Aesthetics
Academic Year 2022/2023 - Teacher: CHIARA MILITELLOExpected Learning Outcomes
This
course explores the history of aesthetic to the present day. The course is
designed to provide students with an introduction to the discipline of
aesthetics and philosophy of art, with particular reference to the historical
development of the subject and its relation to the arts, literature, music,
cinema and photography. At the end of the course, students are expected to demonstrate
an understanding of basic concepts and methods of aesthetics and philosophy of
art. Students will gain an understanding of the nature of beauty, art, and philosophy;
they will also be introduced to the central questions of aesthetics.
Course Structure
The
teaching will be carried out through lectures, a method that will ensure the
transmission of contents and methods. In order to achieve the objectives
relating to learning and communication skills, questions for clarification and
deepening by the students will be encouraged during the lessons.
Required Prerequisites
No
prior knowledge is required.
Attendance of Lessons
Class
attendance is strongly recommended, because the exposition of philosophical theories
by the professor greatly facilitates the acquisition of the contents by the
students.
Detailed Course Content
The
aesthetic experience. Aesthetic evaluation. The relationships between
aesthetics and literary and artistic criticism. Physical beauty and divine
beauty. Harmonious beauty and Dionysian beauty. Monstrosity. The harmony of the
heavenly spheres. The “je ne sais quoi.” Beauty as artifice, joke, quotation in
the twentieth century. Beauty in the history of art and aesthetics.
Textbook Information
1. Paolo D’Angelo, Estetica, Laterza 2011, ISBN 9788842096061, 244 pp.
2. Umberto Eco, History of Beauty, Rizzoli 2010, ISBN 0847835308, 444 pp.
2. Umberto Eco, History of Beauty, Rizzoli 2010, ISBN 0847835308, 444 pp.
Author | Title | Publisher | Year | ISBN |
---|---|---|---|---|
Paolo D’Angelo | Estetica | Laterza | 2011 | 9788842096061 |
Umberto Eco | Storia della bellezza | Bompiani | 2018 | 9788845298318 |
Course Planning
Subjects | Text References | |
---|---|---|
1 | The definition of aesthetics | 1 (chapter 1) |
2 | Aesthetic predicates | 1 (chapter 2) |
3 | Aesthetic evaluation | 1 (chapter 3) |
4 | The aesthetic experience | 1 (chapter 4) |
5 | The origin of art | 1 (chapter 5) |
6 | Subjectivity, objectivity, intersubjectivity of aesthetic judgment | 1 (chapter 6) |
7 | Aesthetics as a theory of beauty and its modern overcoming | 1 (chapter 7) |
8 | Ontology of art | 1 (chapter 8) |
9 | The classification of the arts | 1 (chapter 9) |
10 | Autonomy and heteronomy of art | 1 (chapter 10) |
11 | The future of art | 1 (chapter 11) |
12 | Art history | 2 (introduction) |
13 | The aesthetic ideal in ancient Greece | 2 (chapter 1) |
14 | Beauty as proportion and harmony | 2 (chapter 3) |
15 | Apollonian and Dionysiac | 2 (chapter 2) |
16 | The beauty of monsters | 2 (chapter 5) |
17 | Light and Colour in the Middle Ages | 2 (chapter 4) |
18 | From the pastourelle to the donna angelicata | 2 (chapter 6) |
19 | Magic beauty between the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries | 2 (chapter 7) |
20 | Ladies and heroes | 2 (chapter 8) |
21 | From grace to disquieting beauty | 2 (chapter 9) |
22 | Reason and beauty | 2 (chapter 10) |
23 | The sublime | 2 (chapter 11) |
24 | Romantic beauty | 2 (chapter 12) |
25 | The religion of beauty | 2 (chapter 13) |
26 | The new object | 2 (chapter 14) |
27 | The beauty of machines | 2 (chapter 15) |
28 | From abstract forms to the depths of material | 2 (chapter 16) |
29 | The beauty of the media | 2 (chapter 17) |
Learning Assessment
Learning Assessment Procedures
Oral
examination, assessed on the basis of the following elements: relevance of the
answers to the questions asked (necessary to pass the exam); content quality,
ability to connect the various parts of the course, proper philosophical
language, overall expressive skills (all these elements contribute to the final
evaluation, provided that the answers are relevant).
Examples of frequently asked questions and / or exercises
In what sense is the aesthetic experience always an experience of choice?
In what sense is art autonomous?
Why is beauty not a timeless value?
Why has beauty often been quotation in the twentieth century?
In what sense is art autonomous?
Why is beauty not a timeless value?
Why has beauty often been quotation in the twentieth century?