Who's to Blame for the Renaissance?

Undergraduate / Graduate

Gombrich once called periodization a "necessary evil," an epistemological need that nonetheless distorts what it claims to describe. This seminar takes up the problem of periodization in art history, focusing on the division between medieval and Renaissance (or "early modern") Europe. We will read foundational accounts of stylistic change alongside critiques that question periodization's ideological underpinnings and its flattening of regional diversity. Case studies may include figures long credited with inaugurating new eras, such as Giotto, Van Eyck, and Dürer, as well as objects and images that resist tidy classification. Throughout, we will ask what such divisions enable and foreclose, how they shape canons and hierarchies, and whether the medieval/Renaissance boundary looks different when viewed from outside western Europe or from other disciplines entirely. Students are encouraged to bring questions about periodization from their own subfields to bear on our discussions.