ARTH 3443 - [Art & Society in Early Renaissance Italy]

(HB) (HA-AS)

Not offered 2017-2018. 4 credits. Student option grading.

C. Lazzaro.

This course examines the artistic production of fifteenth-century Italy in its social and cultural context. An educated, mercantile, and urban class is the framework for the new style of the Renaissance, which developed in Florence in the early century and spread to other city-states. Innovations of the fifteenth century–great stone palaces, painted and sculpted portraits, and representations of children–are examined along with the family structures and social and gender roles they represented. Works of art that commemorated the rituals of society–birth, education, marriage, and death-conveyed both social values and religious beliefs. Devotional practices, lay religious institutions, and religious orders all influenced artistic production. In the princely states of Urbino, Ferrara, Rimini, and Mantua, chivalry and gilded splendor gave way to the classical as the expression of authority. The course concludes with Venice, where many cultures merged.