FAMU katedra kamery

pk913@york.ac.uk

Course Title
Looking at Art — An Exploration of the Formal and Thematic Developments in Western Painting from Late Antiquity to Present Day

Course Instruction Language
This course will be taught in English. Receiving instruction in English means you will have learned the terms and concepts covered in class in a bridge language, which will immediately allow you to discuss them internationally.

Your Instructor
My name is Peter Kos, and I am a doctoral candidate in art history at the University of York. I have an undergraduate degree in English and a post-graduate credential in secondary education, both from a California State University, and a master’s degree in art history from a university in Missouri. I am an associate editor for the University of York art history journal Aspectus, and the editor for the Volunteer Steering Committee at the San Francisco Fine Arts Museums, where I volunteered for several years in the works on paper department. I also taught art and English at a secondary school, and tutored essay writing at a community college for a number of years.
My current research is focused on the Late Renaissance, specifically the role of gender play in the works of the artist Bartholomeus Spranger, but my interest in art spans all eras. I am endlessly fascinated by the degree to which works of art become performative and compel us to perform when we view them; the degree to which we transfer living qualities onto inanimate objects; and the degree to which these inanimate objects transform our mental states. All of these are closely bound to an artwork’s formal qualities and thematic content, both of which will be the primary focus of this course.

Course Objective
This course will have two objectives. The first objective will be for you to learn to analyze a work of art. To meet this objective, you will build a vocabulary of terms relevant to art analysis and become familiar with some of the more common critical methodologies. The second objective will be for you to become familiar with the major
periods of Western art, identify the stylistic characteristics of each period, and understand the philosophical, historical and cultural context behind the development of distinct period and personal styles. The ultimate goal of this course is that learning about the rich artistic heritage of the Western world will inform and enrich your own work as filmmakers.

Course Structure
This is a two-semester course, comprising twenty-six forty-five-minute-long academic hours per semester. The hours will be grouped into thirteen one-and-a-half hour weekly meetings per semester (26 meetings total), alternating between classroom lectures and fieldtrips. Lectures will take place on the FAMU campus on Thursdays between 10:40AM and 12:15PM. Fieldtrips will take place at pre-arranged times at various locations of the Prague National Gallery.
Each class lecture will include a PowerPoint slide show. I will upload narrated versions of these slide shows the day of our meeting. I find recorded lectures are a great way to fill in anything you may have missed. You can pause and rewind, fill in blanks, and come up with questions to ask me at the next class meeting.
Before each lesson, I will email you a document with vocabulary words and art work titles in a table. This is also a convenient tool. This document will list all of the terms and art works we will be covering on that day. If you come to class with a laptop or a tablet, you can take notes directly into the table.

Supplemental Reading

There will be no required reading for this course; however, should you be interested in learning more about any of the topics covered in class, the following is a list of titles you might find informative. These titles are all very approachable, and include general surveys of art history, a survey of critical methodologies, and a few publications on the formal elements of art. Should you at any point want to know more about any topic discussed in class, don’t hesitate to ask.
Gardner, Helen, and Fred S. Kleiner. Gardner’s Art through the Ages: The Western Perspective, Vols I and II. Fourteenth edition. Australia; Boston, MA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2014.
Kemp, Martin. Art in History: 600 BC-2000 AD. Ideas in Profile. London: Profile Books, 2014.
Arnheim, Rudolf. Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1974.
Arnheim, Rudolf. The Power of the Center: A Study of Composition in the Visual Arts. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1982.
Itten, Johannes, and Faber Birren. The Elements of Color: A Treatise on the Color System of Johannes Itten, Based on His Book the Art of Color. A Basic Color Library. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co, 1970.
D’Alleva, Anne. Methods & Theories of Art History. London: King, 2005.

Course Assignments
There will only be one assignment in this course. You will write and present an analysis of a work you have chosen from the Prague National Gallery collections. This, along with attendance, will determine your final grade.

MY QUALIFICATIONS
 Art history PhD candidate, University of York
 MA in art history, (summa cum laude), Lindenwood University
 Adjunct lecturer in art history at the Film and Television School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU)
 12 years teaching English composition in the US
 12 years teaching studio art and art history in the US
 4 years guiding museum patrons as a docent in the works on paper department at the San Francisco Fine Arts Museums
 2 years overseeing volunteers and editing the monthly volunteer newsletter as a Volunteer Steering Committee member at the San Francisco Fine Arts Museums
 1 year tutoring composition in the English department at a community college in the US
 1 year preparing graduate and post-graduate student articles for peer-review as associate editor for Aspectus, a University of York art history publication
 Native English and Czech speaker
 Active ICOM US member

EDUCATION
PhD, Art History, University of York, anticipated completion date: April 2024
Research Topic: Gender play in Bartholomeus Spranger’s mythological paintings
Supervisor: Dr. Jeanne Nuechterlein, PhD
MA, Art History, (summa cum laude), Lindenwood University, August 2020
Thesis: Art as Alchemy: The Meaning of Bartholomeus Spranger’s Hermaphroditus and the Nymph Salmacis and Scylla and Glaucus https://digitalcommons.lindenwood.edu/theses/18/
Supervisor: Dr. James Hutson, PhD
Single Subject Teaching Credential (CLAD certified), Art, California State University, Hayward (East Bay), June 2001
Single Subject Teaching Credential (CLAD certified), English, California State University, Hayward (East Bay), June 2001
BA, English, California State University, Hayward (East Bay), June 1995

RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS
 European art from Late Antiquity to the Baroque
 Performative aspects of art
 Art and anthropology
 Art-making practices

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
Lecturer, Art History, Film and Television School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU), Prague, Czech Republic, September 2022-present
 Created an art history survey course for film students, emphasizing composition and methods of analysis
 Maintain an online folder for students to access original narrated PowerPoint slideshows and other course material
 Assist students with writing theses and thesis proposals
Associate Editor, Aspectus (publication of the University of York Art History Department), University of York, UK, September 2021-present
 Edit proposals, abstracts, and articles for grammar, diction, tone, voice, accuracy, and consistency
 Ensure authors follow Chicago Manual of Style formatting
 Communicate with authors and peer reviewers to answer questions and to ensure deadlines are met
Classroom Teacher, Humanities, English, Drawing, Multicultural Art, and Multimedia, James Logan High School, Union City, California, September 1999-August 2011
 Created original lesson plans in humanities, drawing, multimedia, multicultural art, and three grade-levels of English
 Planned, initiated and directed classroom discussions
 Presented clear directions to a classroom of 40+ students of varied learning styles and levels of academic, social and emotional development
 Defined classroom goals and objectives and taught assessment using rubrics
 Collaborated with teachers of different subjects to create cross-curricular lesson plans
 Supervised after-school programs to help students traditionally classified as “at risk” to graduate
RSP Classroom Teacher, History, English, Art, Royal Sunset Continuation High School, Hayward, California, September 1998-June 1999
 Taught English, art, and history to students in the RSP program
Public Relations Assistant, Daewoo-Avia Corporation, Prague, Czech Republic, October 1996-August 1998
 Translated internal communications from Czech to English for non-Czech speaking management
 Interpreted (Czech-English, English-Czech) at company meetings and Daewoo-Avia-sponsored events
Paraprofessional English Tutor, Vista Community College (Berkeley City College), Berkeley, California, August 1995-March 1996
 Taught grammar and composition to students enrolled through Extended Opportunity Programs and Services (EOPS)

VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE
 San Francisco Fine Arts Museums Achenbach Foundation Hoefer Print Study Room Volunteer, 2018-present
 San Francisco Fine Arts Museums Volunteer Steering Committee Member, Editor of Volunteer Newsletter, 2021-present
 San Francisco Opera Supernumerary, 2018-present

LANGUAGES
 Native fluency in English and Czech
 Competent command of German and Spanish