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CS92PROD
Northern Renaissance Art
ARHA 220
Spring 2027
Section: 01  
Crosslisting: MDST 219

The Northern Renaissance, roughly ca. 1400-1600, was a period of thrilling transition in Europe and profound change for the Western tradition of art and architecture. For art history, the period's many paradigm shifts include the rise of oil painting, the spread of the printing press and print media, the Protestant Reformation, radical developments in portraiture practices, an expanded sense of the globe, the continued rise of an art market, and a fundamentally revised definition of both art and the artist. This course explores these and other histories as they played out within panel painting, book painting, the sumptuous arts (e.g., tapestries and metalwork), printing, sculpture, and architecture, focusing mainly on France, the Low Countries, Germany, and England. We will begin within the late medieval world of Burgundy, Prague, and Germany before progressing through such key artistic personalities as Sluter, Broederlam, the Limbourg Brothers, Campin, van Eyck, van der Weyden, Fouquet, Riemenschneider, Lucas van Leyden, Bosch, Dürer, Grünewald, Altdorfer, Cranach, Holbein, and Bruegel. Such a narrative will be equally enriched with less familiar and less canonical works. Threaded throughout run questions of mimesis, realism, skill, medium, and the growing cult of genius, as well as the relationship with the Italian Renaissance, the Mediterranean, and the widening globe.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA ART
Course Format: Lecture / DiscussionGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Requirement for: (Art History Minor)(Art History)(Art Studio)(Medieval Studies Minor)(Medieval Studies)
Past Enrollment Probability: 75% - 89%

Last Updated on MAR-20-2026
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