James Cook University Subject Handbook - 2003

VA2220:03

Culture and Nature in Visual Arts: Ancient and Modern Interpretation

Townsville HECS Band 1

26 hours lectures, 26 hours seminars/tutorials. Full year.

Available to all students.

Staff: Assoc. Professor A Silver.

This subject will encompass an introduction, with slide presentations, to the beginnings of visual expression in human history by looking at pre-historic art, Egypt and the Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean cultures. It will trace the history of ‘nature’ in art in Western culture; it will include colonial art in Australia and the art of Aboriginal Australia and will culminate in a study of contemporary Environmental Art.

Learning Objectives:

  1. an introductory knowledge of the environmental art movement and the history of ‘nature’ in art, including Western civilisation, Colonial Australia and Aboriginal Australia;
  2. knowledge of the basic concepts underpinning research and scholarship in the arts;
  3. realisation of the importance of having an awareness of other traditions of artistic practice;
  4. an insight into the relationship between culture and the environment.

Assessment by two sets of interlocking research reports (30% each semester) (60%); tutorial presentation (20%); research (20%).