WesMaps - Wesleyan University Catalog 2019-2020       Summer Session       Winter Session       Home       Archive       Search
CS92PROD
Northern Renaissance Art
ARHA 220
Spring 2020
Section: 01  
Crosslisting: MDST 219

The Northern Renaissance (roughly c. 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 growth of middle-class patronage, the Protestant Reformation, radical developments in the practice of portraiture, an increasingly global worldview and mentality, the spread of humanism, the foundations of what might be referred to as an art market, and a fundamental revision of the purpose and 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 Limbourgs, Campin, the van Eycks, van der Weyden, Memling, Fouquet, Riemenschneider, Dürer, Grünewald, Altdorfer, Cranach, Bosch, Holbein, and Bruegel--such a narrative, however, will be equally enriched with less familiar and less canonical works. Threaded throughout are 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 expanding globe.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA ART
Course Format: Lecture / DiscussionGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Requirement for: (ARHA-MN)(ARHA)(ARST)(MDST-MN)(MDST)(MDST-Art/Arch)(MDST-History)(MDST-Lang/Lit)(MDST-Phil/Reli)
Past Enrollment Probability: 75% - 89%

Last Updated on NOV-23-2024
Contact wesmaps@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions. Please include a url, course title, faculty name or other page reference in your email ? Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459