VSA2520

Italian Renaissance art: power, patronage and imagination

Proposed to be offered next in 1999

John Gregory

8 points
* 3 hours per week
* First semester
* Clayton

Objectives By the end of this subject students should have an understanding of the development of art and architecture in Renaissance Italy within in a broad social and historical framework; and have gained a general understanding of the way in which artistic patronage operated in the period, and some insights into the diverse roles played by those responsible for the production and use of visual culture in the period.

Synopsis This subject will address the various ways in which artists, patrons and members of the wider community were involved in the production and use of art and architecture in Renaissance Italy. Issues to be considered will include: the differing modes of patronage employed by communal, courtly and papal governments; regional variations of style and theme, notably the contrast between the influential Florentine model and other centres such as Siena, Venice and Naples; and the evolution of new or substantially reformulated forms and genres such as perspective, narrative art, portraiture, and villa and garden design. Recent re-readings of Renaissance culture will be integrated as appropriate, particularly in relation to representations of class and power, gender, sexuality and the body.

Assessment Seminar paper (1500 words): 25%; Essay (3000 words): 50%; Visual Test (1.5 hours): 25%

Recommended texts

Baxandall M Painting and experience in fifteenth-century Italy rev edn, OUP, 1988
Cole A Art of the Italian Renaissance courts Dent, 1995
Heydenreich L Architecture in Italy 1400-1500 Yale U P, 1996
Kempers B Painting, power and patronage Penguin, 1992
Norman D (ed.) Siena, Florence and Padua: Art, society and religion 1280-1400 Yale U P, 1995