ART 347 Northern Renaissance Art: From Van Eyck to Bruegel
The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were a period of intense artistic innovation not only in Italy, but also North of the Alps. This course explores the distinct visual culture of the Low Countries (modern Belgium and the Netherlands) and Germany from the time of Jan Eyck, whose stunning depiction of mundane beauty aimed to uncover the world's divine order, to that of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, whose painting of reveling peasants and of the unusual topic broke with established conventions. Another focus will be the emergence of the medium of print, particularly the extraordinary works of Albrecht Durer, and its central role for artistic exchange in the period.