Renaissance Art in London

Catalog description

London has some of the richest collections of renaissance art in the world. Students in this course will be brought into direct contact with a large variety of artifacts to be found in museums and galleries such as the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Library. Works by Van Eyck, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Durer and Holbein will be examined alongside those of less well-known artists. Rather than providing a standard chronological narrative of European Art History c.1400-c.1600, emphasis will be placed on subject areas such as the altarpiece and the private devotional image, the renaissance portrait, graphic practices, print culture, the materials and functions of sculpture, myth and allegory, the cabinet of curiosities, the concept of the ‘Renaissance’ itself. These topics will not be organized around traditional national or regional ‘schools’ considered in isolation from one another but instead interconnections will be explored between the development of different types, technical processes and cultural practices across the Netherlands, France, Germany and Italy. A special case will be made of the English Renaissance, in order to place it within the wider European context through additional visits to Westminster Abbey and Hampton Court.