ARTH 386 Art and the Viewer
- Wednesdays, 2:45-5:30 pm
- Dr. Ernestine Daubner
The changing conceptions of visuality and the role of the art viewer provide unique insights into the sensibilities of a period. In this course, we explore these changing conceptions by examining a broad range of art practices and theories from ancient times to the present.
We begin by examining notions of mimesis and simulacrum set out by Plato and Aristotle, and how these ancient philosophies were later adapted by Renaissance Humanists. We also explore how the rationalization of sight during the Renaissance, particularly the invention of perspectival devices, posits a disembodied eye and monocular vision, while Leonardo da Vinci, through his studies of optics and binocular vision, already anticipates Enlightenment notions of visuality.
The ocularcentric foundation of Enlightenment culture will inform our study of subsequent art practices, especially Dutch genre painting and the artists’ use of the camera obscura. We will also examine how Goethe and Schopenhauer expand our understanding of the visual system, and how Goethe’s physiological color studies are later employed by High Modernist artists of the 20th century.
Critiques of Enlightenment ocularcentrism, particularly those relating to the gaze, will also be the object of our study. In this regard, we will reflect on the gendered gaze in relation to the Kantian notion of the sublime, and the colonizing gaze in relation to Eurocentrism. We will also consider 20th-century art practices that rescind the viewer’s gaze. Beginning with Marcel Duchamp’s anti-retinal stance, we will explore how various artworks challenge or critique traditional notions of mimesis and simulacra, while at the same time favoring semiotic and dialogical readings.
Today, interactive multi-media artworks can also be seen to challenge ocularcentric traditions in that they address other senses besides the eye, often providing the participant with embodied and immersive experiences that eliminate the distinction between the artwork and the viewer. On the other hand, some contemporary surveillance-sousveillance artworks can be viewed as a revival of ocularcentrism and the panoptic gaze, while still others revisit the notion of the disembodied eye and disembodiment.
An important aspect of our study will be to assess what the changing conceptions of visuality, and role of the viewer (reader or participant) might reveal about the socio-cultural realities of each period.