ARTH 500
Clark Visiting Professor Seminar: The Image Multiplied: The Printed Image in Early Modern Europe Fall 2023
Division I
Cross-listed
This is not the current course catalog

The technology of mechanically reproducing complex visual images on paper, a development of fifteenth-century Europe, transformed the early modern world no less than the emergence of digital media has transformed our own. Techniques of woodcut, engraving and etching quickly became important media for innovation within the fine arts. At the same time, they became equally important as sources for devotional imagery, for disseminating copies of other artworks, for the expansion of knowledge through scientific illustration, and for the effective broadcasting of political and religious messages during centuries of extraordinary political and religious upheaval. In this seminar we will investigate the cultural history of printed images in Europe from the time of their emergence in the fifteenth century through the mid-eighteenth century, focusing on the changing cultural circumstances of their production and reception. We will consider the work of major printmakers such as Mantegna, Dürer, Goltzius, Rembrandt, Callot, Hogarth, and Piranesi, but also that of many lesser-known (and anonymous) artists.