STUDY PROGRAMME
Painting and Visual Arts

AFAM CODE
ABAV5

DISCIPLINARY AREA
Painting

DISCIPLINARY FIELD
Painting

CREDITS
6

APPROACH
Theoretical / Project based

The second-year Painting course aims at widening the students’ knowledge of the pictorial language through an analysis of its main elements: painting surfaces, colours and materials, expressive values of media, distinctive expressive features of different painting techniques, the act of painting and the signs it creates, specificity of the painted gaze, and images in relation to their information load.

This course is made of a single module of 6 CFA credits.

The course intends to thoroughly analyse different aspects of painting through reflections on the fundamental problems of the subject and the means it confronts itself with in the pictorial sphere. Using different techniques and working with different supports, the students acquire understanding of the pictorial medium and can develop their artistic path. The course is aimed at the examination of contemporary artistic practices, through the reading of texts and the vision of works from the most traditional to the most current ones, and at the creation of artistic projects that critically and experimentally address the covered topics.

The course starts from the knowledge of the students who, facing common practical exercises with theoretical considerations, develop personal projects using the gradually acquired experience, the stimuli offered by the reflection on what they have created, and the comparison with the work of others.

The course includes extensive laboratory activity in which, thanks to lectures on the research of some contemporary authors, the complexity of the artistic imagination is seen as visual heritage constantly conditioned by current matters.

• Theoretical/project based classroom lectures

• Workshops

• Use of tutorials, videos or other media tools for detailed study

• Classroom debates and presentations

• Individual study and research

• Field trips (conferences, meetings, visits to exhibitions as organized by the professor or department)

Assessment is based on the overall competence of the students and may include:

• Oral exam

• Written exam

• Submission of papers, projects or research work

Further details on specific tests can be provided by the professor during the course. Assessment criteria include commitment, active participation and personal growth of the students over the course.

• N. Mirzoeff, An introduction to Visual Culture, 2009.

Further bibliographic recommendations may be provided by the professor during the course. A lot of the referenced material, together with other in-depth study material, can be consulted online in MyNaba, in the Library section.