10 cp
Prerequisites Nil
Teaching Organisation Lectures, tutorials, gallery and museum visits and/or flexible delivery.

This unit aims to critique concepts of the past, such as the Western canon and its theorising by art writers. The unit interrogates historiography of art and design to increase student awareness of the past and its histories. Agencies such as art writers, museums, collectors and art academies, theorists and viewers are examined to find meaning behind the longevity of value and quality. Fields such as Marxism, psychology, mythology and semiology are used to inform investigations. The unit increases the breadth of art historical knowledge and art histories as well as the broader domain of visual culture through case studies. The spiritual and religious function evident in material culture will be examined in the course of this investigation.