Using the Renaissance as a starting point, these lectures will consider the ways in which art was made and understood.
Starting with issues concerning composition (perspective, form, light), and moving to external factors such as patronage, Church, State and family and new socio-cultural ideas and ideals, these sessions will take students on a journey throughout Renaissance Italy, encountering real-life intrigue, murder, sex, power and corruption as articulated through paintings and the artists who made them.
1. Renaissance in context: Movers, shakers and putting oneself 'in the picture'
2. Renaissance influencers: favourites, fads and fascinations
3. Renaissance cities and spaces: right place, right time
The academic organising this topic is Dr Jo Turney, Associate Professor of Fashion at Winchester School of Art.