The professor reserves the right to make changes in the schedule with advance notice and the agreement of the students.
Pay attention to make-up classes, Friday morning visits, and the pre-examination evening reviews. Due the scheduling of classes to only 75 minutes, we will do several (probably three) on-site visits on Fridays mornings. I must be away for the entire week of Thanksgiving. In addition, the on-site visits provide the wonderful opportunity to learn about important works of art not just from your textbook, but in person, here in Rome!
Suggested supplementary readings will be indicated (forthcoming).
Exact dates forthcoming; below is the sequence of class topics ( in progress, there will be a few changes):
Introduction, to the course: goals, assignments.
Some basic terms, methods and aspects of art history through examples from the 14-18C.
Required Reading: Gardner, Introduction: “What is Art History”
Late Gothic Art, including mosaics, crucifixes, reliefs for pulpits, frescoes, sculpture and architecture in Italy
Required Reading: Chapter19: “Italy, 1200 to 1400” (=” From Gothic to Renaissance: The Fourteenth Century in Italy”)
Early Renaissance Art in the Netherlands: especially the painting of Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden
Required Reading: Gardner, Chapter 20: “Northern Europe 1400-1500“ (=”15C Art in Northern Europe”)
FRIDAY VISIT, 12:00-13:00 (Date TBA)
A Visit to the Villa Farnesina – Meet me at the entrance of JCU at 12:00 sharp!
An on-site introduction to some issues concerning High Renaissance painting and architecture: Patronage, society, and the model of classical culture.
Early Renaissance Art and Architecture in Italy, especially in Florence. The interest in ancient culture for “humanistic” purposes; a new attitude toward rendering nature; courts vs. republics; one-point perspective; civic participation and individuality in the Renaissance and in Renaissance art and architecture of the 15C.
Required Reading: Gardner, Chapter 21: “Italy 1400 to 1500”(=“15C Italian Art”)
Some principles of High Renaissance art and architecture in Italy. Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Bramante, especially in Florence and Rome. Pope Julius II and the triumph of the papacy in the Eternal City.
Required Reading: Gardner, Chapter 22:”Italy 1500 to 1600” (=“The High Renaissance and Mannerism”)
Other Currents in Italian Renaissance Art. Venice and Northern Italy, especially Titian and Correggio. The Later Renaissance and “Mannerism.”
Required Reading: Gardner, Chapter 22: later section on Venetian art and Mannerism.
The art of Northern Europe in the 16C: Dürer, and the legacy of northern naturalism in the North; the interconnections of Flanders and Spain in art, in collecting.
Required Reading: Chapter 23: “Northern Europe and Spain, 1500-1600”
Baroque art and architecture in Italy. The expression of the Counter-Reformation in Rome – St. Peter’s, Bernini, and Borromini. New trends introduced to Rome in the painting of Caravaggio and the Carracci. Opening the heavens – ceiling decoration in church and palace.
Required Reading: Gardner, Chapter 24, “Italy and Spain 1600 to 1700”
Baroque art in Spain, with special attention to Velazquez.
Required Reading: Gardner, Chapter 24, section on Spain
Friday Morning Visit – TBA – We might take advantage of a temporary exhibition, depending, or simply visit a monument or museum in Rome.
Mughal Art and Architecture: An introduction to non-Western art through some examples of Mughal art (Muslim art of India) contemporary with the Western “Renaissance and Baroque period:” intersections with Europe (to help understanding of our study of the various functions of art), and a study of different patronage, conceptions of creativity, and purposes of art in a diverse context
Required Reading: Gardner, Chapter 26, “South and Southeast Asia after 1200”
Baroque painting in Flanders: Peter Paul Rubens: Rubens’ Italian experience and his international career.
Required Reading: Gardner, Chapter 25:”Northern European Art 1600 to 1700”
Baroque painting in Holland. The development of the humble genres -portraiture, still-life, genre and landscape. Rembrandt’s spiritual vision in painting and prints.
Required Reading: Gardner, Chapter 25, section on Rembrandt and Dutch painting
FRIDAY VISIT (TBA)
Visit: “The Baroque Quirinale Experience:” four churches and some principles of Baroque art and architecture.
French art in France and beyond. Nicholas Poussin, a learned French painter in Rome. The court of Louis XIV and the style of absolute monarchy in art and architecture.
Required Reading:Gardner, Chapter 25, section on French art
The Baroque in England. Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren – architecture reigns supreme in new interpretations of the Renaissance and the classical. Comparative discussion of the art of the 17thC in Italy, Spain and Northern Europe.
A comparative discussion of the art of the 17C in Italy, Spain, and Northern Europe. Is there a common thread? What are regional and individual distinctions? What is the role of patronage?
Required Reading: Gardner, Chapter 25, section on English architecture
Evening reviews for the Midterm and Final Examinations will be scheduled for two evenings each in anticipation of the exams.
FINAL EXAMINATION – to be scheduled, December 7-13