6 Exploring the story world
In literature, authors build fictional environments, or story worlds, in which their stories are set. Depending on the genre they may be set in a different historical period or country, they might be fantastical settings inhabited with magical creatures, or they may be everyday domestic settings that you can recognise as being very similar to […]
5 What happens to you as you read?
To begin to explore this question we’re now asking you to read the following extract from the book The Subtle Knife, written by Philip Pullman and published in 1997. You may have read the book previously or have seen a screen adaptation, or it may be unfamiliar to you. For the purposes of this activity, whether […]
4 Empathy
The statements that you have just completed form a measure of ‘empathy’. People often struggle to define empathy, or to understand how it differs from related concepts such as sympathy. The word itself derives from two roots. One is the ancient Greek word empatheia which means passion or physical affection (Jamieson, 2014). The second root […]
3 The experience of reading
You may already relate to the idea that our experience of reading can feel almost magical. Many of you will have observed how absorbed children can become when being read to and you may well have had a similar experience yourself, when reading a great book on the beach in your holidays for example. In […]
2 The benefits of being a bookworm
Some researchers believe that reading fiction allows us to experience a ‘simulated social world’ (e.g. Mar, Oatley, Hirsh, dela Paz & Peterson, 2006). That is to say that when we are introduced to a character in a book, it is similar to and potentially also practise for, meeting and understanding people in the real social […]
1 Stories: what do you remember?
Human beings are avid consumers of stories, whether they are in the form of large formal stories such as novels, or plays, or in the form of much smaller and more diffuse stories, such as soap operas or gossip. Stories also appear to be important, more broadly, to the ways in which we communicate. For […]
Learning outcomes
After studying this course, you should be able to:
Introduction
Reading as a form of entertainment has a long history. Not only does a good book entertain us though, it can be an activity that brings us comfort. In this course you will discover that people have often turned to reading as one way of meeting times of difficulty across history, stretching back from the […]
Introduction
Trade took Venetian merchants all over the Mediterranean and as far as China, a fact that affected not only the city’s economic prosperity but its cultural identity, making fifteenth-century Venice one of the most culturally diverse cities in Europe, a fact clearly depicted in many Venetian paintings. This course reviews some aspects of the social […]
Renaissance Art Reconsidered
This course explores the relationship between Venetian art and the art of both Byzantium and other geographical areas to the East. Venice looked eastward as the result of its unique position as a maritime trading centre facing not only inwards, towards the Italian peninsula, but also outwards, toward Asia and the Middle East. All this […]
Learning outcomes
After studying this course, you should be able to:
Acknowledgments
This free course is adapted form a former Open University course called Renaissance Art Reconsidered (AA315). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources: This course was written by Carol M. Richardson (Foreword) Paul Wood Course image: Salvatore Gerace in Flickr made available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence . Figures 1, 7, 9, 15, 25, 26 and 27: ©1990 […]
References
Alberti, L.B. (1966) On Painting, ed. and trans. J. Spencer, New Haven and London, Yale University Press (translation of the Italian Della pittura). Alberti, L.B. (1988) On the Art of Buildings in Ten Books, trans. J. Rykwert, N. Leach and R. Tavernor, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press. Alberti, L.B. (1991) On Painting, ed. and trans. C. Grayson, intro. M. Kemp, […]
The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/pluginfile.php/624871/mod_resource/content/1/platev2.1.pdf
Acknowledgements
This course was written by Dr Linda Walsh. This free course is an adapted extract from the course A207 From Enlightenment to Romanticism c.1780-1830, which is currently out of presentation Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence Grateful acknowledgement is […]
References
Preéz Sánchez, A.E. and Sayre, E.A. (1989) Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment (exhibition catalogue), Boston, Toronto and London, Bulfinch Press. Tomlinson, J. (1992) Goya in the Twilight of Enlightenment, New Haven and London, Yale University Press. Tomlinson, J. (1994) Francisco Goya y Lucientes, 1746–1828, London, Phaidon. (This contains as appendices Goya’s 1792 address to the Academy as well […]
Conclusion
This free course provided an introduction to studying the arts and humanities. It took you through a series of exercises designed to develop your approach to study and learning at a distance and helped to improve your confidence as an independent learner.
4.1 Works by Goya
4 Illustrations shown on the video in order of their appearance
3 Chronology
Timeline Event 1746 (30 March) Goya born in Fuendetodos, in the province of Aragon. 1759 Carlos III of Spain ascends the throne. 1760 Goya apprenticed to the painter José Luzán. 1770–1 Travels in Italy. 1771 First important commission, The Adoration of the Name of God, for the basilica of Santa Maria del Pilar, Saragossa. 1774 Summoned to […]