Visual Culture, Arts, and Science in 19th-Century Europe
Musicology Category
3 hours, 3 credits
- Instructor
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This 3-credit seminar, which would be instructed primarily in English, explores vision in 19th-century optical science, medical studies, technology, literature, and the arts, including music. In this era, an improved understanding of the eye in both ophthalmology and optical science spread into the interpretation of vision, including confused vision, in literature, public entertainment history, visual arts, and music. A reserved and even skeptical approach to visual perception became a source of inspiration for authors, composers, and artists to convey this sensory confusion with metaphors, techniques, and modes of expression. This also leads to their attention to other senses, especially the senses of hearing and touch. In theatre and drama, developments in space, light, and staging also coincide with and likely contributed to this new aesthetics of seeing. Understanding visual culture thus may offer and fresh and more comprehensive way to understand how inventions in the arts and literature related to science.
This course will be divided into 3 parts. In Part I, we start with new theories, discoveries, and optical devices in both optical science and ophthalmology, which we will study hand in hand with music works, in which vision likely inspired new techniques, acoustics, and instrumentation. In Part II, we delve into literature and visual arts, in which confused vision served as important metaphors and the basis of different techniques and modes of expression. We will consider how and why authors and artists found a manipulated vision appealing from an aesthetic standpoint, and how that also inspired them to shift their attention to other senses and psychology. Part III, we explore vision relative to the use of space, lighting, and staging in the opera and public entertainment. We will study renowned optical illusion in magic shows, including their mechanical aspects, their inventors, and their reception. We will also study inventions in theatrical lighting and acoustic space hand in hand with European theatres and opera houses, relating visual culture to architecture, staging, and dramaturgy.
Most readings for the course are in English and will require the ability to read a music score and to do music analysis. Music literacy is therefore required. Undergraduate students are not recommended to take this course for credits but are welcome to sit in as auditors.
Syllabus This course will be divided into 3 parts. In Part I, we start with new theories, discoveries, and optical devices in both optical science and ophthalmology, which we will study hand in hand with music works, in which vision likely inspired new techniques, acoustics, and instrumentation. In Part II, we delve into literature and visual arts, in which confused vision served as important metaphors and the basis of different techniques and modes of expression. We will consider how and why authors and artists found a manipulated vision appealing from an aesthetic standpoint, and how that also inspired them to shift their attention to other senses and psychology. Part III, we explore vision relative to the use of space, lighting, and staging in the opera and public entertainment. We will study renowned optical illusion in magic shows, including their mechanical aspects, their inventors, and their reception. We will also study inventions in theatrical lighting and acoustic space hand in hand with European theatres and opera houses, relating visual culture to architecture, staging, and dramaturgy.
Most readings for the course are in English and will require the ability to read a music score and to do music analysis. Music literacy is therefore required. Undergraduate students are not recommended to take this course for credits but are welcome to sit in as auditors.