ARTH 340: Early Renaissance Art in Italy, 1300-1500

ARTH 340-001: Early Renaissance Art in Italy, 1300-1500
(Fall 2012)

03:00 PM to 04:15 PM MW

Innovation Hall 132

Section Information for Fall 2012

Giotto, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Masaccio, and Botticelli have come to be regarded as major figures at a pivotal juncture of the history of western art. Even within their own lifetimes, their art was seen as embodying a “rebirth” of painting and sculpture. This course explores early Renaissance art in the context of the culture of Italian city-states in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. We will reflect on how art was deployed by individuals and communities to project social and spiritual authority. We will examine how different genres of visual representation—fresco cycles, altarpieces, monumental sculpture, intimate panels and bronze statuettes—were used to construct, affirm or challenge power relations. We will study the spaces in which art was displayed—civic buildings, cathedrals, monasteries, public squares, private palaces—and how artists and viewers responded to various viewing experiences in different physical contexts. This was also the period when a changing concept of creativity and the notion of the rebirth of antiquity defined a new role for the artist. We will consider how the various cultural currents and social transformations informed, and were in turn informed by, the visual arts.

Tags:

Course Information from the University Catalog

Credits: 3

Studies in architecture, sculpture, and painting in the age of Giotto, Ghiberti, Masaccio, and Botticelli. Limited to three attempts.
Mason Core: Arts
Schedule Type: Lecture
Grading:
This course is graded on the Undergraduate Regular scale.

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