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TENTATIVE – SUBJECT TO CHANGE
Art 315: Northern Baroque Art
Instructor: Dr. Ingrid Cartwright
Delivered in Amsterdam and Paris, Summer 2013
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 270-535-3311
Overview
From the late sixteenth through the seventeenth century, Northern Europe experienced the
flowering of an unprecedented golden age of art. The era is marked by “big names” like
Rembrandt, Hals, Vermeer, Rubens, Van Dyck, and Poussin, but too by an explosion of new
varieties of art and new types of patrons. In this course we will focus on the paintings, prints,
and drawings created during this era in Flanders (present-day Belgium) and the Dutch Republic
(present-day Netherlands), as well as the art and architecture of France. We will examine the
dynamic artistic traditions that emerged during this period of great political and religious crisis,
and how art reacted and related to the changing world. We will also explore the myriad
specialized pictorial genres that flourished including still life, landscape, portraiture, and genre
painting. Moreover, we will investigate issues central to art and art-making of this time
including: the rise of the open art market, the culture and currency of prints, the impact of
globalization and scientific observation, moralizing impulses in art, classicism and the French
Academy, and the question of realism.
Required:
Ann Sutherland Harris, Seventeenth-Century Art (2008)
Mariët Westerman, A Worldy Art: The Dutch Republic, 1585-1718 (Yale, 1996)
Recommended:
Hans Vlieghe, Flemish Art & Architecture, 1585-1700 (Yale, 2003)
Seymour Slive, Dutch Painting, 1600-1800 (Yale, 1995)
Anthony Blunt, Art & Architecture in France, 1500-1700 (Yale, 1999)
Grading
Because there is no opportunity to administer exams during the trip, your grade will be based
on a series of essays and critical responses based upon the content of the trip, including
assigned readings and on-site instruction. Therefore, it is advisable to bring a small, portable
notebook with a pencil (not a pen..museums don’t allow them), and take notes during the trip.
The essay topics (you will have a choice of several) will be emailed to you approximately 24
hours after we return home, and will consist of three response papers, each 5-7 pages in length.
You will, however, have plenty of time to complete them (due date: August 1, 2013).
Behavior: Proper behavior and respect for those around you, especially being on time, is
essential for the success of any study abroad trip. While I am not awarding you any “points” for
acceptable conduct, I reserve the right to deduct points or fail any student that does not
comport themselves in an acceptable way (more information about what constitutes
acceptable and unacceptable behavior will be outlined during our final meeting before
departure)
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Students with Disabilities
In compliance with university policy, students with disabilities who require academic and/or
auxiliary accommodations for this course must contact the Office for Student Disability Services
in Downing University Center, A-200. The phone number is 270 745 5004. Please DO NOT
request accommodations directly from the professor or instructor without a letter of
accommodation from the Office for Student Disability Services.
Plagiarism and Cheating
If you plagiarize or cheat in this class, you will receive an F for the course, and will be referred to
the university administration for further disciplinary action.
According to WKU:
“To represent ideas or interpretations taken from another source as one’s own is plagiarism.
Plagiarism is a serious offense. The academic work of students must be their own. Students
must give the author(s) credit for any source material used. To lift content directly from a source
without giving credit is a flagrant act. To present a borrowed passage after having changed a few
words, even if the source is cited, is also plagiarism.” “No student shall receive or give assistance
not authorized by the instructor in taking an examination or in the preparation of an essay,
laboratory report, problem assignment, or other project that is submitted for purposes of grade
determination.”
Class Schedule
Background to complete before
trip
Sun. June 2: Depart Nashville
Mon, June 3: Amsterdam
Work on required readings & preliminary recorded lectures:
1. Background lecture: It’s 1585, Do You Know who is
Occupying Antwerp?
2. Background lecture: Existing Traditions, Artistic
Transition & the Hand of Hendrick Goltzius (Reading:
Wouter Th. Kloek, “Northern Netherlandish Art, 15801620, A Survey,” In Dawn of the Golden Age: Northern
Netherlandish Art, 1580-1620) (1993), 15-24.
3. Background lecture: A Dutch Golden Age
4. Background lecture: The Southern-Northern Baroque:
Flemish Art & Rubens
5. Background lecture: The French Situation
Arrive Amsterdam; Van Gogh Museum (afternoon)
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Visit: Amsterdam Historical Society; Nieuwe Kerk; Royal Palace
(Amsterdam Town Hall)
Tues, June 4: Amsterdam
Theme: The Dutch Republic: The Golden Age, Prosperity &
Charity
Read: Slive, Dutch Art, 7-17; 177-181; Westermann, A Worldly
Art, 17-46
Visit: Rembrandthuis; Walking tour of canal houses
Weds, June 5: Amsterdam
Theme: Rembrandt, Fame & Fortune
Read: Eric Jan Sluijter, “‘Horrible Nature, Incomparable Art,’:
Rembrandt & the Depiction of the Female Nude,” Rembrandt’s
Women, (2001): 37-47
Ernst van der Wetering, “The Multiple Functions of Rembrandt’s
Self-Portraits,” in Rembrandt By Himself, (1999), 8-37.; Harris,
339-345
Visit: Museum Amstelkring
Theme: Calvinists & Catholics: Religious Tolerance and
Schuilkerken
Read: Martin Praak, The Dutch Republic in the 17th Century,
chapter on religious pluralism (201-221)
Visit: Rijksmuseum; (Stedelijk Museum)
Theme: Unstill Lives: The Many Faces, Places, & Spaces of Dutch
Art
Thurs, June 6: Amsterdam
Read: Westermann, 116-130; Julie Hochstrasser, Still Life and
Trade in the Dutch Golden Age (excerpt);
Eddy de Jongh, “Realism and Seeming Realism in SeventeenthCentury
Dutch Painting,” in Looking at SeventeenthCentury Dutch Art: Realism Reconsidered (Cambridge, 1997), 2156.
Lecture: On Rembrandt’s Nightwatch
Lecture: Vermeer and the Art of Painting
Visit: Day Trip to Haarlem; Frans Hals Museum; Walking Tour of
Hofjes and visit to Windmill de Adriaan
Fri, June 7: Haarlem
Theme: Frans Hals: Portraiture Transformed
Read: Paul Knevel, “Armed Citizens: Representations of Civic
Militias in the 17th Century,” in Public & Private in Dutch Culture
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in the Golden Age (2000) 85-99
Theme: Dutch Lives: Windmills & Tulipmania
Read: Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches, 343-365
Sat, June 8: Amsterdam
Free Day in Amsterdam!
Sun, Jun 9: Travel to Paris
Train to Paris
Visit: The Louvre
Mon, Jun 10: Paris
Theme: The Flemish in France: Peter Paul Rubens & Marie de
Medici
Read: Geraldine Johnson, “Pictures fit for a Queen: Peter Paul
Rubens and the Marie de’Medici Cycle,” Art History 16 (1993):
447-69;
Theme: French Painting: Classics & Carravaggists
Read: Elizabeth Cropper and Charles Dempsey, Nicolas Poussin:
Friendship and the Love of Painting (Princeton, 1998), ch. 5;
Harris, 270-315
Lecture: Classicism in Painting & the French Academy
Visit: Sainte-Chappelle; Pantheon; Luxembourg Gardens; Eiffel
Tower
Tues, June 11: Paris
Theme: Formal Gardens & Mirrors
Read: Allen Weiss, Mirrors of Infinity: The French Formal Garden
and 17th-Century Metaphysics (1996), 8-31.
Visit: Orangerie; Musee D'Orsay; Musee Rodin, Les Invalides
Weds, June 12: Paris
Theme: The Architecture of Louis XIV & Colbert
Today is an intro; please complete before we go to Versailles:
Anthony Blunt, Art & Architecture in France, 1550-1750, pp. 215231.
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Thurs, June 13: Paris
Visit: Musée Marmattan, Musée d'Art-Moderne
Visit: Chateau de Versailles (morning guided tour of chateau,
afternoon walking tour of gardens)
Fri, June 14: Paris
Theme: Versailles & Baroque
Guy Walton, Louis XIV's Versailles (University of Chicago, 1986),
13-34
Sat, June 15: Paris
Pompidou Center; Musee Carnivalet; Walking tour of Hôtel
Particuliers in Le Marais (Hôtel Sully, Hôtel de Beauvais)
Sun, June 16: Paris
Free Day/Optional Trip to Giverny to see the Terra Foundation
and Monet’s Studio
Mon, Jun 17: Return Home
Rest, Reflect, and…write!
TBD
Papers Due