Art in the Age of Dante and Giotto: Late Medieval Art in Italy ARH 363/EUS 347 Fall 2011 Professor: Dr. Ann Johns Meeting place and time: MWF 12:00-12:50, DFA 2.204 Unique Numbers: 20415(ARH), 36298 (EUS) Contact Information: [email protected], office 471-1936 (it is easier to contact me via email) Office Hours: DFA 2.520, MWF 10:00-11:45 and by appointment Mailbox: DFA 2.526 (Drawing of Giotto’s lost Navicella, St. Peter’s) Course Objectives: “In painting Cimabue thought he held the field, and now it’s Giotto they acclaim— the former only keeps a shadowed fame.” --Dante, Purgatorio, Canto XI, 97-99, c. 1308 “To move now from the ancients to new things (ad nova)...I know two new/outstanding painters (novi pictores)...Giotto, a Florentine citizen whose reputation is very great among the moderns (modernos), and Simone [Martini] of Siena. --Petrarch, Letters on Familiar Matters I- VIII , c. 1360 “[Giotto] was a man of such outstanding genius that there was nothing in the whole of creation that he could not depict with this stylus, pen, or brush. And so faithful did he remain to Nature…that whatever he depicted had the appearance, not of a reproduction, but of the thing itself.” 1 --Boccaccio, Decameron, 6th day, 5th story, c. 1350 The later Middle Ages in Italy (1200-1400) produced some of the most important monuments and works in the history of Western Art. Artists such as Giotto, Duccio, Nicola and Giovanni Pisano, and Arnolfo di Cambio were energized by new artistic influences and supported by the emerging merchant classes of Italian city-states. In fact, these artists and their patrons created works so different from the art of their immediate past that scholars have had a difficult time naming this furiously creative moment in the history of art. Is this art, contemporary with the great age of the courts in northern Europe, “Gothic” in nature? Is this “proto-Renaissance” period a precursor to the “real” Florentine Renaissance of the 15th century? We will examine these central questions at both the beginning and at the end of the semester, but between, we’ll see artists such as Duccio explore new modes and uses of narrative in art, we’ll see Giotto bring an unprecedented level of emotion, naturalism, and gravitas to his painting, and we’ll see Nicola Pisano and his son, Giovanni, merge the dominant sculptural modes of the Gothic style and Classicism into something uniquely Italian. We will focus on the key artists and artistic centers of central Italy—Florence, Siena, Rome, Assisi, and Pisa, with brief forays into both southern Italy (Capua and Naples) and northern Italy (Padua and Verona). Nicola Pisano’s Siena pulpit, Arrival of the Magi There is no prerequisite, but you will be able to make more sense out of the material if you’ve had some art history, architectural history, Italian history, and/or European history of the era. If you have concerns, please contact me early in the course. It is my hope that this class will be a collaborative effort. Throughout the course, I hope and expect to hear your impressions, insights, and questions about these extraordinary objects and structures. This means you should come to class having done the readings and prepared to talk! Required Readings: Our required textbooks are two “classic” (i.e. older) studies of the era: Giotto: The Arena Chapel Frescoes (ed. James Stubblebine, Norton Critical Studies in Art History, 1979) and Millard Meiss’ Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death (Princeton, 1951). Just as a warning, the Coop usually under-orders textbooks, so make sure you get your copies soon! There will also be a copy of these books on reserve in the Fine Arts Library (FAL). 2 In addition, there will be a number of other required readings posted on Blackboard. The readings, and the discussion of the readings, are the heart of this class, and consequently, I have put less emphasis on both exams and writing. You will be responsible for all class and reading material on exams. As you will see, below, it is critical that you come to class prepared and having done the readings, so that you can participate in classroom discussions (part of your grade). There are no good textbooks for the subject material of this class, but the first few chapters of most any book on the Italian Renaissance usually will often discuss some of the later material covered in this course. Perhaps the best is Paoletti and Radke’s Art in Renaissance Italy, but there are other good textbooks (Hartt and Wilkins, History of Italian Renaissance Art, Laurie Schneider Adams, Italian Renaissance Art, etc.). There are also less useful textbooks on medieval art that might come in handy, such as James Snyder’s Medieval Art and Marilyn Stokstad’s Medieval Art. Here are a few (marginally) useful websites: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/iptg/hd_iptg.htm http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/ http://www.giottoagliscrovegni.it/eng/home.html http://www.ducciodibuoninsegna.org/ http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/07/11/050711fa_fact http://www.opapisa.it/ http://www.duomofirenze.it/index-eng.htm You have almost unlimited electronic resources through our Library. A particularly useful resource is Oxford Art Online, which you need to access through UT Direct (https://login.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/login?qurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.oxfordartonline.com%2f). Studying Strategies: A number of study guides, plans, etc. will be available throughout the semester, and all handouts will be posted on Blackboard. All of our readings will be posted on Blackboard, and all images for which you will be responsible can be found on DASe (under JOHNS ART AGE DANTE GIOTTO I and II). I strongly suggest that you begin organizing your notes (class and reading) and begin learning the images we cover throughout the semester, and not wait until the day before each exam. There is no way that you will be able to remember all of this material unless you study the images as we learn about them. If you have questions or issues, please feel free to contact me via email or office visits. In this class, it is very important that you do the reading, and this is reflected in you assignments. The reading is not always “thrilling”, but it’s necessary for a fuller understanding of how art and artists developed during this critical juncture in Western art. I will expect you to have digested the main points of reading for both class discussions and exams; you will be recording your summaries and insights in a reading journal (see below for details). Remember to read for the main points; don’t get bogged down by the myriad of small details that constitute a scholarly article or book. I will explain this further when we discuss the reading journal, reading responses, and other assignments. 3 All your digital image reserves will be located on DASe, UT’s digital image data base (more below). Look at these images often; experience has proven that you CANNOT absorb all of these images in one (or 2 or 3) nights. Most of us need some time to accumulate our “image banks”, so start early. Make flash cards. Look at your book. Consult your notes. Look at the images on DASe (see below). Create your own image data base on DASe (I’ll show you how in class). Form study groups. Learning to look at art and architecture is a skill, just like learning a language or mastering calculus. For some of you, this material will all come easily; for others, it will be a struggle. Start your studies early on. There is a very high correlation between following these study strategies and receiving a good grade. I will be giving you extra credit opportunities to go along with the two exams. Please remember that there is no standard textbook for this class. You will miss important information if you skip class, which is why we have an attendance requirement. Image Data Base (DASe) and Blackboard: The images for which you will be responsible can be found on UT’s DASe data base: https://dase.laits.utexas.edu/. The images are divided into 2 collections, one for each of the exams (JOHNS ART AGE DANTE GIOTTO I and II). Detailed instructions are posted on the course Blackboard site. These are the images that I will show on your exams, and many of them are also included in the reading. You can also take class notes directly onto the DASe data base. We will review the DASe site in class. If a key image is not included on the DASE data base, I will post it as a powerpoint or jpeg onto Blackboard. I will also post lecture powerpoints on Blackboard, shortly before class; this has proven to be a useful way to take notes. I guarantee that glancing at the powerpoint is no substitute for coming to class, as I include very little written information (“metadata”) on each image, other than title, artist, and date, so do not assume that the posted powerpoint is a substitute for class. Students have found these posted powerpoints useful for reviewing the information covered in a given day’s class. Please note that if students abuse this by spending time on Facebook, etc., I will no longer allow laptops in class. 4 Pisa Duomo Complex, c. 1900 Grading: There will be two exams in this course (Exam I=25%, Exam II=25%). Each exam will consist of 2 parts: short answer IDs and one longer essay question.