High Renaissance and Mannerism in Italy

Catalog description

Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo were all praised by the 16th-century artist and writer Giorgio Vasari for raising the visual arts to a level unrivaled since ancient Greece and Rome. This course, which spans roughly 1480-1570, explores this narrative of artistic progress, and what happened to Italian art after it reached “perfection” during the period we call the High Renaissance. Areas of focus include the rebirth of classical antiquity, the concept of artistic style, the role of class and gender in the production and consumption of visual art, and new technologies for producing visual art.