Art Theory

 

Seminar questions

1. Discuss the influence of humanism on the development of art theory in Renaissance Italy.

 

2. How influential was art theory in raising the status of painting?

 

3. What was at stake in the discussion of the paragone?

 

 

Suggested reading

Blunt, Anthony, Artistic Theory in Italy, 1450-1600, Oxford 1956, chs. 1-3, 5-7, 9 [N 65.I8]

 

Clark, Kenneth, ‘Leon Battista Alberti on painting’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 30 (1944), pp. 283-302 [Arts Periodicals]

 

Farago, Claire J. (ed), Leonardo da Vinci’s Paragone: A Critical Interpretation with a New Edition of the Text in the Codex Urbinas, Leiden 1992 [ND 1130.F2]

 

Grafton, Anthony, Leon Battista Alberti: Master Builder of the Italian Renaissance, New York 2000 [NA 1123.A5]

 

Lee, Rensselaer W., Ut Pictura Poesis: The Humanist Theory of Painting, New York 1967 [ND 1133.L3]

 

Quiviger, Francois, Renaissance Art Theories, in A Companion to Art Theory, ed. by Paul Smith and Carolyn Wilde, Oxford 2002, pp. 49-60 [N 7475.C6]

 

Sohm, Philip L., Style in the Art Theory of Early Modern Italy, Cambridge 2001 [N 6916.S6]

 

Spencer, John R., ‘Ut Rethorica Pictura. A Study in Quattrocento Theory of Painting’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 20 (1957), pp. 26-44 [Arts Periodicals]

 

Summers, David, Michelangelo and the Language of Art, Princeton 1981 [NB 623.M4]

 

Summers, David, The Judgement of Sense: Renaissance Naturalism and the Rise of Aestethics, Cambridge 1987 [BH 301.S3]

 

Westfall, C.W., ‘Painting and the Liberal Arts. Alberti’s View’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 30 (1969), pp. 487-506 [Jstor]

 

Wilde, Carolyn, Alberti and the Formation of Modern Art Theory, in A Companion to Art Theory, ed. by Paul Smith and Carolyn Wilde, Oxford 2002, pp. 3-18 [N 7475.C6]

 

Williams, Robert, Art, Theory, and Culture in Sixteenth-Century Italy: From Techne to Metatechne, Cambridge 1997 [N 6915.W4]

 

William, Robert, Art Theory: An Historical Introduction, Oxford 2004, chs. 1-2 [xerox]

 

Wittkower, Rudolph, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, New York 1973 [NA 520.W4]