Course description
The aims of the course is to introduce the students to the history of space’s and time’s representation in Western and Far Eastern art and culture. The course will start from the analysis of the anthropologic positions that have historically distinguished the two ethno-cultural fields. It also will provide a closer examination of why, despite the development during Western Renaissance of linear perspective, the pseudo-axonometry has been privileged by Far East art. We will try to understand why perspective and axonometry quickly became the symbolic forms for different philosophical and religious contextualities. The representation of light and shadow there will be also particularly underlined, discovering some uncanny differences in its uses. The students will employ different materials coming not only from the history of art and figuration, but also from literature, music and cinema. The representation becomes, from course’s critical point of view, a significant part of World immaterial cultural heritage, crossing all the fields of figurative art, from East to West. The major focus of the course will be centered in particular on the critical analysis of a masterpiece of Cultural Heritage, the convent of SS. Trinità dei Monti in Rome: the students first will be introduced to the study of its anamorphic frescoes and catoptric sundial. They will be explained then new ways to enhance and perceive those masterpieces, using the support of digital tools. The use of video mapping, laser-scanning survey and augmented reality will be useful to comprehend the secret life of those amazing works of art.

Learning outcomes of the course
The expected learning outcomes for the students will be the development of a comparative approach between the Western and Eastern forms of representation. This will be possible by means of the analytic observation and the documentary study of some of art masterpieces. The course aims to enhance student’s critical capacities in the exegesis of images characterized by a strong geometric and symbolic content. The final outcome of the course will be to develop in each student a strong idea that representation is a powerful tool to understand the global artistic cultural heritage.

Teaching and evaluation methods.
The course will be held with lectures, and with the aid of multimedia materials. The students’ learning status will be evaluated with two short individual exercises during the course, in the form of seminaries, each counting for the 30% of the final grade (30%+30%=60%). The remaining 40% will be given according to the final exam, which will consist of a discussion about the themes developed during the course.

Bibliography
- Panofsky, E. (1996). Perspective as Symbolic Form, Zone Book, Brooklyn, New York.
- Plummer, H. (1987). Poetics of Light, in “A+U”, Tokyo December.
- Junichiro, T. (2001). In Praise Of Shadows, new edition, London, Vintage Classics.
- De Rosa, A., Bortot, A. Anamorphosis: Between Perspective and Catoptrics, in Bharath Sriraman, ed., "Handbook of the Mathematics of the Arts and Sciences", Springer 2019.
- De Rosa, A., Bergamo, F. Geometries of Light and Shadows, from Piero della Francesca to James Turrell, in Bharath Sriraman, ed., "Handbook of the Mathematics of the Arts and Sciences", Springer 2019.
- De Rosa, A., Bortot, A., Lazzaretto, G. The Suzhou handscroll: oblique images of a Far East city between remembrance and future, in “DISEGNARECON", Vol 11, No 21 (2018).
- De Rosa, A. Out of this world in two parts, in “AR Architecture Research/Correspondences”, February 2019.