111-224 Art in the Age of Rembrandt

Note

Available as 111-324 at 3rd-year level.

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Subject Description

This subject examines seventeenth-century Northern European art. It aims to articulate the rich networks of linkages between Dutch and Flemish art works and the societies for which they were created. Northern art poses a number of challenges to its interpreters, some of which have generated new and inventive approaches to understanding the art of the period. A major focus of the subject will be to examine the current interpretative issues facing students of the period. These include the distinctions between Northern and Italian art, the discipline of cultural studies as it is applied to works of art, and the problems involved in the interpretation of still life painting and scenes of everyday life. Other topics for examination include Rubens and the Northern Baroque, Northern art and religious devotion, the paintings of Rembrandt and Vermeer, and the representation of gender and ethnicity in Dutch and Flemish art.

Assessment

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

Prescribed Texts

• B. Haak, The Golden Age: Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century. Abrams 1984.
• S. Alpers, The Art of Describing: Dutch Art of the Seventeenth Century. Chicago 1983.