The Work of Renaissance Art

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

What could seem more obvious – even natural – than to study Renaissance art in Florence? So much of the painting, sculpture, and architecture produced here in the 14th-16th centuries has long been central to a collective idea not only of this city, but also of the history of western art itself. The habit of regarding European art history as a sequence artists (Giotto, Donatello, Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo...) and styles first crystallized in Renaissance Florence. But what was this art meant to do? Why was so much money spent on it, and by so many different kinds of individuals and institutions? How were projects commissioned? How were artists chosen for certain jobs? What kinds of messages or meanings were intended, and how were these shaped by patrons, artists, and others? What did it take to produce a fresco, a bronze sculpture, or a small panel painting? How were they used? In this class our focus is not on a familiar story of great innovators and evolving styles, but instead on the nuts and bolts of their jobs. This approach is useful not just as an introduction to the practical lives of art in a Renaissance city, but also as a prompt to think about the mechanisms and markets of art-making in other periods, including our own.