Art and Literature: A Global Journey

In this course we will explore some of the ways literature and art combine and coalesce. We will consider how the tradition of oral storytelling and fables began to appear on surfaces, how illustrated books helped the illiterate, how poetry can be a catalyst for visual representation, how the Bible inspired artists? We will ask the question ‘can a machine make art?’ 

We will look at the great Rodin’s figures inspired by Dante, the inscriptions on the walls of the Alhambra, Japanese woodcuts inspired by 11th Century texts, Audubon’s Birds of America, Delacroix’ diaries, contemporary Indian art and poetry and eventually the impact of Artificial Intelligence on art and poetry. We will travel across the world, to America, Italy, Spain, Japan, Australia, North Africa and India following evocative stories told in so many different ways. Considering inscriptions, sculptures, poetry, prose, painting, woodcuts, books, diaries and letters we will consider works by Paula Rego, Artemisia Gentileschi, El Greco, Saint Teresa of Avila, Murasaki Shikibu, James Fenimore Cooper, Henri Matisse, Toni Morrison, Mickalene Thomas, Binar Sarkar Ellias and others.