Baroque Europe: This module aims at an understanding the problem of naturalism in Baroque art by seeing it in relation to broader transformations in the culture of Europe in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. We will study the work of major artists – including Caravaggio, Bernini, Velázquez, Poussin, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Vermeer - as well as others less well known.
While the course covers both secular and sacred art, a central theme will be visual culture in the context of the reformed and revitalized Catholic Church that emerged in Europe following the tumult of the sixteenth century. Among the topics examined through the lens of art and its relationship to nature will be: how artists negotiated the new demands placed on art by the Council of Trent; debates about the relative merits of naturalism and classicism; the evolving social status of the artist; theories of imitation and originality; the emergent art market in the Protestant Netherlands; the visual culture of the triumphant Catholic Church in Baroque Rome; the role of artists in the construction of a ruling identity.
- Module Supervisor: Diana Presciutti