Monday, October 24: Psychoanalysis
The big picture questions: What is the priority for art historians using the psychoanalytic method? What can psychoanalysis tell us, and what do we miss out on?
Hyde Minor, Vernon. “Psychoanalysis and Art History,” from Art History’s History. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 2000, 183-191.
What is psychoanalysis, as applied in art history?
Hyde Minor describes both "unconscious" and reductive" attributes of psychoanalysis applied in art history; identify what each is. Explain what is at stake in identifying attributing either “unconscious” and “reductive”motivation to an artist?
Freud 101: what are the Id, Ego, and Superego? For Freud, what is art, and how should we understands its meaning? What does the art historian who employs psychoanalysis focus on and discuss?

Herrera, Hayden. Excerpts from Frida Kahlo: The Paintings. New York: Harpers Collins, 1991.
Consider how these ideas are employed by Hayden Herrera in her work on Kahlo. How would you describe this kind of art history? What does it focus on, and what does it ignore? What are its assumptions? What are the implications of reading Kahlo’s work primarily through this lens? Take a look at the images on the website, and the quotes I’ve attached, which represent alternative means of interpreting these works.

Wednesday, October 26: Death of the Author
Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author” Image, Music, Text. Trans. and ed. S.Heath. New York, Noonday Press, 1977, 142-48.

Friday, October 28: Semiotics
Barthes, Roland. Excerpt from "The Rhetoric of the Image" in The Photography Reader. Liz Wells, ed. London, New York: Routledge, 2003, pp. 114-117.
Remind yourself of one premise of "Death of the Author:" a text is " a multi-dimentional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash."

NOTE: you are just reading the first section of this longer article.
Semiotics began with literature, and originally semiotics focused on texts as symbolic systems that needed to be decoded. Various art historians have applied semiotics to images, as well, often discussing images as texts in the process; how does Barthes make this transition to image?
What are the three meanings in the Panzani advertisement? How does Barthes get to these different layers of meaning?
What is the difference between the sign, the signifier and the signified? Why is it helpful to break this down? What signs does Barthes identify in the image, and how are they signified, and what do they signify?
Where does the meaning happen? or What is the source of meaning? What do you need to know to get this meaning?
What is the difference between semiotics and iconography?