This course explores the many-facetted culture of seventeenth-century Europe by focusing on the pictorial and plastic arts. Lectures consider the extraordinary achievements of such well-known figures as Caravaggio, the Carracci, Artemisia Gentileschi, Bernini, Velazquez, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Vermeer, as well as other visually interesting but less familiar works by their contemporaries. We also examine objects like prints, maps, and cabinets in order to understand how visual culture operated at a time when the frontiers of knowledge, faith and commerce were expanding and new visual genres arising. Students learn about the place of art within scientific inquiry, religious practices, politics, cultural encounter, social and economic life.

The principal goals of this course are:

1. to familiarize you with key artistic achievements of the period;
2. to situate these works within their historical circumstances
3. to help you develop skills of visual and historical analysis.

Requirements include informed participation in class, a midterm test, a final examination, and a paper.

HISTART Categories for Concentration Distributions: D. Europe and the US, 3. Early Modern.