Teaching Workshop: Color: an Itinerary in the Contemporary Artistic and Aesthetic Debate
A.Y. 2020/2021
Learning objectives
The workshop aims to provide students with some essential philosophical notions and skills. The goal will be, on the one hand, to investigate the relationship between philosophy and painting and, on the other hand, to understand how colour arises from a tension between different dimensions: from an interplay between cultural and natural, collective and personal, perceptive and linguistic elements. Colour, therefore, will appear not any more as something simple and "obvious", but rather as an "object" full of stories and possibilities.
Expected learning outcomes
The workshop intends to allow students to acquire new skills of philosophical inquiry, through the investigation of an apparently simple question, i.e. the problem of colour. Through the debate on colour, students will also become aware of the fracture that exists between the vision of the world proposed by modern science and that of our common experience, and to accept the challenge of their rapprochement.
Lesson period: First semester
Single course
This course cannot be attended as a single course. Please check our list of single courses to find the ones available for enrolment.
Course syllabus and organization
Single session
Responsible
Lesson period
First semester
The lessons will take place online, synchronously (Teams platform) and asynchronously, through the materials and lessons published on the Ariel website. All information on how to access lessons and any changes in the course program and materials (bibliography etc.) will be available on the Ariel site. The verification will take place online, details will be communicated on the Ariel website at the end of the course.
Course syllabus
The laboratory aims to provide students with some essential philosophical notions and skills. First, we will examine the debate on colour that arose in the Anglo-American philosophy in the past 50 years, starting with one of the most provocative positions, i.e. the so-called "eliminativism", which claims that colour does not exist at all. Students will be invited to discuss and embrace one of the different solutions that have been given to the question: what is colour, and where should it be sought? The goal will be to show the limits of every position, and this will lead in turn to shift the research focus.
In a second moment, the central question will be that of colour in art, and in particular in painting. A special attention will be paid to the symbolic meaning of colour, also through a number of concrete examples chosen by the teacher and later by the students themselves. The goal will be, on the one hand, to investigate the relationship between philosophy and painting and, on the other hand, to understand how colour arises from a tension between different dimensions: cultural and natural, collective and personal, perceptive and linguistic elements. Colour, therefore, will appear not any more as something simple and "obvious", but rather as an "object" full of stories and possibilities.
During this second part of the laboratory, we are going to investigate also the relationship between colour and the sublime. Can colour become a vehicle of that particular emotion that we call "sublime"? And going deeper into the question, what is the relationship between these two concepts?
In a second moment, the central question will be that of colour in art, and in particular in painting. A special attention will be paid to the symbolic meaning of colour, also through a number of concrete examples chosen by the teacher and later by the students themselves. The goal will be, on the one hand, to investigate the relationship between philosophy and painting and, on the other hand, to understand how colour arises from a tension between different dimensions: cultural and natural, collective and personal, perceptive and linguistic elements. Colour, therefore, will appear not any more as something simple and "obvious", but rather as an "object" full of stories and possibilities.
During this second part of the laboratory, we are going to investigate also the relationship between colour and the sublime. Can colour become a vehicle of that particular emotion that we call "sublime"? And going deeper into the question, what is the relationship between these two concepts?
Prerequisites for admission
No specific skills are required, because the laboratory aims to be an experiment of philosophical practice accessible also and above all to non-philosophers. To participate, it is necessary to be interested in philosophy, on the one hand, and in art, on the other hand. Another field that will be examined, and in which the participants should be interested, is natural sciences, in particular the physical and physiological aspects of colour perception in animals and humans. Students must actively participate and know the Italian language well.
Teaching methods
The lessons will take place online, synchronously (Teams platform) and asynchronously, through the materials and lessons published on the Ariel website. All information on how to access lessons and any changes in the course program and materials (bibliography etc.) will be available on the Ariel site.
Teaching Resources
A. Barale, Il giallo del colore. Un'indagine filosofica, Jaca Book, Milano 2020.
D. Brown, F. McPherson (a cura di), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Color, Routledge, London 2020 (the chapters indicated at lesson).
J. Gage, Colore e cultura. Usi e significati dall'antichità all'arte astratta, Ist. Poligrafico dello Stato, 2001 (the chapters indicated at lesson).
D. Brown, F. McPherson (a cura di), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Color, Routledge, London 2020 (the chapters indicated at lesson).
J. Gage, Colore e cultura. Usi e significati dall'antichità all'arte astratta, Ist. Poligrafico dello Stato, 2001 (the chapters indicated at lesson).
Assessment methods and Criteria
Verification of learning will take place remotely and will consist of a short vocal report, of about 10 minutes, to be recorded and uploaded to the Ariel platform. The reports will then be shared with the other participants, and during the last session on Teams each student will be asked to discuss some aspects of two or three other students' reports.
Professor(s)