Introductory description

This long-view module intends to provide students with an overview of the evolution of the different arts (painting, sculpture, and architecture) in two different geographical areas: the Italian city-states (especially but not exclusively Florence) and Northern Europe.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

What is the Renaissance?
Art production in fifteenth-century France and Netherlands
Art production in fifteenth-century Florence: competition and innovation
Art at the court of Burgundy
Cosimo de' Medici as art patron
The new Flemish painting
The Italian courts and the revival of antiquity
Art and devotion in the North before the Reformation
New modes of representation in the Italian peninsula
Disegno and the study of nature
New approaches to the study of the human figure
The Renaissance in Germany
New classicism in papal Rome
The impact of the Reformation on the visual arts
A pan-European art?
An alternative Renaissance
Collecting art and nature

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of a variety of artistic, religious and social contexts in which Renaissance artists and architects worked.
• Evaluate the impact that the circulation of artists, architects, art works, and technological innovations had on the development of a pan-European art between the fifteenth and the sixteenth century.
• Appraise the role of patrons and audiences and the impact of socio-economic and political factors on art production in the Renaissance.
• Criticise received views about the notion of Renaissance art and architecture and other related historiographic categories.
• Apply visual analysis skills to examine Renaissance art works and establish creative or unexpected connections between a variety of objects.
• Compare and contrast techniques and styles of representation in a variety of art works and monuments.

Indicative reading list

F. Ames-Lewis (ed.), Florence (Cambridge, 2012)
J. Chipps Smith, The Northern Renaissance (London, 2004)
J. Dunkerton, S. Foister, D. Gordon, N. Penny, Giotto to Dürer: Early Renaissance Painting in the National
Gallery (New Haven and London, 1991)
L. Kaborycha, A Short History of Renaissance Italy (New York, 2011)
B. G. Lane, The Altar and the Altarpiece: Sacramental Themes in Early Netherlandish Painting (New York,
1984)
S. Nash, Northern Renaissance Art (Oxford, 2008)
J. Snyder, Northern Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, the Graphic Arts from 1350 to 1575 (Englewood
Cliffs and New York, 1985)

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Subject specific skills

• Understand the artistic, religious and social contexts in which the artists of the Northern and Italian Renaissance worked.
• Compare and contrast the types of meanings which art works embodied.
• Understand the role of patrons and audiences.
• Employ sophisticated conceptual and visual analysis
• Produce critical analysis of cultural artefacts in their context

Transferable skills

• ability to undertake research and to write up the results in the form of a well-structured argument at an appropriate level
• familiarity with essential ICT skills
• show understanding of diverse viewpoints
• ability to find, select, organize and synthesize evidence
• ability to formulate a sustained argument
• think conceptually and independently at an appropriate level
• Demonstrate bibliographical skills at an appropriate level