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CS92PROD
Facts and Fallacies in Renaissance Art
ARHA 330
Fall 2018 not offered

This interdisciplinary seminar focuses on the ways in which partial, invented, and misunderstood historical, religious, and scientific facts became triggers for the production of Italian Renaissance art. From Pierio Valeriano's fanciful emblematic interpretations of Egyptian hieroglyphs that fueled the Renaissance Egyptomania in the visual arts, to representations of Moses with horns by artists such as Michelangelo (a mistranslation of the Hebrew "tongs of fire"), to Ulisse Aldrovandi's illustrations of dragons and other mythological creatures and their discussion in scientific terms, Renaissance artifacts served as important sources of new facts they represented and legitimized. Organized around carefully articulated weekly themes and buttressed by the reading of both primary sources and recent scholarly literature, this seminar will introduce students to the fact-bending and fact-producing dimensions of Italian Renaissance art, giving them tools to research actual objects (for example, the 1602 edition of Valeriano's HIEROGLYPHICA in the Wesleyan's Special Collections and Archives or relevant prints from the Davison collection) for their final projects.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA ART
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: None

Last Updated on MAR-28-2024
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