U.C. Berkeley History of Art

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COURSES FALL 2007

Histart 170

Early Modern French Art and Visual Culture (Renaissance to Enlightenment (4 UNITS)
Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:30-11:00
101 Moffit, CCN 05478
Todd Olson

This course will examine French art and visual culture from the 16th century to the mid 18th century. The class begins with the intricate erotic play of the School of Fontainebleau and ends with the public display of ambitious art in the monumental Salon space. We will examine Classical triumphal processions that included the spectacle of Brazilian tribal warfare; the appreciation and collecting of intimate canvases (Poussin); the early modern state’s investment in urban renewal and cultural spectacle at Versailles; the intimate and complex objects and spaces in Rococo interiors (Watteau, Boucher) and public forms of display and art criticism (Chardin, Diderot). Among our inquiries will be Feminist court culture, the literary and material cultures of humanism, the transmission of ancient Roman antiquity, models of popular and elite culture, female portraiture and the myth of préciosité, aristocratic cultural resistance and connoisseurship, the optical and philosophical furniture of the French Enlightenment, and the emergence of modern artistic institutions (public art exhibitions, lectures, academic studio training and formal art criticism). Throughout the course, the politics of gender will be central. Objects will be drawn from the late Italian Renaissance arts in France, French architecture, interior decoration, landscape architecture, painting, sculpture, visual spectacle and graphic media at Fontainebleau, Versailles and Paris (B, Re – Depending on the final paper topic).

Letters in bold following individual upper division course descriptions cite the History of Art major breadth requirement fulfilled by the course. (As=Asian, An=Ancient, Me=Medieval, R=Renaissance, B=Baroque, Mo=Modern.)