After completing the course, students are able to:

• characterise individual works of art as well as distinguish and describe the characteristics of and the relationships between the different movements and trends in art from the Baroque to the Romantic period;
• compare and historically contextualise works of art from the period under scrutiny as well as describe these on four levels: the artistic (works of art, stylistic characteristics and techniques); the mental (world view and ideology ); the societal (politics and society); the economic (technology and the economy);
• prepare and execute a written as well as oral presentation with a clear structure, appropriate style, correct formulations, efficient audience interaction and a useful application of visual support.

This course focuses on the European arts from the Baroque to the Romantic period in a thematic, comparative and interdisciplinary way. Topics that will be discussed include nineteenth-century melodrama (theatre), emblematics (literature and visual art) and the transition from polyphony to monody (music). Well-known artists like Caravaggio, Monteverdi and Beethoven will be dealt with. Students will study the historical development of literature, music, theatre and visual art. Special attention will be paid to the intertextual and intermedial relations between works of art, the artistic aspects of works (stylistic characteristics and compositional techniques) as well as the cultural-historical context in which they were created (politics, ideology and society).