ARTHIST 224/324

Power and Piety: the Baroque

SEMESTER 2, 2020

15 points

Course Convenor and Lecturer: Associate Professor Erin Griffey

Arts 1, room 747

e.griffey@auckland.ac.nz

Office hour: Tuesday 1-2pm. Please email for an appointment at another time, either in person or via Zoom.

Tutor: Victoria Munn

vmun129@aucklanduni.ac.nz

Office hour: Wednesday 2-3pm in Arts 1, room 206-306

 

Course delivery format

Lectures: Wednesdays 11-1pm in Building 206 (Arts 1, Humanities), Room 220

224 Tutorial: Fridays 11am-12noon in Building 206 (Arts 1, Humanities), Room 220

324 Tutorial: Fridays 10-11am, Human Sciences 201E-902 (Social Sciences East), Room 902

See also Student Services Online

 

Course Description              

This course, designed as a ‘Grand Tour’, explores the exceptionally rich visual culture of Western Europe in the seventeenth century. This visual culture encompasses paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, buildings and decorative arts. With a strong historical background, this course discusses how the production, patronage and reception of art was shaped by powerful political, religious, social and cultural factors.

 

The course covers several significant centres of power: the cities of Rome, Madrid, Paris (Versailles), Antwerp, Amsterdam and London. Palaces, churches, portraiture and the broader apparatus of magnificence feature prominently.

 

Amidst this contextual backdrop, you will become closely acquainted with the celebrated artists of the period: Annibale Carracci, Caravaggio and Bernini in Rome; Velazquez in Madrid; Mansart and Le Brun at Versailles; Rubens in Antwerp; Rembrandt in Amsterdam; and Van Dyck, Inigo Jones, and Christopher Wren in London.

 

In addition to a broader historical and art historical knowledge of the period, you will become conversant with the vocabulary used to describe art and architecture. Assessments endeavor to develop strong skills in visual analysis, critical reading and thinking. There is a traditional essay assignment as well as an assignment based on an artwork in the Auckland Art Gallery aimed at refining skills in art writing and connoisseurship. The exam includes both traditional essays as well as image-focused analysis.

 

 COURSE OUTCOMES

- acquire knowledge of Baroque art and seventeenth-century European cultural, political and religious history

- develop skills in research, writing and visual analysis

- understand a range of methodological approaches to art history and apply them

- engage in practical connoisseurship with an assignment focused on an artwork in the Auckland Art Gallery

 

 ASSESSMENT 

 

10% tutorial worksheets

*Submit FIVE completed tutorial worksheets from tutorials 1-9; you must have attended the tutorial and the worksheet is due the day after the tutorial. You will be marked 2 (full marks), 1 (satisfactory) or 0 (unsatisfactory) for each worksheet, for a possible total of 10 points=10% of your final grade. If you submit more than five worksheets, we will take your top five marks. 

15% connoisseurship assignment (500 words)

*500-word catalogue entry for an assigned work in the Auckland Art Gallery. For details, see Assignments. This is due after the mid-semester break and we will discuss in class and tutorials.

25% essay (Stage II: 2000 words; Stage III: 2500 words)

*There are different options for Stage II and Stage III students. See Assignments for specifics. This is due before the mid-semester break.

 50% exam

*This is a two-hour exam and comprises essay and short answers based on artworks.

 

LECTURE PROGRAMME

1          29 July          Introduction to Power and Piety: The Baroque

ROME                          Papal Rome circa 1600        

 

2          5 August      Annibale Carracci: The Farnese Ceiling         

                                       Caravaggio’s Mythological Works

 

3          12 August   The Roman Church and Caravaggio’s Religious Paintings

                                       The Pontificate of Urban VIII and Bernini

MADRID

4          19 August     The Madrid of Philip IV

 

5          26 August     Velazquez’s Bodegones and Genre Painting in the South

                                          Philip IV and the Legacy of Habsburg Court Portraiture 

    ***ESSAY DUE FRIDAY 28 AUGUST***

                                                            

PARIS

6          2 September  Early Seventeenth-Century Paris and the Marie de Medici Cycle

 

            MID-SEMESTER BREAK

 

7          23 September    The Satellite Court: Louis XIV and Versailles

ANTWERP                          The Spiritual City: Churches and Religious Art in Counter-Reformation Antwerp

 

8          30 September     Rubens: Art for the Courts

                                                  Rubens: Art for the Burghers

AMSTERDAM

9          7 October      The City of Burghers: Amsterdam

                                          Art for the Burghers: Portraits, Landscapes, Genre Painting

***CONNOISSEURSHIP ASSIGNMENT DUE***

 

10        14 October    Rembrandt’s Public Commissions

                                            Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits                                                     

LONDON

11        21 October     The Tudor Legacy and the Jacobean Court

                                              Art and Dynasty: The Example of Charles I

 

12        28 October      Fashioning Power: Van Dyck’s Portraits of the Stuart Court

                                              ‘London in Flames, London in Glory’: Architecture and City Planning post 1666

 

TUTORIAL PROGRAMME

Tutorials begin in week 2 of the semester (there is no tutorial the first week of class). For tutorial summaries, reading assignments and worksheets that must be completed for each tutorial, see 'Tutorial programme and worksheets' under 'Files'.

      

7 August                Workshop Practice and Notions of Authorship   

14 August            Caravaggio and Homo-Erotica     

21 August            Female Artists: Artemisia Gentileschi and Judith Leyster

28 August            Competition and the Art of Emulation  

4 September      The Mythology of Rembrandt

MID-SEMESTER BREAK

25 September    Style and Connoisseurship I: Paintings at the Auckland Art Gallery

2 October             Style and Connoisseurship II: Prints

9 October             NO TUTORIALS

16 October          Beauty and the Body 

23 October          Material Culture and the Politics of Conspicuous Consumption

30 October           Exam Review

 

TEXTBOOK

Ann Sutherland Harris, Seventeenth-Century Art and Architecture (London: Laurence King). There are copies on Short Loan at the General Library. Many of the other readings have been digitised, with links provided through Talis. For essays, some books are available through the library as e-books that you can read online; and for articles, use Articles+ in the Library search engine.

 

AIMS OF THE COURSE

In addition to a broader cultural and more specifically art historical knowledge of the period, you will become conversant with the vocabulary used to describe art and architecture. You will also be able to provide thoughtful and engaging analyses of artworks.

 

METHODOLOGY

The methodology used in this class is heavily indebted to Michael Baxandall’s notion of the “period eye”, as employed in his groundbreaking book, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy. It is an approach that insists on the importance of the way an artwork functioned in its original context, for its assumed viewership. This course is constructed along these same lines; it attempts to situate objects in terms of patronage, display and function.

 

You will get a lot more out of your readings if you are aware of the approach the author is taking. For this purpose, I highly recommend that you learn more about different methodologies employed by art historians. See for example: Laurie Schneider Adams, The Methodologies of Art: An Introduction.

 

GRADING

A+       90+                                          C+       60-64

A         85-89                                       C         55-59

A-        80-84                                       C-        50-54

B+       75-79                                       D+       45-49

B         70-74                                       D         40-44

B-        65-69                                       D-        under 40

 

THEMES

Please make sure you are conversant with these themes for your coursework and final exam:

• The different audiences for art: courtly, religious, secular
• Power dynamics in the early modern period
• The role of gender, race and otherness in early modern art and society
• Ideas of 'genius' in myths of the artist, both in the early modern period and since
• The importance of material culture in early modern society
• The development of the art market
• Workshop practice
• Materials and methods- identifying an engraving, etching, drypoint and drawing
• The different ‘genres’ of art and their varying functions
• The relationship between display and function/meaning—illustrating this with specific examples
• The function and significance of drawings
• The function and significance of prints
• Civic rituals: royal and religious processions

And be familiar with the patronage and representation of the following rulers:

• Urban VIII, Innocent X
• Henry IV, Marie de Medici, Louis XIII, Louis XIV, Anne of Austria
• Philip II, Philip III, Philip IV, Mariana of Austria, Elisabeth of France
• Elizabeth I, James I, Anna of Denmark, Charles I, Henrietta Maria
• Albert and Isabella
• The House of Orange
• The burgomasters of Amsterdam

 

TERMINOLOGY

Please be acquainted with the proper use of these terms:

pentimenti

impasto

realism

genre painting

bodegone

burgher

bozzetto

modello

still-life

momento mori

fresco

concetto

usus

naer het leven

chiaroscuro

tenebroso

quadri ripartati

di sotto in su

alla prima

 

 

TUTORIAL WORKSHEETS

Tutorials begin in week 2 of the semester. Attendance will be taken. Please note that each tutorial is accompanied by a worksheet, which is included here under both 'Modules' and in 'Files'. These worksheets should be used in conjunction with the assigned reading for the tutorial – that is, you need to do the reading in advance of the tutorial - and you can also add material based on your learning in the tutorial. These worksheets are part of the assessment for the course. Submit five worksheets the day after the relevant tutorial. You must have attended the tutorial. These will each be allocated a mark of 0 (unsatisfactory), 1 (satisfactory) or 2 (full marks), for a total of 10 marks, 10% of your final grade. If you can submit more than five worksheets, then your top five marks will be used.

 

LATE ASSIGNMENTS

Late papers will be penalized 5 points for every week late. The exception is for medical emergencies, for which I need to be contacted within a week of the doctor’s note. If you are experiencing difficulty with an assignment, please contact me well in advance of the due date (at least a week) and I can help and may arrange an extension. No papers will be accepted two weeks after the due date except for pre-approved cases.

 

 

 Workload and deadlines for submission of coursework           

The University of Auckland's expectation is that students spend 10 hours per week on a 15-point course, including time in class and personal study. Students should manage their academic workload and other commitments accordingly. Deadlines for coursework are set by course convenors and will be advertised in course material. You should submit your work on time. In extreme circumstances, such as illness, you may seek an extension but you may be required to provide supporting information before the assignment is due. Late assignments without a pre-approved extension may be penalised by loss of marks – check course information for details.