I. Introduction
Reading and activities:
• Textbook
introduction and chapter 1
• Begin watching
“An introduction to the Italian Renaissance” – streaming video in the
library. This movie provides a reenactment of Giorgio Vasari talking
about the Renaissance to his apprentice. It is very funny and not entirely
accurate. As you watch and as you read your textbook, look for contradictions
– how is the movie “traditional” in a way that prevents it from communicating
historically accurate undertandings of the Renaissance? How does it
reinforce our more stereotypical (or popular) understandings of the
Renaissance?
• When you
have watched the entire movie (it is only 29 minutes long) and done
enough reading in the text to answer the above questions, write a one-page
review of the movie. Do not review the acting, plot, costumes, etc –
focus on the content. For all written assignments, please work in Microsoft
Word and send me your work as an attachment to an email. Due (ideally)
no later than Dec. 24. (I understand that
Christmas may intervene and you will be late with this assignment but
it should not take too long.)
II. The Trecento Inheritance
- “Medieval”
Italy; Italy and the Black Death; the papacy in the 14th century
- Assissi,
Padua and Siena: early Renaissance art or International Gothic
- Giotto and
Duccio: narrated slide show in D2L course page
Reading and activities:
•
continue with chapter 1
• online
Slideshow/lecture: origins of the Renaissance
• Focus:
1) the relationship between Giotto and his patron; Giotto as innovator
2) differences between Sienese and Florentine art
III. Revival, imitation or rivalry? Competitions versus imitation
•
Text, chapters 2 and 3; see also pp 93-94
•
online slide show and discussion in D2L
Florence After the Plague
(illustrated written discussion of similar material)
• Activity: begin compiling your personal image
book (powerpoint). Focus on altarpieces that show similarities to Gentile
da Fabriano’s Coronation of the Virgin. (See page 85). In your analysis
of the three images you find, consider their relationship to the art of
Sienna and the art of Giotto. Which appears to be a bigger influence on Gentile’s
style (and related work)? How does the Gentile style differ from both Sienese
art and Giotto’s art? In your powerpoint, make sure you have a complete identification
of each art work you choose, try to determine who commissioned it (sometimes
this information is included in Artstor but not always so it may require
some searching), and where the art work lived (in the Renaissance). Send
me your work as an ongoing project and I will give you feedback as your
work on it. Due: no later than Dec. 28.
IV. Naturalism,
perspective and the viewer
Reading and activities:
• chapters 4 and 5
• online reading materials (the Brancacci Chapel); Brunelleschi's churches; and slide
show in D2L (Perspective in Painting and Architecture)
• Experiential activity: draw the room you are
working in. Do not use mathematical perspective. Draw the room again,
but try to use accurately measured linear perspective. Compare your results.
Do not show them to anyone but try to determine the advantages – and disadvantages
– of using perspective. Write a brief page summarizing your experience.
Share this summary with me: by Jan. 1. [Happy
new year!]
Check D2L for a Test Yourself
activity on the first few units. And don't forget to use Artstor!
V. Human
nature and the study of anatomy
Reading and activities:
• chapters 9 and 12
• online reading and D2L
slide show on anatomy and the artist;
What is Naturalism? (the natural and the spiritual) [slide show in D2L]
• Activity: Continue working
on your image notebook. Add three images demonstrating the changes that
occur in the use of perspective in the 15th century. In your analyses,
consider the influence of perspective on anatomical representations.
Due: Jan. 4
V. a. "Conventional"
(survey-style) Approaches to the Big 4 (Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael and
Titian) [don't be afraid to critique these more conventional approaches --
how does your textbook reframe the material?]
Raphael and Leonardo
Michelangelo
Venetian Artists
Raphael and the Colonna Altarpiece
VI. Art for the Pope: the
Sistine Chapel, the Raphael room, and the Pope's tomb
Reading and activities
• Reading: chapters 12 and 13
• Online reading materials; chapter by Rowland
• Activity: using the textbook
and online materials, write a 2 - 3 page comparison between Michelangelo’s
work for the Chapel and Raphael’s work for the Pope’s library. Consider
such elements as composition, relation of the parts to the whole (taking
care to define what the “whole” is in each case), use of narrative (what
is it, where does it come from, how does it guide the work), the relationship
of the work to messages or propaganda desired by the patron (the Pope),
the use of perspective, the use of color, how the work fits in the career
of the artist. These are suggested areas for comparison; you may have other
areas as well. Due: Jan. 8
Raphael and the Pope's Library (slide show in D2L)
VII.
Patronage, politics and courtly values: social structures and patronage
systems in Italy
Reading and activities
• Reading: chapters 8, 15, and 7; online reading materials
• Watch: Epitome of the Italian Renaissance: Gonzagas
of Mantua (available through McConnell, link in D2L); also watch relevant
sections on the Medicis in the film, Dreams of avarice: credit and interest
through the ages (approximately 10 minutes are devoted to the Medicis;
also in McConnell, and link in D2L)
• Activity: add three images to your power point, with each
image serving as an “icon” of a particular patron. Justify your selection
in terms of its importance to the patron, the degree to which it represents
the patron’s values, and its role in the patron’s overall collection of
art.
• Write a summary/synopsis of
the Gonzaga movie. Try to compare the Gonzagas to the Medicis. Essay due
by Jan. 11.
slide show on Medici patronage in D2L
For this unit, review things
that you've read and focus on the role of the patron in the creation of
the works you've already studied. Don't forget the discussion forum
in D2L.
The next example is a less familiar work by Botticelli made for a different
patron than the Medici family:
Botticelli's panel paintings about Nastagio
degli Onesti
VIII.
The Renaissance artist as an image-maker: an interest in the immediate
real world of living people and the evolution of the
portrait (slide show in D2L).
This unit focuses on the portrait but it also has a focus on women artists.
Most of the readings (not in the textbook but in the articles) deal with
the roles of
women and women artists in the Renaissance. The files on this page will
give you some background information on portratis from both northern
Europe and Italy, while the D2L slide show focuses on Italy. There is slide show on Italian women artists of the Renaissance in
D2L.
Background information on northern
European art and its influence on the portrait
Women Artists of the Italian
Renaissance
15th Century Portraits: Northern
European and Italian
Reading and activities
• Reading: chapter
10 may have some relevance but online reading materials and the Garrard and
King articles will be more important for this unit
• If you have
access to a library, an excellent resource is David Brown, et al., Virtue
and Beauty: Leonardo’s Ginevra de’ Benci and Renaissance Portraits of Women
(National Gallery of Art, 2001).
•
Activity: add 3 - 5 portraits to your powerpoint; focus on differences between
male and female portraits; make sure that you do not confuse the self-portrait
with the portrait
Send me
the installments from Units VII and VIII together, by Jan. 12.
IX. History, Literature
and the Visual Arts in the Renaissance
Reading and Activities:
• Reading: chapters 11 and 16
• online materials (no slide show but see the concluding
essay in D2L) and the traditional
survey approach to the mid-to-late 16th century
• Activity: complete your image book
with a three-way comparison between images from the beginning of the 15th
century, the end of the 15th century (or beginning of the 16th) and the decade
of the 1540s. Choose your images to demonstrate the changes that characterize
this period of 150 years. Consider composition, subject matter, treatment
of space, of the human body, location, patronage – and the role of the artist
in the final determination of the image. You may need to use more than 3
images but if so, treat the images in pairs or small groups so that it is
still a 3-way comparison. The complete and perfected
image book will be due no later than Jan. 16.
