************************************************************ ARTH310: Painting and Presence Theory of the Image, 1350-1550 12:40-2:10 TR [email protected] office hours: MWF noon-3 p.m. TR 8-10 a.m. and by appointment ************************************************************ The Goal: “Als Ich Kan” (As I Can: the best that I can) reads the top of the painting’s frame. Who, or what, is the I? And what is it that it is striving to do? A clue in the words at the bottom: “Jan van Eyck made me Year 1433 21 October.” So is it the painting that speaks? Or perhaps the Man in the Red Turban whose penetrating stare holds us? What does it mean for a painting to speak, to be present? What does it mean for a face, a person, an identity to be present through painting? This course seeks to understand painting’s ability to evoke presence in the late Middle Ages. How does it do so? Whose presence? What are the differences between divine and human presence? These questions are pressing in this period of theological controversy (the rise of Protestantism and the defense of Catholicism), artistic innovation (the emergence of portraiture and oil painting), and scientific discovery (the adaptation of perspective and the camera obscura). We will consider the roles that materiality, perspective, ritual, devotion, salvation, originality, verisimilitude and beauty played in this chapter of the history of the image – a chapter that our modern desires for authenticity in art indicate is still being written. Together, we will explore and analyze the theory of the image in its haunting and lasting ability to make the absent present, the invisible visible, and the abstract available. W.I.M.: In accordance with new writing requirements at DePauw, this course may be taken for WIM (Writing In the Major) credit for art history majors. The goal of the WIM course is to introduce students to ways of writing that are more specific to the major itself. The concern that these works of art have for representation and reality has produced art historical scholarship that works very closely with the theory of the image: what does it mean for something to look real? How do images trigger emotions? What do we want from images? And what might they want from us? Writing will range from the technical and material (oil painting, perspective) to the ideological and philosophical (is realism a Western preoccupation? Are images agents of change?). The WIM Writings: Each student will have a chance to work out three fundamental skills of art history writing: close looking, iconography, and socio-historical context. These three skills furnish one of the main interpretive goals of art history: to better understand the effect of works of art upon their audiences, past and present. I have provided brief descriptions of the three skills and their goal in the final paper below, but will of course provide longer assignments and discussions throughout the semester. Due dates for each writing are also listed below: in addition to the rewrites for each, there will be peer reviews and one-on-one conferences to sustained your writing progress. All writings are due on Moodle at noon on the due date. • Discovery Notice (close looking, evocative ekphrasis/description) o 9.26 Discovery Notice; 10.8 Discovery Notice rewrite • Object Lesson (prioritizing visual elements, researching iconography in other images) o 10.17 Object Lesson; 11.5 Object Lesson rewrite • Guild Letter (socio-historical context of artist, philosophical statement about image) o 11.14 Guild Letter; 11.26 Guild Letter rewrite These three shorter papers will then be edited and recombined to create your final writing: • Image Mission Document (effect of the painting upon original and subsequent audiences) o 12.10 Image Mission; EXAM WEEK Image Mission rewrite The Daily Writings: I am a firm believer in the mantra “writing to learn,” especially as it pertains to writing’s ability to crystalize and clarify ideas. I will provide writing prompts for each class day that serve to guide your reading and begin to focus your writing. You can think of these daily writings as an informal correspondence between ourselves: a chance for you to ask questions, single out something you found especially engaging or difficult in the readings, and/or test against ideas you are having about your paper or the class in general. Class Participation: The seminar format will allow for some wonderful discussion of the works of art before us. I await your responses and questions to the works of art with great anticipation and will look to work out a continuously developing thesis about image and presence throughout the semester. Class attendance and preparedness is of primary importance: since we do not have a textbook for this class, there is the expectation that you will print out the readings and bring them to class. All readings are available as PDFs on Moodle. After two absences, your grade is affected and my concern alerted – please stay in touch with me about any developments that might prevent you from journeying with us in this class. I am hoping that DePauw’s busy schedule will allow us to travel to IU-Bloomington to see their Northern Renaissance art – they have some surprising pieces that would be wonderful for us to work with. Please keep the departmental Chicago Trip in mind this fall as well – the Art Institute has one of the loveliest weeping virgins ever painted… The grades Class participation: 15% Daily writings: 15% Discovery Notice and rewrite (averaged): 10% Object Lesson and rewrite (averaged): 15% Guild Letter and rewrite (separately add up to): 20% Image Mission and rewrite (separately add up to): 25% The “WIM” requirement is achieved by attaining an average grade of B- or higher for the writing done in the course. I will work closely with each of you to attain that goal. OUR CALENDAR Thursday, August 29: Intro Tuesday, September 3: Materiality: Petrus Christus Goldsmith in his Shop Bret Rothstein, “Forms of Interest,” from Sight and Spirituality in Early Netherlandish Painting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005: 1-19. Marina Belozerskaya, “Early Netherlandish Diptychs as Surrogate Luxuries,” in Essays in Context; Unfolding the Netherlandish Diptychs ed. John Oliver Hand. Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museum, 2006: 61-71. Thursday, September 5: Materiality and Identity: Petrus Christus Goldsmith in his Shop Hugo Van Velden, “Defrocking St. Eloy: Petrus Christus’s ‘Vocational Portrait of a Goldsmith’,” Simiolus 26:4 (1998): 242-276. Diane Wolfthal,.“Picturing Same-Sex Desire: The Falconer and His Lover in Images by Petrus Christus and the Housebook Master,” in Troubled Vision: Gender, Sexuality, and Sight in Medieval Text and Image. ed. Emma Campbell and Robert Mills. Palgrave MacMillan, 2004: 17-46. Tuesday, September 10: Space Jan van Eyck The Arnolfini Portrait and the Lucca Madonna Carol M. Richardson, “Perspective North of the Alps,” in Making Renaissance Art. ed. Kim W. Woods. New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the Open University Press, 2007: 88-100. James Elkins, “On the Arnolfini Portrait and the Lucca Madonna: Did Jan van Eyck Have a Perspectival System?,” Art Bulletin 73:1 (March, 1991): 53-62. Thursday, September 12: Space and Face The Veronica/Vera Icon and a visit from John Berry! Noa Turel, “Living Pictures: Rereading ‘au vif,’ 1350-1550,” Gesta 50:2 (2011): 163-182. Gerhard Wolf, “Christ in His Beauty and Pain: Concepts of Body and Image in an Age of Transition (Late Middle Ages and Renaissance”) in The Art of Interpreting, ed. by Susan C. Scott. Pennsylvania State University, 1995: 165-180. Tuesday, September 17: screening of Van Eyck (BBC) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXjm0wcnsug Thursday, September 19: Face and Identity Jan van Eyck Tymotheos Erwin Panofsky,” “Who Is Jan van Eyck’s ‘Tymotheos’,?” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 12 (1949): 80-90. Tuesday, September 24: Identity and Mystery Jan van Eyck The Man in the Red Turban Paul van Calster, “Of Beardless Painters and Red Chaperons. A Fifteenth-Century Whodunit,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 66:4 (2003): 465-492. Thursday, September 26: Discovery Notice due + peer review Tuesday, October 1: Reality and Verisimilitude Jan van Eyck The Arnolfini Portrait Linda Seidel, “The Value of Verisimilitude in the Art of Jan van Eyck,” Yale French Studies 1991: 25- 43. Erwin Panofsky, “Reality and Symbol in Early Flemish Painting: ‘spiritualia sub metaphoris corporalium’,” in Early Netherlandish Painting. Harvard University Press, 1971: 131-148. David Carrier, “Allegory in Flemish Art: Comparative Interpretations of Jan van Eyck and Robert Campin,” in Principles of Art History Writing. Pennsylvania University Press, 1991: 81-98. Thursday, October 3: Disguised Symbolism Jan van Eyck The Arnolfini Portrait Jan Baptist Bedaux, “The Reality of Symbols: the Question of Disguised Symbolism in Jan van Eyck’s ‘Arnolfini Portrait’,” Simiolus 16:1 (1986): 5-28. John L. Ward, “Disguised Symbolism as Enactive Symbolism in Van Eyck’s Paintings,” Artibus et Historiae 15:29 (1994): 9-53. Tuesday, October 8: Disguised Symbolism Debate Jan van Eyck The Arnolfini Portrait Discovery Notice rewrite due Linda Seidel, “ ‘Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait’: Business as Usual?” Critical Inquiry 16:1 (Autumn, 1989): 54-86. Edwin Hall, “Problems of Symbolic Interpretation,” in The Arnolfini Betrothal; Medieval Marriage and the Enigma of van Eyck’s Double Portrait. University of California Press, 1994: 95-133. Margaret D. Carroll, “The Merchant’s Mirror: Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait,” in Painting and Politics in Northern Europe. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008: 2-27. Thursday, October 10: Vision and Presence Jan van Eyck Chancellor Rolin; Canon van der Paele Laura D. Gelfand and Walter S. Gibson, “Surrogate Selves: The ‘Rolin Madonna’ and the Late- Medieval Devotional Portrait,” Simiolus 29:3/4 (2002): 1191-138.