Course Syllabus

JOHN CABOT UNIVERSITY

COURSE CODE: "AS 304"
COURSE NAME: "Advanced Painting and Drawing"
SEMESTER & YEAR: Spring 2026

SYLLABUS

INSTRUCTOR: Michele Tocca
EMAIL: [email protected]
HOURS: TH12:30 PM 3:15 PM
TOTAL NO. OF CONTACT HOURS: 45
CREDITS: 3
PREREQUISITES: Prerequisite: One previous course in Drawing / Painting. (This class requires a materials fee of €75/$85 to cover all basic art supplies.)
OFFICE HOURS:

COURSE DESCRIPTION:
For students who are already familiar with basic painting procedures, this course is an opportunity to progress into self-directed painting and drawing projects involving their choice of media, genres, and approaches. They are guided by an instructor who helps them to articulate their intentions, to increase their awareness of contemporary and historical precedents, and to gain technical mastery of their materials. Visits to art exhibitions are scheduled, and group critiques help students to gain artistic self-awareness and verbal skill in discussing art. While the instructor may suggest projects or assignments, students are expected to be self-motivated and capable of experimentation.

SUMMARY OF COURSE CONTENT:

Exchanges between painting and drawing, meditations on pictorial seriality, materiality and wider aesthetic questions are but a few of the foundations for a course that fosters an idea of painting as a field of experience, made of autonomous research and of an awareness of the context, adventurous formal explorations and fruitful dialogues.

Moving from specific interrogatives raised by each student’s initial output, lessons advance through the presentation of stances, notions and recent debates that typify today’s multifaceted artistic panorama. Topics include: seriality as explorative tool; the historicity of painting and individuality; influence and appropriation; medium-specificity and the expanded field; painting/drawing and the digital. These intellectual stimuli will alternate with insights into complex formal issues of colour theory, pigments and their qualities, composition and materiality, which will all serve to gain mastery within the students' individual agendas.

Each aspect is explored and discussed through seminars, assignments and group critiques in which students are encouraged to take ownership of their positions within current narratives and critical frameworks, reflecting on and testing the limits and possibilities of their own expressiveness.

The overall objective is to sustain an actual studio routine. The final body of work will ideally witness a variety of experimentations and approaches, demonstrating an understanding of current visual culture and a personal response to its historical, conceptual and material resources. Students are expected to improve communication skills in debates, group crits and individual tutorials; as well as to write statements about their own practice and a short text on a topic emerged during lessons.

*Technical workshops and tutorials will be arranged and given according to students’ interests.

**Students buy their materials according to the exigencies of their work. A list of suppliers will be provided at the beginning.

***Visits to relevant shows (with or without entry cost) will be encouraged or organized.

Texts

Excerpts from books and articles will be provided throughout the semester. Individual texts will be given to students according to their interests.

Essential Bibliography:

Bell, J., What is Painting? Representation and Mondern Art, London: Thames&Hudson, 1999

Damisch, H., A Theory of Cloud, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002

Dexter, E., Vitamin D, London: Phaidon Press 2005

Elkins, J., What Painting Is, New York: Routledge 2000

James, M. Painting per se, New York: Cooper Union 2002

Schwabsky, B., The Observer Effect: On Contemporary Painting, New York: Sternberg Press, 2019

Richard Wollheim, Painting as an Art, London: Thames and Hudson, 1987, p.360n.

Gaiger, J., Aesthetics & Painting, New York: Continuum, 2008

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

Demonstrate an ability to initiate a studio routine.

Demonstrate a growing ability to explore ideas through pictorial series, directed projects and presentation strategies.

Demonstrate an awareness of painting's traditions and current context via the work and verbally.

Demonstrate an ability to critically reflect upon their own work and the work of others via texts, group critiques and visits to museums and galleries.

TEXTBOOK:

NONE

REQUIRED RESERVED READING:

NONE

RECOMMENDED RESERVED READING:

NONE

GRADING POLICY
-ASSESSMENT METHODS:

Assignment	Guidelines	Weight
Final Portfolio	The students' final body of works must reflect an awareness of their identity and potential as practitioners, giving evidence of independence, criticality and commitment to their specific areas of interest. Students are also expected to build a professional portfolio showing poetic coherence through series. Evaluation criteria include: experimentation, resourcefulness, inventiveness, expressiveness, acuity of observation, concision, complexity, improvement, intentionality, spatial clarity, awareness of historical models, and other aspects of technical skill and artistic quality.	50%
Midterm Critique	Assignments and independent projects will be given throughout the course and will be presented and assessed during group critiques. There will be two formal critiques - one at mid-term and the other during finals’ week. Students will be required to present their work to the class and to answer questions about their work by the professor. Students will be encouraged to comment on the work of their classmates. Attendance is mandatory. Failure to be present will result in a significant drop in assessment at the end of the term.	25%
Research Paper	Students are expected to submit a research paper (1000 words) about a topic of their choice among those discussed together. This can be about an artist or a conceptual framework that feel relevant to their studio work.	10%
Attendance, participation and initiative	Attendance is mandatory. Independent work will be expected from each student. Students should expect to spend at least three days a week on developing and finishing projects.	15%

-ASSESSMENT CRITERIA:
AWork of this quality shows excellent mastery of the course content along with exceptional levels of technical skill, artistic awareness, originality, resourcefulness, commitment, quantity of work and improvement. There has been excellent collaboration and leadership in group projects, and there have been no attendance problems.
BA highly competent level of performance with work that directly addresses the content of the course, with a good quantity of work produced.
CAn acceptable level of performance: the work shows awareness of the course content, but is very limited in quantity, quality, commitment and skill.
DThe student lacks a coherent grasp of the course material and has failed to produce much work.
FNegligent in attendance, academic honesty, engagement with the course content, or production of work.

-ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENTS:
ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENTS AND EXAMINATION POLICY
You cannot make-up a major exam (midterm or final) without the permission of the Dean’s Office. The Dean’s Office will grant such permission only when the absence was caused by a serious impediment, such as a documented illness, hospitalization or death in the immediate family (in which you must attend the funeral) or other situations of similar gravity. Absences due to other meaningful conflicts, such as job interviews, family celebrations, travel difficulties, student misunderstandings or personal convenience, will not be excused. Students who will be absent from a major exam must notify the Dean’s Office prior to that exam. Absences from class due to the observance of a religious holiday will normally be excused. Individual students who will have to miss class to observe a religious holiday should notify the instructor by the end of the Add/Drop period to make prior arrangements for making up any work that will be missed. The final exam period runs until ____________

ACADEMIC HONESTY
As stated in the university catalog, any student who commits an act of academic dishonesty will receive a failing grade on the work in which the dishonesty occurred. In addition, acts of academic dishonesty, irrespective of the weight of the assignment, may result in the student receiving a failing grade in the course. Instances of academic dishonesty will be reported to the Dean of Academic Affairs. A student who is reported twice for academic dishonesty is subject to summary dismissal from the University. In such a case, the Academic Council will then make a recommendation to the President, who will make the final decision.

STUDENTS WITH LEARNING OR OTHER DISABILITIES
John Cabot University does not discriminate on the basis of disability or handicap. Students with approved accommodations must inform their professors at the beginning of the term. Please see the website for the complete policy.

SCHEDULE

Week 1

.Introduction to Programme (Expectations, Studio Work, Sketchbook) and Studio Induction

.Lecture 1: Recent History of Painting

Home Assignment: Portfolios and Questionnaire

.Individual Presentation of Previous Works and Identification of Themes for First Works

.Seminar 2: Seriality as a Creative Tool

How problems are explored via series

Home Assignment: The Painter as a Researcher (Research, Drawing and Sketches in preparation for Studio Session)

.Seminar 3: History and Me

How painting operates within historical lineages and fluxes

.Studio Session (Seriality)

Reading: M. James, Painting per se

.Seminar 4: Painting as Alchemy – An Insight into Materials and Pigments

.Demonstration

Painting, with its transformation and accident, as a way of thinking materially on a more philosophical level.

Reading: J. Elkins, What Painting is, Chapter 1

.Individual Tutorials

.Studio Session

.Workshop: The Artist Statement

.Studio Session in Preparation for Midterm

.Midterm Crit (Evaluation based on Seriality and Historicity)

.Midterm Feedback (Individual Tutorials)

.Research Project Identification

.Seminar and Workshop 5: Experimenting with Paint (Issues of application, size, perception)

.Seminar 6: Painting as an Image and an Object – The Twofold Nature of Painting

.Studio Session

.Seminar 6 Discussion

.Individual Tutorial

Studio Session

.Seminar and Workshop 7: Painting as a Critical Activity

.Studio Session

.Submission of Written Research and 1st Artist’s Statement

.Studio Session and Individual Tutorials

.Studio Session in Preparation for Finals

.Studio Session and Completion of Project

Final Critique