History of European Art: Traveling Artists and Artwork

Course description

This course explores European art from the 15th to the 20th century with a particular focus on the travels of artists between urban centers like Florence, Rome, Venice, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Paris, London, and Berlin. The aim is to analyze how mobility contributed through the centuries to shape local identities as well as European visual cultural traditions and styles common to different countries. The course will present iconic moments of the history of the arts in Europe by drawing special attention to episodes of cultural exchanges and hybridization that arose from traveling artworks as well as from artists’ travels. From the impact of Flemish art in 15th century Italy to the stays of artists like Raphael and Michelangelo in the early 16th-century papal Rome; from the rise of genre painting in the Flanders and the Dutch Republic during the Age of Explorations to the ‘painters of modern life in 19th-century Paris, and the European network of the Avant-gardes in the 1910s-1920s, we will analyze the artworks and their authors in relation to the different historical contexts and the places of their creation. Recurrent will be the focus on the complex interplay between artists and patrons, between local traditions, individual creativity, and the broader social, political, and cultural contexts in which artworks and buildings were produced. Students will gain an understanding of the main art movements and relevant artists from the Renaissance to the postwar period and the special role played by travels in giving shape to a European cultural space. Visits to the outstanding collections of Berlin museums will allow the participants to study original artifacts and to learn how to look closely at works of art.