Aims of the course
- To provide an overview of Ukrainian art, architecture, and design between the sixteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. The course touches upon related areas such as literature and music and explores historical links with other artistic centres (e.g., Paris, Rome, Warsaw).
- To understand how Ukrainian visual culture has responded to a wide range of cultural, artistic, and political contexts, including the Byzantine Empire, Kyivan Rus, the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Cossack Hetmanate, the Russian Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Soviet Union.
- Through the case study of Ukraine, to learn about international art movements, styles, and traditions, such as Baroque, Romanticism, Realism, Art Nouveau, and Modernism.
Schedule (this course is completed entirely online)
Orientation Week: 19-25 May 2025
Teaching Weeks: 26 May-29 June 2025
Feedback Week: 30 June-6 July 2025
Teaching Week 1 - Ukraine in context; Cossack Baroque
Week 1 explores the geographical, historical, and religious contexts of Ukrainian cultural history. Our focus then turns to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the rise of the Cossacks and their state called the “Hetmanate” (1649—1764).
Learning objectives:
- Understand how Ukraine’s geography and a variety of cultural, historical, and religious contexts have shaped both the path to statehood and the country’s complex visual culture.
- Learn about the Cossacks, the Hetmanate, and their relationships with Muscovite Russia and the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth.
- Study the key works of art and architecture for week 1, to include Cossack leader portraits, icons, and church art and architecture.
- Learn about Baroque art and its features.
- Discover icons and the historical links of Ukrainian art with Byzantine art.
Teaching Week 2 - The Effects of Empire
In Week 2, we explore the art histories of Ukraine’s lands and peoples within the context of empire, focusing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Learning objectives:
- Learn how art and architecture was influenced by the Russian Empire, the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, and later, the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
- Explore how Ukrainian artists took part in the creation of a “Russian” national school of painting, after the founding of the Imperial Academy of Arts in St Petersburg.
- Learn about the Academic training system, including teaching methods and the “hierarchy of genres”.
- Study the key art and architecture works for week 2, to include history and portrait painting, and church architecture.
- Learn about Romanticism and Neo-Classicism.
Teaching Week 3 - Taras Shevchenko and the Rise of Nationalism
Week 3 considers the artistic impacts of Ukrainian nationalism as it developed over the course of the nineteenth century, and the leading role played by the poet and artist Taras Shevchenko, known as Ukraine’s “kobzar” [bard]. It then examines the emergence of the Realism movement in the mid-century and considers how this enabled more political ideas and national content in art.
Learning objectives:
- Discover some of the leading figures in the Ukrainian national movement and their long-term importance in Ukrainian cultural history.
- Understand some of the ways that Imperial Russia suppressed Ukrainian national aspirations.
- Study the key art works for week 3, to include portraits, genre painting, prints, and landscapes.
- Learn about Realism and how artists adapted these ideas to the Ukrainian context.
Teaching Week 4 - From Realism to Fin de Siècle Modern; Folk Art and Design
In week 4, we explore further how Ukrainian nationalism shaped emerging modern art in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We will consider the importance of folk art and discuss how this could influence new types of art and infuse local character.
Learning objectives:
- Explore the importance of a wider range of art, such as embroidery and wood carving.
- Understand how art and design invoked Ukrainian national themes, while also being influenced by artistic movements across Europe, such as Impressionism, Symbolism, Art Nouveau, and Arts and Crafts.
- Learn about the rising influence of women in the arts, including Marie Bashkirtseff (painter and diarist) and Mariia Raievska-Ivanova (painter and founder of an art school in Kharkiv).
- Study the key art works for week 4, to include genre painting, book illustration, architecture, decorative arts, and landscape painting.
Teaching Week 5 - Avant-Garde between East and West; The Ukrainian People's Republic; Soviet Ukraine
This week we will gain an introductory understanding of avant-garde art and its local and international contexts. We will also consider the impacts of the First World War, the revolutions of 1917, and the Ukrainian War of Independence (1917-1921).
Learning objectives:
- Explore the national and international contexts of the “avant-garde”, including movements such as Cubism, Futurism, and Suprematism in the 1910s and 1920s.
- Discuss the collapse of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires and Ukraine’s independence between 1917 and 1920 (the Ukrainian People’s Republic), and the transition to the USSR (or “Soviet Union”).
- Consider how Ukrainian artists began to institutionalise the national art tradition, including the creation of a Ukrainian Academy of Arts and the impact of the Soviet policy of “korenizatsiia” [indigenisation].
- Learn about repression of Ukrainian artists and intellectuals (“Executed Renaissance”) and famine (“Holodomor”) in the 1920s and 1930s.
- Study the key art works for week 5, to include graphic design, theatre, painting, architecture, and decorative art.
Each week of an online course is roughly equivalent to 2-3 hours of classroom time. On top of this, participants should expect to spend roughly 2-3 hours reading material, etc., although this will vary from person to person.
While they have a specific start and end date and will follow a weekly schedule (for example, week 1 will cover topic A, week 2 will cover topic B), our tutor-led online courses are designed to be flexible and as such would normally not require participants to be online for a specific day of the week or time of the day (although some tutors may try to schedule times where participants can be online together for web seminars, which will be recorded so that those who are unable to be online at certain times are able to access material).
Virtual Learning Environment
Unless otherwise stated, all course material will be posted on the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) so that they can be accessed at any time throughout the duration of the course and interaction with your tutor and fellow participants will take place through a variety of different ways which will allow for both synchronous and asynchronous learning (discussion boards etc).
Certificate of participation
A Certificate of Participation will be awarded to participants who contribute constructively to weekly discussions and exercises/assignments for the duration of the course.
