Learning to Look at the Visual Arts (Online)

Unit 1 - Introduction to learning Look at the Visual Arts

• Introduction to the course

Unit 2 - Composition

• Horizontals and verticals
• Harmony and balance
• Curves and diagonals
• Colour and composition
• Asymmetry
• Apparently random composition
• Collage

Unit 3 - Space

• Linear perspective
• Geometrical space
• Imaginative space and illusionism
• Aerial perspective and space to walk about in
• Spatial distortion ignoring the middle distance
• Multiple viewpoint perspective
• Space in front of the picture
• Spatial disorientation

Unit 4 and Unit 5 - Form

• Sculptural form in the human figure
• Form achieved by chiaroscuro and sfumato
• Form made tangible
• The disintegration and rebuilding of form
• Form created with colour
• The closing of the gap between painting and sculpture in the twentieth century

Unit 6 - Tone

• The use of tone for imaginative expression
• Tone used to create drama
• Tone and the expression of emotion
• Tone and the realisation of form and space
• Tone used to create atmosphere
• Tone and the reconstruction of form

Unit 7 - Colour

• Primary and complementary contrast and the afterimage
• The vocabulary of colour
• Using the vocabulary of colour
• The use of colour to express emotion
• The power of colour to express emotion without a figurative subject and the effect of colour and scale
• Colour and the expression of texture
• The use of coloured light for expression

Unit 8 - Subject-matter

• Religious subjects
• Historical subjects
• Scenes of everyday life with a moral
• Subject matter and image making: clarity and ambiguity in communicating a message
• The idea of ambiguity in a visual image
• Subject matter and the idea of abstraction
• Poetical subjects and the idea of painting as poetry

Unit 9 - Drawing and its purposes

• Drawing used to try out ideas
• Drawing and sculptural expression
• Landscape drawings and watercolours
• Line drawing
• Individual drawing techniques in the twentieth century

Unit 10. Looking at print

• The exploitation of detail: line engraving, woodcut and wood engraving
• The etching: the creation of mystery and ambivalence by means of tone
• The development of a print from its original drawing: etching and aquatint
• Lithography
• The coloured lithograph and the silk screen print

We strongly recommend that you try to find a little time each week to engage in the online conversations (at times that are convenient to you) as the forums are an integral, and very rewarding, part of the course and the online learning experience.

To participate in the course you will need to have regular access to the Internet and you will need to buy the following paperback book:

• Acton, Mary, Learning to Look at Paintings (Routledge, London and New York, 2nd edition, 2008) ISBN 0415435188

To earn credit (CATS points) for your course you will need to register and pay an additional £10 fee for each course you enrol on. You can do this by ticking the relevant box at the bottom of the enrolment form or when enrolling online. If you do not register when you enrol, you have up until the course start date to register and pay the £10 fee.

See more information on CATS point

Coursework is an integral part of all online courses and everyone enrolled will be expected to do coursework, but only those who have registered for credit will be awarded CATS points for completing work at the required standard. If you are enrolled on the Certificate of Higher Education you need to indicate this on the enrolment form but there is no additional registration fee.

Assignments are not graded but are marked either pass or fail.

All students who successfully complete this course, whether registered for credit or not, are eligible for a Certificate of Completion. Completion consists of submitting the final course assignment. Certificates will be available, online, for those who qualify after the course finishes.

• Teach students to look at painting from a more visual and analytical point of view.
• Teach the necessary visual vocabulary or language of looking.
• Provide a method for looking at paintings, drawings and prints which is both flexible and clear.
• Generate understanding of pictorial qualities and their integration for the aesthetic appearance.
• Create a feeling for the integration of the aesthetic appearance with the subject matter and period of the picture.

Course objectives

• Learn how to look in a more objective and analytical way.
• Learn the visual vocabulary and glossary of terms.
• Understand pictoral qualities and what they mean, that is Composition, Space, Form, Tone, Colour, Subject Matter.
•  Think critically.

You will be set two pieces of work for the course. The first of 500 words is due halfway through your course. This does not count towards your final outcome but preparing for it, and the feedback you are given, will help you prepare for your assessed piece of work of 1,500 words due at the end of the course. The assessed work is marked pass or fail.

English Language Requirements

We do not insist that applicants hold an English language certification, but warn that they may be at a disadvantage if their language skills are not of a comparable level to those qualifications listed on our website. If you are confident in your proficiency, please feel free to enrol. For more information regarding English language requirements please follow this link: https://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/about/english-language-requirements

FHEQ level 4, 10 weeks, approx 10 hours per week, therefore a total of about 100 study hours.