Art in Europe, c c (a.k.a Late Mannerism and the Early Baroque )

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Art in Europe, c. 1565 c. 1650 (a.k.a Late Mannerism and the Early Baroque ) PROF.

1 Art in Europe, c c (a.k.a Late Mannerism and the Early Baroque ) PROF. MARK ROSEN Course Information AHST 3316 Section: 001 Fall 2010 TTh 11:30 12:45, plus one required museum visit on your own time Professor Contact Information Office: JO mark.rosen@utdallas.edu Office phone: Office hours: Wed. noon 1 pm or by appointment Course Pre-requisites, Co-requisites, and/or Other Restrictions Prerequisites: The introductory Art History Survey (AHST 1303 and 1304) or AP Art History in High School; AHST 2331 or ARTS 1301 are also acceptable prereqs. Course Description Rather than attempt to survey the entirety of Baroque and Rococo art (a period which covers nearly 200 years in Europe), this course attempts to capture one of the most significant and paradigmatic moments in the history of art: the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In the grand narrative, this is when Renaissance becomes Baroque although neither term was used at the time, both being more or less modern inventions referring to artistic style rather than issues of politics, nationality, patronage, or other practicalities of the artist s working life. But while those terms ( Renaissance and Baroque ) have some problems, there really can be no doubt that something significant changed in the approach to artmaking in the period, that it happened first in Italy and in the Netherlands, and that it soon spread widely across Europe to the point where we can talk about seventeenth century painting, sculpture, and architecture in concretely distinct terms from the century that preceded it. This class will focus on this critical period while covering a wide range of important artists who defined this shift. Syllabus: The Art of the Baroque Page 1

2 Why begin around 1565? Three important events occur in Italy in the 1560s that seem to close a chapter on Renaissance art : the death of Michelangelo the divine (an epithet used at his funeral) in 1564; the publication of Giorgio Vasari s monumental revised edition of the Lives of the Artists in 1568; and the closing session, in 1563, of the Council of Trent, which published newly methodical approaches for dealing with reformers, heretics, and what it saw as distracting and licentious attitudes in art. All three had a great impact on debates of the future of art, and all would also in some sense influence the direction of art not only in Italy but throughout all of Europe. For that reason, we will begin in Italy before moving outward; but Italy will serve as the foundation throughout the entire course, and will get the greatest attention. Why end around 1650? That date is more arbitrary than the first, but it nonetheless indicates a moment when the leading living European masters among them Rembrandt, Poussin, Vermeer, Velazquez, and Bernini had replaced or transcended the paradigms of the sixteenth century that had continued to inform or haunt the artists of the early seventeenth century. Among the subjects we will discuss are: the structures of the centers of power in Europe at the time; the reform of religious art and sacred architecture in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; the varieties of artistic training available to artists; the emergence of the first significant women painters in Europe; the spread of the Italian style to the rest of Europe and other instances of cross-cultural influence; the religious wars between Catholics and Protestants and the ways in which they shaped the artistic production of the North; the rise of genre painting; and the conscious acceptance or rejection of past artistic models upon the present. Students in this course are not expected to have a background in any of this material but are expected to bring fresh perspectives to the course. Although it is a lecture class, the readings will also play an important role. Reading responses will be required throughout the semester, as well as a visual analysis of a painting at the Meadows Museum at SMU. A list of terms or captions that relate to the images will be handed out each class. Many of these images are also in the readings, although not everything we see in class will be. The image presentations seen in class will be posted on elearning at the end of each week. Student Learning Objectives Students will grasp the interdisciplinary ways that historical works of art can be understood, with the goal that they can carry this skill beyond this class to studying or evaluating artworks from other periods and cultures. Students will develop their skills of visual analysis and critical reading through writing a series of short essays. Students will become familiar with current methodologies and approaches to historical inquiry. Textbooks and Materials Required book: Ann Sutherland Harris, Seventeenth-Century Art & Architecture, 2d edition (Pearson, 2008) Other required readings will be available online through electronic course reserves. The password will be given out on the first day of class. Note that these readings are in integral part Syllabus: The Art of the Baroque Page 2

3 of the class and will be discussed directly much more often than the textbook, so you should take care when reading them. Readings should be done before each class meeting. Some readings will be discussed during the lecture and it is expected that students will be prepared to participate in the discussion and be familiar with the works. Once a week, links to images shown in class will be posted on our class elearning site. These will be image groups by lecture number, each with a thumbnail that can be clicked on for a highresolution scan. Those images are hosted on a website called ARTStor ( You will need to create a (free) account on the site, something which can be done through a computer logged into the UTD network or proxy server. Papers and Assignments There will be three written papers for this course. Two of them (due 9/14 and 11/23) are threepage reading responses. The other (due 11/4) is a four-page visual analysis of El Greco s Pentecost, a painting from the Prado Museum in Madrid that will be visiting Dallas this fall for a short residency at the Meadows Museum at SMU. There is no final paper, which means that each one of these carries equal weight in the final grade (10% each). During the semester, there will be two class meetings entirely be led by students Sept. 16 and Nov. 2. The class will be divided into four groups, two of which will present on each of those days. You and five or six fellow classmates will determine how to present an artwork and how to budget your time and energy to presenting it to the group, as well as leading discussion about it. There will not be a written component to this presentation, but the quality of the presentation and discussion will be graded. For information regarding plagiarism and other issues of academic integrity, see the university s website: Let me confirm that it plagiarism a very serious offense and will not be tolerated. It will result in your being forced to rewrite a paper or accept a failing grade for the assignment. Your own intellectual honesty is of the greatest importance in this class. Syllabus: The Art of the Baroque Page 3

4 Assignments & Academic Calendar [All readings except Harris are on electronic reserve.] Class Topic Reading 20 Aug. Art and Politics in Europe in the Late Sixteenth Century 25 Aug. ITALY: Mid-Sixteenth Century Florence under the Medici 27 Aug. ITALY: Late-Sixteenth Century Rome: The Papacy and the Structure of Roman Patronage Harris, xxi xxiii Janet Cox-Rearick, Art at the Court of Duke Cosimo I de Medici ( ), in The Medici, Michelangelo, and the Art of Late Renaissance Florence (New Haven, 2002), Anthony Blunt, The Council of Trent and Religious Art, in Artistic Theory in Italy, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962), Sept. ITALY: Palace and Villa Claudia Lazzaro-Bruno, The Villa Lante at Bagnaia: An Allegory of Art and Nature, Art Bulletin 59 (1977): Sept. ITALY: Late-Sixteenth Century Innovators Harris, 1 23 Charles Dempsey, The Carracci Reform of Painting, in The Age of Correggio and the Carracci (exh. cat., 1986), Sept. NO CLASS ROSH HASHANAH HOLIDAY 14 Sept. ITALY: Annibale Carracci and the Farnese Gallery; Intro to Caravaggio FIRST PAPER DUE 16 Sept. ITALY: Caravaggio s Calling of St. Matthew and The Martyrdom of St. Matthew [Two student groups lead discussion] Harris, Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Lives of the Carracci, in Italian and Spanish Art, : Sources and Documents (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970), Irving Lavin, Caravaggio s Calling of St. Matthew: The Identity of the Protagonist, in Past-Present (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), John Varriano, Violence, in Caravaggio: The Art of Realism (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2006), Syllabus: The Art of the Baroque Page 4

5 21 Sept. ITALY: Deeper into Caravaggio; Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi Harris, Mary Garrard, Artemisia and Susanna, in Feminism and Art History, ed. N. Broude and M. Garrard (NY, 1982), Sept. MIDTERM EXAM 28 Sept. ITALY: The Carracci School; Pietro da Cortona; Foreign Visitors to Rome Harris, 56 77, Biographies of Reni, Lanfranco, etc., in Italian and Spanish Art, : Sources and Documents (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970), Sept. ITALY: Sculpture Harris, Selections of Filippo Baldinucci, Life of Bernini, from A Documentary History of Art, vol. II, ed. Elizabeth Holt (NY: Doubleday, 1958), Oct. ITALY: 17th-century Roman Architecture 7 Oct. ITALY: Bernini and Urban VIII 12 Oct. FLANDERS: Politics and Painting in the Late Sixteenth Century 14 Oct. FLANDERS: Rubens and Antwerp 19 Oct. FLANDERS: Rubens and Europe Rudolf Wittkower, Art and Architecture in Italy (New Haven, 1999), 39 62, Howard Hibbard, Bernini (Pelican, 1965), Harris, Arnout Balis, Antwerp, Foster-Mother of the Arts: Its Contribution to the Artistic Culture of Europe in the Seventeenth Century, in Antwerp: Story of a Metropolis (Antwerp, 1993), Harris, Oct. MIDTERM EXAM 26 Oct. SPAIN: Counter- Reformation Spain 28 Oct. SPAIN: Velazaquez and the Habsburg Court Harris, Hugh-Trevor Roper, Princes and Artists (NY: Harper and Row, 1976), Harris, Jonathan Brown, Velazquez and Philip IV, in Velazquez: Painter and Courtier, Syllabus: The Art of the Baroque Page 5

6 2 Nov. SPAIN: Velazquez s Spinners and Las Meninas [2 Student groups lead discussion] 4 Nov. FRANCE: The French Renaissance and the Early Seventeenth Century Michel Foucault, The Order of Things (New York: Vintage, 1970), Svetlana Alpers, The Vexations of Art (New Haven, 2007), Harris, SECOND PAPER DUE 9 Nov. FRANCE: Poussin, Lorraine and Landscape Painting Harris, Selections of Poussin s Letters, from A Documentary History of Art, vol. II, ed. Elizabeth Holt (NY: Doubleday, 1958), Philippe de Champaigne, On Poussin s Rebecca and Eliezer, in John Rupert Martin, Baroque (NY: Harper and Row, 1977), Nov. ENGLAND: The Elizabethan Renaissance and the Early Seventeenth Century 16 Nov. ENGLAND/FLANDERS: Van Dyck s English Portraits 18 Nov. DUTCH REPUBLIC: Politics and Painting; Rembrandt s Rise 23 Nov. DUTCH REPUBLIC: Rembrandt and the Studio THIRD PAPER DUE Harris, Andrew and Catherine Belsey, Icons of Divinity: Portraits of Elizabeth I, in Lucy Gent and Nigel Llewellyn, eds., Renaissance Bodies (London, 1990): 11 35, Ellis Kirkham Waterhouse, Painting in Britain, (New Haven, 1994), Harris, Gary Schwartz, Rembrandt (NY, 1985), Harris, Mieke Bal, Between Focalization and Voyeurism: The Representation of Vision, in Reading Rembrandt (Chicago, 1991), Nov. NO CLASS THANKSGIVING 30 Nov. DUTCH REPUBLIC: Dutch Genre Harris, Dec. CONCLUSIONS Final Exam Review 14 Dec. Final Exam at 11 am Syllabus: The Art of the Baroque Page 6

7 Grading Policy Short papers: 30% (10% each) Midterms: 20% Final Exam: 30% In-class Presentation (9/16 or 11/2): 10% Attendance and Participation: 10% Course & Instructor Policies Office hours are meant for the benefit of you students, so use them! They can be used to discuss class materials, assignments, and questions arising from the readings, or other issues you d like to discuss. If you can t make it to the scheduled hours, you can make an appointment with me at some other time. I can be reached by and will make efforts to respond in a timely manner, but I m not on call at all hours; use sparingly, please. All major assignments must be completed to successfully pass the class (you can t skip the first paper and still expect to get a B+). No written assignments will be accepted via . Late assignments will be marked down substantially. Please turn off your phone and refrain from texting in class. It s a drag for everyone. Class begins at 11:30. If you must come in late, try to be as quiet as possible. You may have no more than three unexcused absences beyond that, you will get a zero for your participation grade. These descriptions and timelines are subject to change at the discretion of the Professor. Syllabus: The Art of the Baroque Page 7

Art in Europe, c c (a.k.a Late Mannerism and the Early Baroque )

Art in Europe, c c (a.k.a Late Mannerism and the Early Baroque ) Art in Europe, c. 1565 c. 1650 (a.k.a Late Mannerism and the Early Baroque ) PROF. MARK ROSEN Course Information AHST 3316 Section: 001 Spring 2012 MW 11:30 12:45, plus one required museum visit on your