CLARTAH025 - Renaissance Art: From Giotto to Michelangelo
Join art historian Dr. Diane Wolfthal to explore European art from the early Renaissance of the 14th century through the High Renaissance and Mannerism of the 16th century. We will examine several masterpieces in great depth including Giotto’s Arena Chapel, Jan van Eyck’s “Arnolfini Portrait,” Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights,” Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” and Michelangelo’s “David” and Sistine Chapel, among others. Painting and sculpture are studied through multiple lenses including the latest scientific analysis of art, personal and period style, subject matter and meaning, function, patronage, and social, historical, religious or economic context. When relevant, issues of gender, class and race will be discussed. The meaning of realism, the physical production of art, its relationship to religious devotion and the rise of capitalism, the rise of artistic specialties, and cultural exchange between Flanders and Italy will be among the subjects explored.
Course Details
Diane Wolfthal, Ph.D., is the David and Caroline Minter Endowed Chair Emerita in the Humanities and a professor emerita of art history at Rice University. She specializes in late medieval and early modern European art and culture. Dr. Wolfthal formerly taught at Columbia and Cambridge Universities. Her most recent book is “Household Servants and Slaves: A Visual History, 1300–1700” (Yale University Press, 2022). She is also guest curating an exhibition, “Medieval Money, Merchants, and Morality,” for the Morgan Library and Museum in New York.
On Campus
This course will be delivered on campus / in person. Parking and room information will be sent prior to the class start date.
- Introduction, Berlinghieri’s “Saint Francis,” Giotto’s Arena Chapel
- Limbourg brothers’ Tres Riches Heures, Masaccio’s Brancacci Chapel
- Master of Flémalle’s Mérode Altarpiece, Jan van Eyck’s “Arnolfini Portrait”
- Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” Raphael’s “Madonna of the Goldfinch,” Michelangelo’s “David”/Giorgione’s “Sleeping Venus”
- Hugo van der Goes’s Portinari Altarpiece, Dürer prints
- Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights,” Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel
Department of Art History, Rice University