S1107 Cultural Conservatism and Classical Innovation in the Formation of Venetian Renaissance Art

As a result of its physical, political and cultural isolation during the centuries that preceded the period of the Renaissance in Italy, Venetian art developed as a unique phenomenon, unlike that of the northern city-states on which it bordered. Its Byzantine roots (from the 6th c.), and subsequent adoption of Gothic art forms (from the 13th), in architecture, sculpture and painting, were eclectically combined in the formation of a local school of art, which was slow to absorb the innovative developments of other artistic centers. In this sense the local Venetian school remained anachronistic during most of the 14th and 15th centuries. While Italian architects were intensively studying the ten books on classical architecture by Vitruvius (1st c. B.C.) and experimenting with the renaissance of classical forms, ornate Gothic places were still being built on the Canal Grande. The new conceptions of scientific art, based on the study of optics, linear perspective, geometry and arithmetic, that already influenced the schools of Northern Italy, had little affect on Venice. Towards the second half of the 15th century, there was a gradual infiltration, primarily of Florentine and Paduan influences, which helped promote a local artistic Renaissance, one that combined indigenous traditions with more innovative approaches. The Republic of Venice developed one of the most important schools of Renaissance painting in the 16th century. Artists promoted the use of painterly effects of chiaroscuro (light and shadow) and color, with meticulous painting techniques and fascinating approaches to iconography. Its contribution to urban and rural landscape painting, to the pastoral genre, to portraiture and allegory was to influence these fields long afterwards in European art.
The course will illustrate this unique development, beginning with an introduction to the pre-Renaissance art forms of Byzantine and Gothic derivation and a brief study of the major forerunners of Venetian Renaissance painting, followed by studies of painting by the Bellini family, Carpaccio, Giorgione and Titian. Visits to the Galleria dell\'Accademia and city sites will be included in the course.\r\n

Aims of the Course

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1. This course should strengthen the student\'s identification with the city and its art, promoting his sensitivity to the myriad visual aspects of its panorama, including architecture, museums, and churches.
2. The questions treated in classroom discussions and the analysis of art works are designed to foster critical and analytic perceptions of art, in general, and of Venetian art, in particular.