111-203 Italian Art From Donatello To Michelangelo

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Available as 111-303 at 3rd-year level.

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Subject Description

This subject focuses on the art and culture of Renaissance Italy. It commences with early fifteenth century Florence and the ground-breaking sculpture of Ghiberti and Donatello and the architecture of Alberti and Brunelleschi and concludes at the beginning of the sixteenth century with the rivalry between Michelangelo and Leonardo at the Palazzo della Signoria. An understanding of emerging Renaissance artistic ideals and a modern attitude to art is central to the subject. It is, at the same time, also careful to develop an awareness of the many other ways in which Renaissance viewers experienced art: as craft, as divine presence, or as charged sexual talisman. By opening up the Renaissance to varied perceptions and interpretative frameworks, the subject thus seeks to advance our understanding beyond such generalisations as 'Renaissance individualism' or 'Renaissance rebirth'. The methodologies employed to interpret the art of this period are also critically examined.

Assessment

Written work which may comprise class papers, essays, visual tests or take-home examinations totalling about 5000 words.

Prescribed Texts

• Baxandall M, Painting and Experience in 15th Century Italy. Oxford 1982.