107-032 Venetian Renaissance Painting

A knowledge of Italian language and history is helpful, though not essential.

Usually 25 points of first-year art history, see Prerequisites.

This subject aims to introduce students to the art of 16th century Venice, principally the works of the painters Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Titian and Lorenzo Lotto. Topics will include devotional painting, narrative painting in confraternities, portraiture and erotic profane painting. Methods and approaches studied will include connoisseurship, iconography, the study of patronage, the history of conservation, the study of materials and techniques, especially Venetian pigments and the impact of feminist studies on the study of Renaissance painting. The primary Renaissance sources for the subject, both visual and written, will be analysed in critical detail and related to comparative modern critical frameworks. Students who complete the subject should have attained a critical understanding of the major personalities and theoretical issues in Venetian Renaissance painting.

A class paper of 1500 words and an essay of 2500 words.

• P Humfrey, Painting in Renaissance Venice. Yale 1995.