Corso di laurea magistrale in Storia dell'arte

The topics and specific methods considered are an essential part of the contents necessary to the educational path of the master’s degree in History of Art. Namely, this course provides skills useful to understand the foundations that art history helped build in the course of the 20^th century, the sense and value of artworks, shaping their symbolic, social and cultural meaning.

Part of the course focuses on Ernst H. Gombrich (1909-2001), one of the key figures in 20^th-century art historiography. The period in which he trained and worked lends itself to consider some of the most significant aspects of the theoretical debate, from the Vienna School of Art to Visual Studies. The aim of this focus is to stimulate students to reflect on the different interpretative frameworks of works of art, using the more recent literature. In January, the visiting professor Jerome Glicenstein will hold the seminar History and Theory of Curatorial Practice (18 hours).

Knowledge and understanding

At the end of this course the student will have to be familiar with:

- the key steps in the development of the discipline between the 19^th and the 20^th century

- the main figures and main historical critical methodologies and their connections with other disciplines

- the most influential art historians, their methodological choices and their impact on contemporary studies

- the relation between art historians and institutions (museums, soprintendenze, etc.), their role in the cultural policy and in the preservations of artistic heritage.

Application of knowledge and understanding / Independent judgement

The knowledge acquired will be used to frame each art scholar and his/her contribution to the critical debate, to analyse the different methodological approaches considered during the lectures.

Communicative skills

The student will learn to use the specific vocabulary and pertinent terminology to accurately and clearly illustrate the different theories and historical-critical categories. 

Learning skills

The goal of this teaching is to help develop the ability to understand the complexity of historical-cultural situations, to consider the tools and the meaning of interpretative processes.

The skills listed in the goals will be verified during an oral examination with questions aimed at assessing the ability to argue the topics addressed in an independent way and in making good use of bibliographical and methodological tools. More specifically, the oral examination consists in assessing the knowledge of the overall development of the discipline and discussing one or more themes analysed in the part on Gombrich. To this the paper for the visiting professor’s seminar will be added.

Theories and methods of art criticism. Gombrich’s central role in the art-historical studies between the 1950s and the 1990s

• The Vienna School of Art – the institutionalisation of the discipline (chairs of art history) and main methodological lines.
• From universal histories of art to the study of periods and styles – Jacob Burckhardt; Heinrich Woelfflin; Adolfo Venturi.
• Connoisseurship and attributionism: Giovanni Morelli and Giovanni B. Cavalcaselle; Bernard Berenson; Roberto Longhi.
• Inside and outside the work: psychoanalysis and visual perception – Sigmund Freud; Otto Kurz and Ernst Kris; Gestalt Psychologie.
• The ritual of the snake: memory, interpretation, and meaning – Aby Warburg; Frizt Saxl; Edgar Wind; Panofsky’s Hamburg years.
• Aestheticism, Pure Visibility and the life of forms – Roger Fry; Lionello Venturi; Henri Focillon.
• The art historians’ diaspora across the Channel and the Atlantic: Ideology, society and iconological analysis – Erwin Panofsky; the Warburg Institute; the social history of art.
• Ernst H. Gombrich (1909-2001) – his training in Vienna and his transfer to London.
• The postwar years: returning, rebuilding and new developments – Carlo L. Ragghianti; Roberto Longhi; Lionello Venturi.
• Research and training activity at the Warburg Institute from Gertrud Bing to Ernst H. Gombrich
• Gombrich’s central role in the art-historical studies between the 1950s and the 1990s

1. Form, perception and psychoanalysis in the fifties and sixties: Art and Illusion (1957); Rudolf Arnheim; the Second Vienna School of Art and Otto Pächt
2. The study of the Renaissance and iconology : Norm and Form (1966); Symbolic Images (1972); The Heritage of Apelles. Studies in the Art of the Renaissance (1976)
3. Warburg’s complex legacy : the intellectual biography by Gombrich and the reception of Warburg; The Heritage of Apelles (1976)
4. The “physiognomic fallacy” and the attack against historicism : Meditations on a Hobby Horse and Other Essays on the Theory of Art (1963); ‘The Logic of Vanity Fair’ (1965); In Search of Cultural History (1967); Art History and the Social Sciences (1975)
5. The Sense of Order e Ideals & Idols (1979)
6. Tributes: Interpreters of our Cultural Tradition (1984) : Gombrich’s tribute to art-historical tradition
7. Gombrich’s last meditations on historiography and the use of images: Reflections on Art History (1987); The Use of Images (1999); Michael Baxandall; Visual Studies and Bildwissenschaft; John Onian’s Neuroarthistory

• Seminar History and Theory of Curatorial Practice

General part:

• Gianni Carlo Sciolla, La critica d’arte del Novecento, Torino: UTET, 1995, pp. 3-372
• Orietta Rossi Pinelli, La disciplina si consolida e si specializza (1912-1945); Diaspore e rinascite intorno al 1945 in La storia delle storie dell’arte, a cura di ead., Torino, Einaudi, 2014, pp. 320-397, 398-451.

 Or:

• Michela Passini, L’œil et l’archive. Une histoire de l’histoire de l’art, Paris, La Découverte, 2017.

Critical bibliography on Gombrich

Students may study the following critical essays (part a) and an anthology of texts by Gombrich (part b) which can be both accessed on Moodle.

a) CRITICAL ESSAYS

• L’arte e i linguaggi della percezione. L’eredità di Sir Ernst H. Gombrich, ed. by R. Bösel and M.G. Di Monte (Milano: Mondadori Electa, 2004) with regard to the following essays: G. Boehm, ‘Il concetto iconico di Gombrich’, 35-42; M. Podro, ‘Risposta alla risposta di Gombrich a Riegl’, 121-130
• Relativism Versus Universalism & Ernst Hans Gombrich, ed. by J. Bakoš, in: “Human Affairs” 19, 3 (2009), with regard to the following essays: J. Bakoš, ‘Introductory: Gombrich’s Struggle Aganist Metaphysiscs’, 239-250; N. Schneider, ‘Form of Thought and Presentational Gesture in Karl Popper and E.H. Gombrich’, 251-258; K. Lang, ‘Sir Ernst Gombrich and the Barber from Tuscany’, 259-265; A. Hemingway, ‘E.H. Gombrich in 1968: Methodological Individualism and the Contradictions of Conservatism’, 297-303; J. Elkins, ‘Ten Reasons Why E.H. Gombrich Is Not Connected to Art History’, 304-310
• I saperi di Ernst Gombrich: Teoria del visibile e analisi dell’arte, ed. by P. Fabbri and T. Migliore, in: Journal of Art Historiography 5 (2011), https://arthistoriography.wordpress.com/number-5-december-2011/ with regard to the following essays: K. Mazzucco, ‘The work of Ernst H. Gombrich on the Aby M. Warburg fragments’; T. Migliore, ‘Discovery or invention? The difference between art and communication according to Ernst Gombrich’; R. Woodfield, ‘Ernst Gombrich: Iconology and the “linguistics of the image”’
• Meditations on a Heritage: Papers on the Work and Legacy of Sir Ernst Gombrich, ed. by P. Taylor (London: Holberton, 2014), with regard to the following essays: C. Hope, ‘Introduction’, 6-13; P. Burke, ‘Gombrich’s Search for Cultural History’, 14-21; E. McGrath, ‘Gombrich and the ‘Warburgian’ Iconography, 36-57; P. Taylor, ‘Gombrich and the Idea of Primitive Art’, 90-108
• R. Woodfield, ‘Introduction’, in: The Essential Gombrich: Selected Writings on Art and Culture, ed. by R. Woodfield (London: Phaidon, 1996), 9-17

b) GOMBRICH ANTHOLOGY

• ‘Introduzione’ (1950), in: La storia dell’arte raccontata da E.H. Gombrich (Torino: Einaudi, 1973), 3-23
• ‘Il cavallo a manico di scopa ovvero le radici della forma artistica’ (1951), in: A Cavallo di un manico di scopa. Saggi di teoria dell’arte (Torino: Einaudi, 1971), 3-19
• Arte e Illusione. Studio sulla psicologia della rappresentazione pittorica (Torino: Einaudi, 1965), XXXV-XL, 3-35, 243-349, 437-478
• 'Norma e Forma' (1963), in: Norma e Forma. Studi sull'arte del Rinascimento(Torino: Einaudi, 1973), 118-144
• 'L'estetica di Freud' (1966), in: Riflessioni sulla storia dell'arte. Opinioni e critiche(Torino: Einaudi, 1991), 302-326
• ‘Alla ricerca della storia della cultura’ (1967), in: Ideali e idoli. I valori nella storia e nell’arte (Torino: Einaudi, 1986), 22-63
• ‘Il padre della storia dell’arte. Sulle Lezioni di estetica di G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831)’ (1977), in: Custodi della memoria. Tributi ad interpreti della nostra tradizione culturale (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1985), 57-77
• Il senso dell’ordine. Studio sulla psicologia dell’arte decorativa (Torino: Einaudi, 1984), xi-xviii, 3-30, 33-57, 279-314, 315-350
• 'Four Theories of Artistic Expression' (1980), in: R. Woodfield (a cura di), Gombrich on Art and Psychology (Manchester – New York: Manchester University Press, 1996), 141-155
• ‘L’arguzia di Saul Steinberg’ (1983), in: Argomenti del nostro tempo. Cultura e arte nel XX secolo (Torino: Einaudi, 1991), 215-225
• 'Art History and Psychology in Vienna Fifty Years Ago', in: Art Journal 44 (1984), 162-164
• ‘Uno schizzo autobiografico’ (1987), in: Argomenti del nostro tempo. Cultura e arte nel XX secolo (Torino: Einaudi, 1991), 3-19
• ‘Premesse alla storia dell’arte. Tre argomenti di discussione’ (1988), in: Argomenti del nostro tempo. Cultura e arte nel XX secolo (Torino: Einaudi, 1991), 65-78

Bibliography for Glicenstein seminar

The bibliography for the seminar will be provided by prof. Glicenstein at the end of the lectures and uploaded on Moodle.

This course will also be live-streamed (in the lecture room, if possible, or by remote) and the lectures will be recorded and shared only with the students enrolled in the module on Moodle platform.

Should in-house activities be permitted only in a limited form, moments of face-to-face interaction will be scheduled.

Learning and teaching activities may be subject to change due to limitations imposed by the current health crisis. In any event, a form of remote teaching will be guaranteed throughout the academic year.

PLEASE REGISTER ON THE COURSE PAGE AS WELL AS ITS MOODLE PLATFORM (https://elearning.unito.it/scienzeumanistiche/course/view.php?id=2367).

To follow live-streamed lectures access the Virtual Room on Webex  (https://unito.webex.com/unito/j.php?MTID=m7aff76a4957fcbe2c0c859e1f4ffff4c ; password: gombrich)