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2016/17 Taught Postgraduate Module Catalogue

ARTF5990M Assessing the French Revolution

30 creditsClass Size: 10

Module manager: Dr Valerie Mainz
Email: v.s.mainz@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable

Year running 2016/17

Pre-requisite qualifications

A good BA Hons degree

This module is approved as an Elective

Module summary

The module will consider the issue of the French Revolution as a founding moment in the modern French nation and in the light of the bicentennial celebrations of 1989.Seminars will deal with the creation of the Louvre as a public museum, the projects for a new National Assembly building, the competitions of year II in painting and architecture, the representation of gender in art and politics and the period post Terror.Other topics will deal with how dress, costume and everyday artefacts merge together and break down previously held hierarchies of class, culture and art and how alongside the production of martyr portraiture caricature can be used to consider the implications of the Terror.

Objectives

On completion of this module, students:
- should be able to make their own assessments of how the imagery of the French Revolution functions within history;
- will have acquired knowledge of a range of artistic practices and of the key events and personalities of this period;
- will have presented seminars and debated set texts and collected together archive material so as to come to an understanding of what art is or can be at a time of revolutionary change when barriers between the Fine Arts or between High Art and what has been termed popular culture break down. There may be an opportunity to work with a newly discovered archive of French Revolutionary material held in the Brotherton Library’s Special Collections.
Using the publications and collections of the Museum of the French Revolution in Vizille, the students will have considered how representation can come to invade aspects of material culture in its widest sense and in a variety of forms - from items of dress, costume and weaponry to furniture, earthenware, medals and playing cards.

Skills outcomes
Skills necessary to undertake a higher research degree and/or for employment in a higher capacity in an area of professional practice.
Evaluating own achievements and that of others.
Self direction and effective decision making.
Independent learning.
Use of methodologies and theorectical resources.
Use of audio-visual material
Presentation skills
Use of bibliographies, databases and archived primary research resources

Syllabus

The module will consider the issue of the French Revolution as a founding moment in the modern French nation and in the light of the bicentennial celebrations of 1989. The Fall of the Bastille, the Festivals of Federation and of the Supreme Being, the death of the King, the rise of General Bonaparte, the post-Thermidorean reaction were all marked out as significant in the present and for viewers of posterity. The module addresses how martyr portraiture, caricature and a wide range of more popular art forms emerged at this time, how such imagery continues to function and what its purposes were.
Relationships between narrative, symbol and allegory are discussed, the boundaries between direct reportage and partisan propaganda questioned. Definitions came in for much public scrutiny at this time. Distinctions in gender, age, ethnic origin and religious creed came to be represented in the public sphere and for the general good, but also from within contexts of often heated political debate and amid much turmoil, upheaval and unrest. Professions were broken down, but then reasserted in altered ways.
Many of the art institutions of the Ancient Regime were dismantled; former patrons went to the guillotine or were displaced. New structures arose, but most of the ambitious schemes planned at this time failed. Why were so many of the grandiose architectural and sculptural projects never completed? The French Revolution is not easy to assess, but it provides much challenging and provocative material for the historian. What it achieved in terms of the visual arts and what it failed to achieve continue to provide rewarding areas of study and rich objects of concern.

Teaching methods

Delivery type	Number	Length hours	Student hours
Seminar	10	3.00	30.00
Private study hours			270.00
Total Contact hours			30.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)			300.00

Private study

Reading: 70 hours
Seminar Preparation: 100 hours
Essay Preparation: 100 hours

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

Seminar/Training sessions
Individual and Group presentations (non-assessed)

Methods of assessment

Coursework

Assessment type	Notes	% of formal assessment
Essay	1 x 7,000 word essay (inc footnotes and bibliography)	100.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)		100.00

Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 31/03/2016

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