ART 356 Topics in 17th Century Art: Artemisia Gentileschi & Caravaggio
This course examines the lives and art of two seventeenth-century Italian painters, whose dramatic biographies have often informed, and sometimes overshadowed, the interpretation of their art. Caravaggio and Artemisia are beloved by scholars and the public alike, and have been the subjects of intense study in recent years. Their careers are exemplary of the many social, economic, cultural and psychological obstacles contemporary artists faced, and of the methods by which they overcame these in the pursuit of artistic achievement, livelihood and fame. The following are among the many questions this course will consider: to what extent did the artist's personal experience necessarily inform his/her art, and what other historical forces may have conditioned it? How did Artemisia assimilate stylistic innovations first introduced by Caravaggio, and how did she subsequently develop a style of painting that enabled her to compete with male painters? Why have these two artists come to dominate the study of Italian Baroque art and what can they tell us about the nature of artistic culture in this period?