University Bulletin
Undergraduate Degree Programs
ART H 313
(GA;IL)
Northern Renaissance Art (3) Art in northern Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, emphasizing painters such as Van Eyck, Durer, and Bruegel.
ART H 313 Northern Renaissance Art (3)
(GA;IL)
(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements.
Art History 313 explores the relationship of the visual arts to power structures, political events, and social and religious issues in the Netherlands and Germany, c. 1380-1585. Topics include the forms and functions of religious art, the place of visual representation in the governing strategies of the cra's rulers, the rising status of the artist, the new technology of printing, the complex role of visual culture in bringing about the Protestant Reformation, and the wave of destruction and censorship known as the Great Iconoclasm of 1566. Particular attention is paid to the works and careers of Jan van Eyck, Hieronymus Bosch, Albrecht Diirer and Pieter Bruegel. The course is designed to meet two principal goals. The first is to increase students' powers of visual analysis and help them build a critical vocabulary for discussing an art object's medium, composition, style, and iconography. The second is to foster an understanding of the deep implication of the visual arts in their social and cultural contexts. The course therefore involves significant material relating to political, economic and religious issues. It investigates problems in patronage, function, reception and censorship. It considers such intra- and cross-cultural issues as representations of gender. Requirements include essay exams and at least one paper. As a general education course in the arts, this course provides an introduction to Northern Renaissance art to a student of any major. This course has no prerequisite, and presumes no prior exposure to fine art. Students majoring in Art History will learn in it both the common vocabulary of the field and the outlines of the field that form the foundation for future study.