BA Art History and French / Course details

This course promotes an understanding of the complex questions surrounding women’s involvement, both active and passive, in Italian art during the period from 1280 to 1530. The course will deal with questions of patronage, the representation of women and the ways in which different types of women –including nuns, holy women and high-ranking lay women – influenced and were influenced by art.

• To promote a critical understanding of the complex questions surrounding women’s place(s) in society and their involvement in art, active and passive, in Italy between 1280 and 1530
• To understand the mechanisms of iconography, narrative, and patronage that are in play when considering art relating to women in the period
• To situate the works and ideas studies within the wider context of debates about feminism and art history

By the end of this course students will be able to:

• Demonstrate how political, religious and social contexts are relevant to interpretations of particular artworks produced in Italy between 1280-1530
• Identify the different ways in which women participated in and were affected by art produced in Italy between 1280 and 1530
• Explain the restriction and the opportunities that shaped women’s patronage of art, depiction in art, and use of art during the period being studied

Topics covered may include:

Aristocratic female patronage:

• Fina Buzzacarina and the Baptistery in Padua
• Maria of Hungary and Santa Maria Donna Regina in Naples
• Sancia of Majorca and Santa Chiara in Naples
• Isabella de’Este

Women and the convent:

• The Santa Chiara Dossal in Assisi
• The Saint Humility Altarpiece

Portraiture:

• Profile portraits of women in the quattrocento
• Three-quarter portraits

Women and art for the home:

• Painted marriage furniture

Representing holy women:

• The Virgin Mary
• Female saints

The woman artist

This course is seminar based. Student will participate in class discussion based on set reading. Readings will be available via BlackBoard.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

• Be familiar with both the restrictions and the opportunities that shaped women’s patronage of art, production of art, depiction in art, and use of art
• Have gained a thorough knowledge of relevant works of art of the period
• Be able to relate these works of art to the major critical and methodological questions involved in assessing Renaissance women from a twenty-first century viewpoint
• Demonstrate the ability to locate, select, organise, interpret, evaluate and present material appropriate to the course.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

• Analyse images relating to the course unit
• Read and critically analyse written sources relating to women and art in late medieval and renaissance Italy
• Critically evaluate secondary source material
• Produce a well-reasoned argument on specific issues or debates surrounding women and art in late medieval and renaissance Italy

By the end of this course students will be able to:

• Produce detailed visual analyses
• Produce carefully honed critical readings of written sources
• Carry out supervised research
• Produce a professionally presented and coherently argued essay
• Give a presentation using PowerPoint and, if necessary, handouts
• Be able to discuss and evaluates the views of different scholars who have written on women and art in late medieval and renaissance Italy

By the end of this course students will be able to:

• Carry out supervised research using available resources
• Critically evaluate written and visual sources
• Present coherent arguments in written work
• Manage time effectively in order to complete assignments
• Present material in class using PowerPoint and respond to questions arising from the presentation
• Use PowerPoint and Word in order to present work professionally
• Respond to feedback in order to improve their study skills and understanding of material discussed in class

• Written feedback on presentation
• Written feedback on the essay
• Additional one-to-one feedback (during consultation hour or by making an appointment)

Broude, Norma, and Garrard, Mary D. (eds), Feminism and Art History. Questioning the Litany, New York: Harper and Row, 1982

Broude, Norma, and Garrard, Mary D. (eds), The Expanding Discourse. Feminism and Art History, Boulder: Westview Press, 1992

King, Catherine E., Renaissance Women Patrons, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998

Tinagli, Paola, Women in Italian Renaissance Art: Gender, Representation, Identity, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997

Chadwick, Whitney, ‘Art History and the Woman Artist’, ‘The Middle Ages’ and ‘The Renaissance Ideal’ in Women, Art and Society, London and New York: Thames and Hudson, 1990, 15-77

Mosher Stuard, Susan, Women in Medieval History and Historiography, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987

Coakley, John, ‘Introduction’ in E. Ann Matter and John Coakley, eds, Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern Italy (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), 1-16.

Reiss, Sheryl E., and Wilkins, David G., Beyond Isabella: secular women patrons of art in Renaissance Italy, Kirksville: Truman State University Press, 2001