Italian and Northern Renaissance Painting

This course provides a critical account of the Renaissance north and south of the Alps, with a special emphasis on works housed in Viennese collections. The purpose of the course is not only to provide an overview of Renaissance art but also to compare how key themes develop in different areas. Some of these themes are related to genres: altarpieces, prints, portraits, private devotional images, narrative painting, and popular imagery all have versions that appear in both north and south, but they differ in their forms. In accounting for those differences, we consider not only the artistic sources available to artists (the differences between a realist and classical notion of “nature,” for instance) but also the different social, political and institutional contexts surrounding the art in each place. In this light, religious and political structures; class and social divisions; differing notions of identity and authority; relationship to intellectual culture; and varieties of patronage will all become key themes.

Because Vienna offers a unique opportunity to see the great works of both northern and southern Renaissance art collected in one place, we will make active use of the city’s collections. This will include visits to the Kunsthistorisches Museum to talk about paintings you will be studying in class (among others, this includes works by van Eyck, van der Weyden, Dürer, Baldung, Cranach, Altdorfer, Bruegel, and Heemskerck in the north; and by Mantegna, Bellini, Perugino, Messina, Raphael, Correggio, Giorgione, Titian, Veronese, Parmigianino, and Bronzino from Italy) and may also include visits to the Palais Liechtenstein and/or the Akademie der Bildenden Künste. Museum visits offer the incomparable possibility of seeing works of art in person; they, therefore, form a key component of the class.