AHIS 453 12012 Alexander Marr

Theory and Practice in Early Modern European Art

2:00-4:50pm Thursday VKC379

This seminar will focus on Early Modern theories of art, exploring the ways in which ideas informed
the practice of painting, sculpture, architecture and collecting in Europe ca. 1550 to ca. 1680. In this
age of passionate debate about the nature and aims of the visual arts, a plethora of written works in a
range of genres (the treatise, biography, poetry and narrative prose) sought to codify, direct and
explain art’s making and meaning. Even beyond the written word, in the field of ‘painted art theory’
(i.e. pictures that do the work of theory), practitioners strove to present to their audiences
sophisticated ideas influenced by literature, philosophy and theology. In examining the relationship
between theory and practice, this course will offer students the opportunity to discover the intellectual
world in which Early Modern art was produced and consumed. We will consider topics such as the
poetics of painting; the metaphysics of image-making; the role of artists' biographies in establishing
canons of taste; the rise of artistic academies; the intersection of science and art; and debates about
classicism, sensuality, style and design. These intellectual currents will be examined within their
social contexts and in relation to the work of a wide range of artists from across the continent,
including such notable figures as Michelangelo, Titian, Vasari, the Carracci, Caravaggio, Rubens,
Bernini, Poussin, Samuel van Hoogstraten and Charles le Brun.