ARTH 400
Clark Visiting Professor Seminar: Art and Nature in Early Modern Italy Spring 2014
Division I
Cross-listed
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

This seminar examines the myriad relationships of art and nature in Italy from ca. 1450 to ca. 1650. Using contemporary texts and visual examples, we will address a series of connections and tensions: the relationship of art and science (what does the scientific knowledge of nature have to do with the techne of visual art?); nature as an artist and its paragone (comparison and competition) with human artifice; arts that use nature as their medium (alchemy, medicine, engineering, and the visual arts–including, most prominently, now-marginalized arts such as ceramics and horticulture); nature as an object of visual representation (meaning the depiction of the nature of things primarily, and only secondarily referring to landscape); and nature as a unique set of qualities inherent in the artist and driving art production (a constant point of reference, for example, in Vasari’s Lives of the Artists). Reading knowledge of Latin or Italian strongly suggested but not required; most readings will be done in English and alternatives will be offered where no English translation exists.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 16
Expected: 16
Class#: 3382
Grading: no pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: class participation, brief presentations of readings, a final presentation and a research paper of 15-20 pages
Extra Info: may not be taken on a pass/fail basis; not available for the Gaudino option
Prerequisites: none
Enrollment Preferences: places for 8 undergraduate [ARTH 400] and 8 graduate students [ARTH 500] assured; preference given to senior Art History majors and Graduate Program students
Distributions: Division I
Notes: This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
ARTH 500 Division I ARTH 400 Division I

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