Mirrors of Nature, Dreams of Art: Northern Renaissance Art

3 units

This course surveys the visual culture of the Netherlands and Germany from approximately 1400 to 1550: from Burgundian court culture around the time of Jan van Eyck to the fantastic works of Hieronymous Bosch to the international renown of imperial artist Albrecht Durer and later Flemish urban culture as represented by Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Works in a variety of media will be presented in light of broader consideration of the role of art within devotional practice and the Reformation, courtly culture and the cultivation of artistic imagination, and the rise of print and popular culture. We will consider the power of images to mediate religous experience; the representation of folly and death; the social position of the artist; and the relevance of naturalism. We will also survey the predominant interpretive models that have been developed to analyze the significance of these works.