Renaissance Art

4 credits

Italian artists and critics of the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries were convinced that they were participating in a revival of the arts unparalleled since antiquity. Focusing primarily on Italy, this course traces the emergence in painting, sculpture and architecture, of an art based on natural philosophy, optical principles, and humanist values, which embodied the highest intellectual achievement and deepest spiritual beliefs of the age. Artists treated include Giotto, Donatello, Masaccio, Brunelleschi, Jan van Eyck, Mantegna, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Bramante, Durer, and Titian. Recommended preparation: VIS 20. Prerequisites: none.