Visual Evidence and the Art of History
Undergraduate
MUR-HIS306 2025Course information for 2025 intake
Enrolments for this course are closed, but you may have other options to start studying now. Book a consultation to learn more.
- Study method
- 100% online
- Assessments
- 100% online
- Entry requirements
- No ATAR needed, No prior study
- Duration
- 12 weeks
- Loan available
- HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP available
Visual Evidence and the Art of History
About this subject
On successful completion of the subject, students should be able to:
- Interpret art, architecture and other forms of visual evidence that inform our understandings of the past.
- Critically analyse historical evidence and scholarship, demonstrating an awareness of different conceptual approaches and how interpretations of the past might differ.
- Complete a major research project in which you examine well-chosen primary and secondary sources.
- Construct an evidence-based argument in written, visual, oral, audio and/or digital form, demonstrating articulate communication skills and applying conventions of the discipline
- Topic 1: To Look is an Act of Choice: The Artist as Historian
- Topic 2: Ways of Seeing: How to Read the Visual
- Topic 3: The Good Eye: How to Read a Building
- Topic 4: Beyond the Canvas. A History of the Visual
- Topic 5: Faith and Form: Byzantium and the Medieval Gothic
- Topic 6: Patronage and Principles: The Renaissance and the Baroque
- Topic 7: Hope and Despair: The Enlightenment vs Romanticism
- Topic 8: Dissent and Activism Modernism and Anti-War Art Assessment
- Topic 9: The Culture Wars Indigenous Art and Colonial Conflicts
- Topic 10: The Implications of Interpretation: The Politics of Display Perth Gallery Visit Topic 11: Who owns History? The Politics of Possession and Property
- Topic 12: The Museum of Forbidden Art: The Politics and Power of Visual Evidence
In two monumental works now held in the Prado Museum, the artist Francisco de Goya captured the 2 May 1808 insurrection of Spanish people (who were then under occupation by French troops), as well as Napoleon’s brutal suppression of dissidents the following day. The work of Goya and others provokes the question: might an artist also be a historian? Indeed, might artists sometimes ‘make’ history? Holbein certainly did so. His portrait of Anne of Cleves led to another ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII. Ngurrara artists also changed history when their 1997 map of the Great Sandy Desert transformed understandings of native title and traditional ownership. In this subject, students learn how to read visual evidence and explore how art, architecture and artefacts help us understand the past. We trace the cult of personality, explore ways of seeing, and challenge the male and colonial gaze. We consider how art, especially Indigenous Australian art, helps us understand resilience in the face of culture wars. Working with real-world collections, places and objects, students learn to understand art and architecture as a political weapon and assess the implications of cultural and material heritage. This subject is ideally suited to students who wish to expand their cultural knowledge and enrich their experiences of travel, and positions history graduates with important professional and personal skills.
Please Note: All students studying at Murdoch University will need to complete the compulsory unit, Murdoch Academic Passport (MAP100), which only takes 2-3 hours to complete online. Find out more: http://goto.murdoch.edu.au/MurdochAcademicPassport.
- Visual Evidence Major Project (50%)
- Visual analysis (30%)
- Research Proposal (20%)
For textbook details check your university's handbook, website or learning management system (LMS).
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Entry requirements
No entry requirements
Study load
- 0.125 EFTSL
- This is in the range of 10 to 12 hours of study each week.
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