Specialized courses offered periodically on specific aspects of the art of the early modern world. Courses are normally research-led topics on an area of current academic concern.
May be taken more than once for credit with different topics.

Satisfies "the Early Modern World" core course requirement for Art History majors

Course Description:

This course seeks to expand and reframe the Renaissance in a global context by analyzing the migration of visual culture via conditions of reception and cross-cultural contact. In doing so, it revisits the euro-centric humanist model of the Renaissance and seeks to offer a new paradigm based on an analysis of global exchange. Themes covered include art, empire and propaganda, colonial identities, hybridity, rituals of devotion and the translation of sacred space. In addition to lectures and readings, students will participate in one museum field trip.  Attendance on this field trip is mandatory.  Although the format of this class is a lecture, student participation in weekly discussions is encouraged and expected.

SUMMARY OF COURSE CONTENT

In addition to an understanding of post-colonial theory, and the cultural mediation of images, the course considers hybrid objects in the words of Homi Bhabha as not having a single fixed meaning, but as incorporating “slippages,” that are part of the conditions of colonialism. It also offers up a critique of any analysis based on a simplistic framework of cultural parallelism and seeks to present hybrids as having multiple and at times contradictory meanings evolving from cross-cultural exchange.

Course Objectives:

Students will learn to:

Develop critical reading, writing and research skills necessary to analyze artwork via weekly readings, class discussion, writing assignments and essay exams.

Evaluate an object within its appropriate social and historical context, while engaging with issues of hybridity, global exchange, reception, identity and patronage critical to the production of visual culture in the Renaissance and Early Modern Period.

Interpret the visual culture of the period through the lens of methodologies such as post-colonialism, iconography and formal analysis.

Write a research paper tracing the migration of global exchange using theories of post-colonialism.

Give an oral presentation to the class based on their museum project.

Specialized courses offered periodically on specific aspects of the art of the early modern world. Courses are normally research-led topics on an area of current academic concern.
May be taken more than once for credit with different topics.

Satisfies "the Early Modern World" core course requirement for Art History majors

 Schedule of Classes and Readings

Week 1(Tues, Jan 21/23): Expanding the Humanist Model: Introduction to the Global Renaissance in a New World

                        Readings:

                                          Bhabha, Post-colonialism

                                          Boorstin, Realms of Pride and Awe

Levenson, Circa 1492, History & Art

(Jan 28/31):                       Spain in the Age of Exploration

                                          Readings:

                                                            Luaces, Art in the Time of the Catholic Monarchs

                                        Mulcahy, Portraiture at the Court of Philip II; Cellini and the Escorial

                                        Nuttall, Florentine Patrons in Bruges            

(Feb 4/6):                          Sacred Painting in the New World: Hybrid Identities

                                          Readings:

                                                           Bargellini, Painting in Colonial Latin America

                                          Boone and Cummins, Colonial Foundations

  Nova, Varallo and Virtual Pilgrimage

(Feb 11/13):                      Contested Identities and Portraiture in the New World

                                          Readings:

                                                            Keber, Collecting Cultures

                                                            Bailey, chapter 3 (pp. 152-166) and chapter 7

                                                            Perry, Nuns and Creole Identity

 (Feb 18/20):                      Italy and the New World; African Identities in the West

                                          Readings: Lazzaro, Animals as Cultural Signs

                                                            Markey, A Turkey in a Medici Tapestry

                                                            Kaplan, Isabella d’Este and Black Affrican Women

 (Feb 25/27):                      Museum Visit; to be determined

 Feb 28: makeup day        Film on the Global Renaissance: critique and discussion

(March 4/6):                      Midterm Exam; Topic due for presentation and final paper

(March 10-14):                  Spring Break      

(March 18/20)                   Visit to the Museum, to be determined.

(March 25/27):                  The Renaissance in the North; Durer and the Wunderkammer

                                          Readings: Massing, The Quest for the Exotic

                                                            Kemp, Wrought by No Artist’s Hand

                                                            Kaplan, Race and Rulership in Early Modern Europe

 (April 1/3):                        Venice and the East: the Construction of the Other

                        Readings: Brotton, Global Renaissance

                                          Mack, The Pictorial Arts

                                          Gentile Bellini and the East

(April 8/10)):                    Postcolonial Case Studies: Italy and Africa, Continued

  Readings: Even, Cellini and the Loggia of Shame; 

  Barkan, Benin Brones and Renaissance Rhetoric

(April 15/17):                    Student presentations #1

(April 22/24):                   Student presentations #2

(April 29/31):                   Museum Visit: to be determined

(May 7):                           Final Exam - no makeups; Final Paper due

Select Bibliography

Supplemental readings will be posted on Moodle and chosen from the following:

Adams, Laurie Schneider. The Methodologies of Art: An Introduction, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1996.

Bailey, Gauvin Alexander. Art of Colonial Latin America. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2005.

Barnet, Sylvan.  A Short Guide to Writing About Art, 5th edition, New York: Longman, 1997.

Bhabha, Homi. The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge, 1994.

Farago, Claire. Reframing the Renaissance: Visual Culture in Europe and Latin America 1450-1650. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Fuchs, Barbara. Mimesis and Empire: The New World, Islam, and European Identitites. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Ishikawa, Chiyo, ed. Spain in the Age of Exploration, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA, October 16, 2004 - January 2, 2005. Exhibition catalog, Seattle: Seattle Art Museum, 2004.

O’Malley, S.J., John W., ed., Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Steven J. Harris, and T. Frank Kennedy, S.J. The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540-1773. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999.

O’Neill, John, ed. The Renaissance in Italy and Spain. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987.

Pagden, Anthony. European Encounters with the New World: From Renaissance to Romanticism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.

Rishel, Joseph J. and Suzanne Stratton-Pruitt. The Arts in Latin America: 1492-1820, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, September 20 - December 31, 2006. Exhibition catalog, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

Turabian, Kate L. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 6^th edition, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Suggested Further Reading: Please see me for further bibliography.