HUMS 465, Art and Philosophy

Meeting Time: 
M 9:25-11:15am

Course Description

This seminar explores the tense but fruitful relationship between philosophy and art, between word and image. Three positions are set against and in conversation with each other: We analyze some of the key texts in the history of European philosophy concerned with the question of art; we read art historical texts that try to bridge the divide between the two domains, and we look at art works that assert their own distinct voice within theoretical discourse. The seminar is designed to strengthen the core competencies for the discipline of art history: Improve text comprehension and writing skills, as well as practice the visual analysis of works of art.

Sophomore Seminar: Registration preference given to sophomores. Not normally open to first-year students

Led by:

Professor Christine Brandner

Christine Rheo Brandner worked as a textile conservator in Austria prior to studying Art History. She has traveled extensively in North and Central America, Ireland and Iran to gain practical knowledge about textile techniques such as spinning, felting, rug and tablet weaving.

In 2011, she received her MA from the University of Vienna with a thesis on the Vestments of the Order of the Golden Fleece, a set of embroidered liturgical garments from the fifteenth century.  Christine Rheo joined the doctoral program at Yale University in 2013. Research interests include Baroque painting, eighteenth-century sculpture in the context of the Enlightenment, and French art theory.  Her dissertation examines Jean-Étienne Liotard’s portraits of women in oriental dress as discursive elements in European perceptions of the Orient.

Publications: Book review of the German translation of Hubert Damisch’s Théorie du nuage: pour une histoire de la peinture (Allgemeine Frankfurter Zeitung, 18 June, 2013); ‘‘Sakrale Bilder in Bewegung, Die Darstellung der Heiligen am Ornat des Ordens vom Goldenen Vlies,’’ in Clothing the Sacred: Medieval Textiles as Fabric, Form and Metaphor (Mateusz Kapustka and Warren T. Woodfin, eds., Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 2015); forthcoming contribution to Textile Terms: A Glossary (lemma ‘‘Knot’’).