Lasting Impressions: Early Modern Print Culture

3 units

The advent of movable type (the Gutenberg press) in western Europe heralded a new era, and this enabled the dissemination of information in text and image that was fundamental to the Renaissance and early modern culture in all sorts of ways, not least artistic. Alongside the use of the printing press for public ends, the early modern era witnessed some of the most remarkable artistic achievements in relief (woodblock) and intaglio (copper plate) printmaking. This seminar will study a series of charged moments in the production and consumption of printed artefacts, attending to the aesthetic, material, and epistemological significance of printed images between roughly 1480 and 1650. We will focus on the printed works of artists Lucas van Leyden, Albrecht Dürer, Marcantonio Raimondi, Hercules Segers, and Rembrandt as well as the role of printed images in the sciences. A variety of media and techniques-from early stipple engravings to chiaroscuro woodcuts and from Naturselbstdruck to sugar-lift- populate the course, as do theories of impression and the role of prints in transcultural, early modern global encounters. Students in this seminar will be directly involved in research towards an exhibition at the St. Louis Art Museum co-curated by Dr. Swan and Dr. Elizabeth Wyckoff, Curator at SLAM, slated for spring 2024. Class meetings will take place in the Study Room at the museum, where students will have ongoing access to works in the collection and discussions with museum professionals.