56499 - AFPG - Lab-based Course of Territory and Environment Representation

Learning outcomes

Upon completing the course, students will be able to use drawing techniques as a tool to investigate the territory and reality, with the specific aim of deepening the understanding of the relationship between idea and knowledge. In particular, during the course, students learn to use novel representation techniques to analyze, understand, and describe the world around them.

Course contents

Representation and expression live inside us, they just don’t come from the outside world.In fact, representation, literally means: to come out of something.

That is why the tools, that sharpen the action of description, have to be discovered.

This is possible only if we manage to put ourselves in a particular condition: an evokative one.

Painting belogns to description, from which it establishes a special evocative training.

Drawing is to be considered a language, as well. That is the reason why drawing can be considered like a way of speaking. It can replace words, becoming a double of something else that is to be found “outside”, then subjectively metabolized in order to be painted.

Drawing, like any other language, is typified by its own convention, which can also be pushed further as long as they are well known.

Considering this preamble, this class has the aim of giving the students all the instruments that they need in order to excite and rouse their abilities as painters. They will learn how to represent all the materials and geometries things are made of; in addition to the knowledge of painting objects while the flow of time portrays them with lights and shadows.

For our exercises, purely as an investigative example, we will consider a few facade sections in the historic center of Cesena to translate them into a scaled color representation.

Readings/Bibliography

Required reading:

Arduino Cantàfora, Charles Duboux, La mela di Adriano, Presses Polytechniques et Universitaires Romandes, 2002.

Mario Docci, Diego Maestri, Manuale di rilevamento architettonico e urbano, Edizioni Laterza, 2008.

Recommended reading:

Paul Eluard, Antologia degli scritti sull’arte, Editori Riuniti, 1973.

Ernst Gombrich, La storia dell’arte, Phaidon, 2008.

Teaching methods

During this course the students will directly observe how to represent a subject by a tutor. After following the lesson they will practice at the atelier.

Being complementary disciplines, drawing, painting and representing will have to be applied altogether, at the same time. Overall when we consciously use this method, we are just practicing what the ancient Greeks used to define with the word “techne”: the art of doing with ability.

Within the course, each student will work individually on the painted representation of an "architecture" on a birch plywood board.

For our exercises, we will use vinyl colors and, in some cases, oil paints.

The work will be fully guided by the teaching staff and will follow this program:

• Historical research and study of the selected architectures, along with scale reduction;
• Preparation of the background/primer on the outer surface of the wooden board;
• Redrawing the outlines of the subject to be depicted using a pencil or white chalk;
• Painting the volumes using the appropriate colors;
• Study of details and their graphic rendering through various techniques;
• Depiction of light and shadows using hatching/lines;
• Depiction of cast shadows.

Assessment methods

The final test will consist of showing the final painting while tested on the knowledge acquired.

Passing the exam results in the award of a "pass" grade.

Students with SLD (Specific Learning Disabilities) or temporary or permanent disabilities: it is recommended to contact the responsible University office (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en ) well in advance. The office will propose any necessary accommodations to the students concerned. These accommodations must nevertheless be submitted at least 15 days in advance for approval by the lecturer, who will evaluate their appropriateness in relation to the learning objectives of the course.

AI can be a useful tool to support individual study with in-depth insights, summaries, and self-assessment activities. Regarding learning assessment, the use of AI during in-person exams is prohibited and, in any case, unnecessary. Any such use constitutes a violation of academic integrity.

Teaching tools

All the necessary tools for observing and studying the proposed course topics will be provided during the course.

Office hours

See the website of Michele Alessandri