To Teach, Delight, and Stir the Soul: Theatricality and the Spectator in Early Modern Rome…

Catalog description

Across the streets, churches, and palaces of Rome, artists, patrons and popes harnessed the persuasive power of art to “to teach, delight, and stir the soul” of spectators. This seminar explores the professed theatricality of art produced in seventeenth-century Rome and the strategies used to engage and absorb the viewer. Examples of painting, sculpture, print, and architecture will be considered in the context of Counter-Reformation reforms and emerging artistic theories such as Bernini’s bel composto and Bellori’s Idea. Modern theoretical discussions about theatricality and spectatorship in visual art will also be considered. Students will also be asked to consider the lasting impact of Baroque art and theatricality today. A