Art History: Italian High and Late Ren Art

Painting, sculpture, architecture, and decorative arts in Italy from 1500 to 1600. High Renaissance, Mannerism, Late Renaissance, and Early Baroque art in Italy. Topics include the Reformation, Counter-Reformation, court cities, foreign rule, and artistic exchanges between Italy and other countries. Prerequisites: ARTH 005 or ARTH 006.

Dates: May 23 - June 17, 2022

This online course will survey Italian art and architecture of the sixteenth century, a period that has been called “the season of giants.” These “giants”, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Titian and Raphael, revolutionized artistic style and even the conception of “the artist.” We will explore the historical context in which they lived and worked, their patrons, their biographies, and their techniques and materials, in order to better understand the meanings, settings, audiences, receptions and intentions of their art. Objectives Students will differentiate between the styles, functions, meanings and appearances of Renaissance art in different cities/regions in Italy and in different moments of the century. Students will be able to identify the most significant sociological, political and religious events and movements that took place in the century and determined in some way art and art making of the period. Students will be able to interpret, at least on a beginning level, Italian Renaissance art based on the research they conduct, the readings done, and the material covered in class. Students will be able to describe the types and motivations for patronage during the sixteenth century in Italy. Students will apply their knowledge, critical and visual analytical skills and research skills in the form of a research paper or project on a topic of their choice (see below). Students will read and understand advanced scholarship in Renaissance studies and be able to discuss it. Students will be able to critically analyze texts in terms of their research methods and ideas.

This course is entirely online and relies on Blackboard. I will post a new module every Monday. The module will contain instructions about what has to be done that week. There are a series of screencast lectures to watch each week, blackboard quizzes about the material, and discussion boards for each week. Some weeks, we will do different sorts of interactive activities as well. See below for details. Your instructions for the week, quizzes, some of your readings, and discussions will take place on Blackboard. The module for each week must be completed by midnight on Saturday. See schedule below.

Students’ progress will be monitored with weekly essay quizzes (15% each; 60% total); screencast quizzes (15% total); discussion participation and summaries (15% total); your object in-depth presentation (10%);