ARTH 28000 - History of Photography

The course is organized chronologically from the beginnings of photography, in 1839, to our time. It gives full exposure to the main technologies of photography in the nineteenth-century, as they became accessible to a large public and introduced new aesthetics in portraiture, urban landscapes, and the representation of distant geographies. This history continues in the twentieth-century, when photography became more experimental and sought its own artistic autonomy. The course surveys chronologically the key moments at which photography reached the status of art, was used as social document, and fulfilled a wide social need. The dialogue between contemporary art and photography is brought to the present, exploring the strategies by which digital art is challenging the idea of photography as truthful representation of the world.

 
3 hrs
3 cr.