Boston College Summer School
Summer 2008
May 28 - June 15
PL 353 Practicing Mortality: Art, Philosophy, and Contemporary Seeing (3 credits)
This course will explore how art and philosophy can help set the conditions for a life lived more fully, and thus authentically human,
each and every day through "contemplative seeing of art". As a means to help develop a sense of contemplative seeing, students will begin the course with an in depth reading of Thomas Aquinas and his understanding of what makes something beautiful.
The course will then investigate more specifically the relationship between art and philosophy and how together they can help set the conditions for a life truly lived well.
This course will be taught in English.
Prof. Brian Braman, Department of Philosophy
Fulfills: Philosophy elective
FS 175 Drawing from the Venetian Masters (3 credits)
In this class students connect to the visual arts tradition by visually internalizing it through drawing. Drawing from a master forces one to understand the visual language used to construct the image, how the dark and light forms are organized, the arrangement and use of color, the role of light and space. Students will strive to ensnare a sense of the whole picture with a few lines, or simplified forms,
to distill the organization of a masterwork into a small sketch. This introductory level Fine Arts Studio course will introduce students to the process, materials, and issues addressed in exploration of the basic principles and concepts of making visual artworks. The course emphasis therefore is two fold: first, the command of basic formal concepts and skills: the page, how mark, shape, value, scale and composition interact to become a visual language, and secondly, an introduction to the great masterworks of Venice. This course will be taught in English.
Prof. Stoney Conley, Dept. of Fine Arts
Fulfills: Fine Arts core/major/minor elective