Message

S1609 The infinite unveiled to the gaze: forms of representation between Orient and Occident

De Rosa Agostino

The course aims at helping students to recognise and to interpret the figurative forms by means of which Western and Eastern (especially Sino-Japanese) cultures have represented time and space. Starting from the analysis of the anthropologic positions that have historically distinguished the two ethno-cultural fields, the course will provide a close examination of why, despite the development in the West of the conical linear perspective during the Renaissance, in the Far East pseudo-axonometry was privileged, which quickly became the dominant symbolic form for that complex native philosophical and religious context. The theme of the representation of light and shadow in both figurative contexts will be particularly emphasised, employing materials coming not only from the history of art and of figuration, but also from literature, music and cinema.

 

Learning outcomes of the course
The expected learning outcomes are that the students will master a comparative approach between the Western and Eastern forms of representation, by means of the analytic observation and the documentary study of some milestones of figurative art. The course aims at developing the students' own critical capacities in the exegesis of images characterized by a strong geometric and symbolic content, even if distant from an ethnographic point of view, by trying to foreground the common features which link them.