ARTH 432(F) Domestic Visual Culture in Renaissance Florence (Same as Women's and Gender Studies 432)
Fifteenth-century Florence nurtured a burgeoning culture of image production.
This remarkable proliferation of images, and the rapid development of visual
idioms, has given the Tuscan city a privileged art historical position as the
birthplace of the Renaissance and, traditionally, the basis of the first chapter in
the story of artistic development and progress in the west. The domestic palace,
as it emerged during this period, was a crucial site for the production and
reception of new kinds of objects; indeed, many Renaissance
touchstones-Botticelli's Birth of Venus, Leonardo's Mona Lisa, and
Michelangelo's Doni Tondo, to name just a few examples-were originally
commissioned for (and viewed within) a domestic setting. In this course we will
examine the Renaissance palace itself, as well as a constellation of diverse
images once housed within it including traditional panel paintings, painted
furniture and wall-hangings, ceramics, and ritual objects. We will pose questions
about the relationship between these images and the people who commissioned
them and lived with them, focusing especially on issues of gender and power.
Our investigation of domestic art will be grounded in the larger historiographic
problem of Renaissance individualism; in other words, we will use this material
in order to consider, critique, and refine traditional conceptions of the
Renaissance as a historical period.
Format: seminar. Requirements: evaluation will be based on oral participation
and short response papers, one oral presentation, and a 15-20 page research
paper.
Enrollment limit: 12. Preference given to seniors.