research context.

Content

Seminar 1. The history of photography in Catalonia: a new field of study. Professor: Núria Fernández Rius

The seminar aims to show the research possibilities offered by photography in the fields of art history and cultural studies. It will do so from a multidisciplinary and intersectional perspective, addressing the axes of gender, sexuality, ethnicity and class, among others. The sessions will follow a chronological order that spans from the beginnings of photography, in the 1830s, to the second half of the twentieth century, to see some of the photographic modalities that have acquired greater relevance in terms of heritage. Concepts, instruments and methods of analysis will be used to approach the material, visual and social dimension of the photographic object. It will be based on case studies of the history of photography in Catalonia, in connection with the most common trends and practices in international contexts. Methodologically, the sessions will have a first part dedicated to present the topic of study and a second part dedicated to solve in the classroom practical cases of research related to this topic.

1. The photographic portrait and the business of views in the 19th century.

2. Photography as an artistic practice: from Pictorialism in the Avantgarde

3. Research on photojournalism during the Spanish Civil War.

4. The documentary genre: between the MoMA in New York and Franco's Spain.

5. Personal and vernacular photography: a neglected heritage.

 

Seminar 2. Glass, fire, colour. Enamel on metal in the sumptuary production of the Middle Ages (8th-15th centuries). Teacher: Joan Durán Porta

The technique of enamel on metal is essential to understand the history of European goldsmithing in the Middle Ages. Starting from quite obscure ancient origins, the articulation of this decorative procedure that, using glass as raw material, allows the application of brightly colored surfaces and motifs on metallic objects, develops in the High Middle Ages and, from the 8th century up to the fifteenth, fundamentally characterizes the sumptuary arts of the West (and also those of Byzantium). This seminar presents a historical overview of the various enamel application techniques, and an exhaustive assessment of its value and importance in the different medieval cultural and aesthetic contexts. Starting from a broad perpective, and from an exhaustive analysis of the various European foci, we will also carry out a specific approach to the Catalan sphere and we will address the open debates on the existence, or not, of centers of local production.

1. Introduction: technique, origins, context
Technical presentation. The origins of enamel on metal in Antiquity. Panorama of related techniques: embedding, niello, etc.
2. Cloisonné enamel on gold in the High Middle Ages
Background: cloisonné embedment in the Germanic world. From garnet to glass: cloisonne enamel and the debate about its origin, Western or Byzantine. The outbreak of Carolingian production: 8th-9th centuries. A certain evolution: Ottonian and early Romanesque enamel (10th-11th centuries). Traces of cloisonné enamel in the Catalan counties.
3. A new beginning: champlevé enamel on copper
Causes of technical change: new materials and new expressive possibilities. Romanesque enamel in northern Europe: the focus of the Meuse valley and other northern centers of production. Southern enamel: Limogesserial production and international trade. The debate on Limousin imitation production centers: the case of Catalonia. Persistences and resurgence of champlevé in the late Middle Ages
4. Evolution of enamel in the late Middle Ages
Tuscan origins of basse taille enamel on silver, and its pictorial possibilities. The diffusion of low carving in late medieval silverware: from the North Italian core to the strength of the crown of Aragon. Courtly spirit and Parisian jewelery: the new ronde bosse enamel in the era of International Gothic.

 

Seminar 3. The Palace of the Generalitat de Catalunya. 600 years of art and architecture. Teacher: Marià Carbonell

The Palace of the Generalitat of Catalonia or, as it was said in the past, the Hall of the Diputació del General is a paradigmatic case of the representative mission and the symbolic dimension that a public building of a civil nature can achieve. In the European context, it is one of the few buildings that for such a long period of time have been the seat of the same supra-municipal government institution, seizures and suppressions for political reasons apart. But it is also a reflection of the architectural and artistic changes that have occurred in Catalonia over six centuries. The objective of this seminar is to analyze both its architecture and its movable heritage and, at the same time, provide conceptual tools that allow us to address the debate on the present and future of the building.

1. Presentation. The institution. Historiography. The restoration of Prat de la Riba at present. The precedents, from the Roman Barcino in the Jewish quarter.
2. The Gothic house: Marc Safont and late Gothic architecture in Catalonia. Applied sculpture. The treasure of the chapel: silverware, liturgical vestments (embroidery and textiles).
3. The Renaissance palace, from Gothic-Renaissance hybridizations (Pati dels Naranjos, Cambra Daurada) to the mature classicism of thelate 16th century. Antoni Carbonell and the transfer of the chapel. The decorative program of the Cambra Daurada (tiles, tapestries, paintings). Extensions by Ferrer architects.
4. A church dressed as a palace: the body of Pere Blai's building, in the context of the architecture of the Camp School (1620-2020, IV centenary of the completion of the main façade and the death of the architect).
5. The seized palace. From the 'Nova Planta' Decree to the present. The decorations of the Salón de Sant Jordi and the project to remove the paintings from the Primoriver period. The Torres-Garcia program. Future perspectives.
6. Scheduled visit to the Palace of the Generalitat (for reasons of protocol, the schedule will be set by the institution).

 

Seminar 4. The monastery of Pedralbes and its artistic heritage: research, museography and diffusion around a singular patrimonial group. Professor: Rafael Cornudella

The Monastery of Pedralbes, where a community of monks of the order of Saint Clare still exists, and which is managed as a "monastery-museum" by the Barcelona City Council, is not only one of the most important monuments of Catalan Gothic architecture, but it is also a unique ensemble due to the abundant movable artistic heritage that is preserved there, even though in the 19th and 20th centuries some objects were still lost, alienated or destroyed. Any account of the history of Catalan Gothic art inevitably passes through this monastic space, which also offers interesting objects from the modern andcontemporary periods, all of which allow us to follow the successive stages of the historical existence of this community of monges clarisses. The seminar will review some of the results of the most recent research, will highlight the multiple research possibilities open for the future, and at the same time will analyze the strategies for the conservation and diffusion of this monument and its movable heritage.

1. The construction of the monastic complex: certainties and uncertainties. The funerary monument of Queen Elisenda de Montcada and the sculpture of the 14th century.
2. The mural paintings of the chapel of Sant Miquel: The Italian Master of Pedralbes and the Ferrer Bassa question.
3. Other three-century mural paintings of the monastery.
4. Visit to the monastery.
5. The painting on tile of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries:new perspectives on a heritage between dispersion and disappearance, from the Serra to Martorell.
6. Painting at the end of the 15th and 16th centuries: the phenomenon of importation and local production, recent contributions.


- Follow-up sessions of the Master's thesis project. Professor : Rafael Cornudella.

- Complementary activity: Collector's Day, Palau de Maricel, Sitges.

 


Methodology

Theoretical lessons in the classroom, conferences and visits to heritage sites and museums. Participation of the students in class will be valued.

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.


Activities

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Conferences and visits to artistic sites 16 0.64 9, 7, 6, 11, 13

Assessment

Attendance and active participation in the lessons: 20%

Follow-up tutorship of the Master thesis project: 30%

Written presentation of the Master thesis project prepared with the supervision of the tutor: 50%.

 The project has to contain:

 1. A presentation of the objectives, the reasons for the selection of the topic and the questions that the student asks himself at the beginning.

 2. A first outline of the work, that is to say, a first reasoned scheme of the work, a first outline where the aspects that the student wants to discuss in his work are stated. To prepare this first outline, the student will get the advice of the work tutor. Naturally, as the research progresses, the student will be able to modify certain aspects of the initial outline.

 3. A first compilation of the sources that the student is consulting to carry out his/her work. Depending on the subject of the work, these sources can be of several types: bibliographic, videographic, photographic, interviews with people, etc.

 4. Finally, the project has to contain also a planning, in which the student will present how he/she has progressively organized his work from the beginning and how he/she intends to develop the different tasks that remain to be done until the conclusion of the work. It is recommended that the student make the planning as detailed and accurate as possible.

The deadline to deliver the project is the 7th February 2024. Two copies have to be submitted: one for the coordinator of Module 1, Professor Rafael Cornudella and the second for the tutor or the work, in the format he / she indicates to the student.

 

In this module, the possibility of Single Evaluation (Avaluació única) is foreseen based on the following evidence:

Written presentation of the Final Master's Project 50%

Presentation of an individual paper in which some point contained in one of the seminars of the Module will be developed, according to the instructions of the coordinator of the module 50%


Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Class attendance and active participation 20% 48 1.92 4, 8, 9, 3, 2, 1, 5, 7, 10, 6, 11, 12, 13
Delivery of the writen project of the Master's Dissertation 50% 176 7.04 8, 9, 3, 2, 1, 5, 7, 10, 6, 11
Tutorials of the project of the Master's Dissertation 30 % 60 2.4 4, 8, 9, 3, 2, 1, 5, 7, 10, 6, 11, 12, 13

Bibliography

 

The professors of each seminar will provide the bibliography in class.


Software

Nothing in particular