Course syllabus

 

THE RENAISSANCE: ART AND THE CITY

Semester 2, 2017

 

Lectures:

Tuesday 10am to 12pm, 303-G01 (Sci Maths & Physics, Room G01)

Lecturers:

Associate Professor Iain Buchanan, Arts 1, Room 751

Telephone: 373 7599 ext. 87271; email: i.buchanan@auckland.ac.nz

Associate Professor Erin Griffey, Arts 1, Room 747

Telephone: 373 7599 ext. 87253; email: e.griffey@auckland.ac.nz

 

Tutorials:

Tuesday 3pm to 4pm, 206-216 (Arts 1, Room 216)

Wednesday 10am to 11am, 104-G07 (Old Choral Hall, Room G07)

Wednesday 12pm to 1pm, 104-G07 (Old Choral Hall, Room G07)

Friday 1pm to 2pm, 114-G10 (Commerce A, Room G10)

Tutor:

Francis McWhannell

Telephone: 021 232 6032; email: f.mcwhannell@auckland.ac.nz

Office hours:

Tuesday 2pm to 3pm, 206-304 (Arts 1, Room 304)

Wednesday 11am to 12pm, 206-304 (Arts 1, Room 304)

 

Course Aims

This course examines the social history and visual culture of selected cities between 1400 and 1600. In 2017, the focus is on two cities that are part of modern-day Italy, Florence and Venice, both republics, and the Flemish city of Bruges, under the governances of the Valois dukes of Burgundy. All of these cities were closely linked through trade routes and both Venetian and Florentine merchants had branches in Bruges. In addition, two lectures will examine the Italian court cities of Milan (under the Sforza family) and Mantua (under the Gonzaga family). This enables fruitful comparisons between the cities under the authority of a sovereign duke and those overseen by local government leaders, and comparisons between the Netherlands and Italy.

The Burgundian dukes moved their court from city to city within their domains. When they were in Bruges this was where the court was located; in the Italian princely courts, such as the duchies of Mantua and Milan, the state was ruled by a sovereign, in these cases a duke based in a palace in the main city. In the Italian republics the politics and culture were rooted in the main city, as seen for example in Florence and Venice. Personal loyalty was largely civic, and shared styles, traditions and conventions in different cities contributed to concepts of civic identity. Patronage, too, was both rooted in and dictated by civic identity, and whether the city was under the authority of a duke, or local government leaders.

Our choice of cities is justified by the staggering quality in artworks produced therein, and the active involvement of local patrons to beautify, aggrandize, and put their personal stamp on the local style. Florence was the most significant art centre in fifteenth century Italy and home to artists such as Masaccio, Donatello, Ghiberti, Ghirlandaio and Uccello. The most important city in the Low Countries during the fifteenth century was Bruges. The wealth of the city attracted such important artists as Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling and Gerard David. These artists produced paintings for the main city churches as well as private patrons. A significant number of these patrons were Italian merchants, such as Angelo Tani and Tomasso Portinari, who commissioned paintings for their family chapels in Florence, bringing northern works into Italy.

Each week two lectures will be given examining the religious, civic and private patronage of art in a given city, and comparative material will regularly be incorporated. Attention will be given to religious and civic institutions of each city, as well as their palaces and private houses. Civic architectural styles will also be covered, and discussed within the context of the classical tradition. Alberti, Brunelleschi and Bramante, Sansovino and Palladio will all feature. The conditions of art production, the materials and techniques of painting and sculpture, and the various forms and subjects of art at the time will also be discussed. Individual painters and sculptors figure strongly in this programme, and the seminal Renaissance artists and architects will be covered, including Jan van Eyck, Gerard David, Hans Memling, Hugo van der Goes, Rogier van der Weyden, Giovanni Bellini, Ghiberti, Donatello, Botticelli, Fra Angelico and Bronzino. Because of the growing 'internationalism' of art patronage and production in the Renaissance, a few celebrated artists – Leonardo, Michelangelo and Titian – will be encountered in more than one city or section.

 

Prescribed Texts

Paoletti, John, and Gary Radke, Art in Renaissance Italy, 4th ed., London: Laurence King, 2011.

Nash, Susie, Northern Renaissance Art, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Both books are available on 2-hour short loan and can be purchased online via www.bookdepository.com.

 

Other Key Texts

Baxandall, Michael, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy, Oxford, 1988.

Brown, Patricia, Art and Life in Renaissance Venice, London, 1997.

Cole, Alison. Art of the Italian Renaissance Courts, London, 1995.

Harbison, Craig, The Mirror of the Artist: Northern Renaissance Art in Its Historical Context, New York, 1995.

Snyder, James, Northern Renaissance Art, New York, 1985.

Turner, A. Richard, Renaissance Florence, The Invention of a New Art, London, 1997.

Welch, Evelyn, Art in Renaissance Italy 1350–1500, Oxford, 1997.

  

Recommended for Essay Writing

Barnet, Sylvan, A Short Guide to Writing about Art, 8th ed., Pearson and Longman, 2005.

 

Lecture Programme

 

Week 1: 25 July

Introduction

Cities – Public and Private Spaces (IB)

Tuscan Republics: Siena and Florence

Siena, the City of the Virgin, in the Quattrocento (EG)

 

Week 2: 1 August

Introduction to Florence and its Religious Spaces (EG)

Private Devotion: The Family Chapel (EG)

 

Week 3: 8 August

Private Devotion: The Monastery (EG)

The Medici Palace: Michelozzo, Donatello and Gozzoli  (EG)

 

Week 4: 15 August

The Baptistery: Pisano and Ghiberti (IB)

Orsanmichele and the Cathedral: Ghiberti, Verrochio and Donatello (IB)

 

Week 5: 22 August

Art for Private Apartments: Botticelli, Pollaiuolo and Romano (EG)

Princely Courts

Mantua, the Gonzaga Family and Mantegna (EG)

 

Week 6: 29 August

VISUAL TEST (first hour only)

Milan, the Sforza Family and Leonardo (EG)

 

MID-SEMESTER BREAK

 

Week 7: 19 September

Art in Bruges

Introduction to Bruges (IB)

Italian Patrons in Bruges. Portraits: Van Eyck and Memling (IB)

 

Week 8: 26 September

Italian Patrons in Bruges. Public Commissions: Hugo van der Goes and Memling (IB)

The Hospital of St. John: Memling (IB)

ESSAYS DUE BY 4PM AT ARTS 1

 

Week 9: 3 October

The Town Hall and Cathedral: Gerard David (IB)

Art in Venice

Introduction to Venice (IB)

 

Week 10: 10 October

The Scuole: Carpaccio and Bellini (IB)

Church Altarpieces: Bellini and Titian (IB)

 

Week 11: 17 October

Images of Arcadia: Titian and Giorgione (EG)

Veronese (EG)

Week 12: 24 October

Tintoretto and the Scuola of San Rocco (IB)

Review

 

STUDY BREAK AND EXAMS: 28 October to 20 November

 

Tutorial Programme

Tutorial attendance is obligatory and attendance will be taken. All students are expected to come prepared, having completed the assigned readings. There are required tutorial worksheets for each week, and these need to be completed in advance. Your tutor will check to see that they are completed. Full information on the programme, readings and worksheets can be found in the 'Files' section of Canvas. You will need to print out the worksheets for class or complete them electronically.

The topics for the tutorials are as follows:

 

Topic 1: Putting Renaissance Art in Context: Techniques and Subjects

 

Week 1

NO TUTORIAL

 

Week 2

Tutorial 1: Introducing the Renaissance by Visual Analysis

 

Week 3

Tutorial 2: Methods and Materials of Renaissance Sculpture

 

Week 4

Tutorial 3: Methods and Materials of Renaissance Painting and Drawing

 

Week 5

Tutorial 4: Religious Iconography and the Altarpiece

 

Week 6

Tutorial 5: The Art of Essay Writing

 

MID-SEMESTER BREAK

 

Topic 2: The Emergence of Humanism: Patronage and New Approaches to Subject Matter

 

Week 7

NO TUTORIAL

 

Week 8

Tutorial 6: Guilds, Workshops and Contracts

 

Week 9

Tutorial 7: Vasari's Lives and the Status of the Artist

 

Week 10

Tutorial 8: Portraiture and Gender Issues

 

Week 11

Tutorial 9: Mythological Subjects

 

Week 12

Tutorial 10: Exam Revision

  

STUDY BREAK AND EXAMS: 28 October to 20 November