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Gender and Sexuality in Italian Baroque Painting Approaches to Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi
Donald Posner, “Caravaggio’s Homo-erotic Early Works,” Art Quarterly 34 (1975), pp. 301-324. Creighton Gilbert, Caravaggio and His Two Cardinals (University Park, PA, 1995), chpts. 12, 13 & Conclusion, pp. 191-261. Genevieve Warwick, “Allegories of Eros: Caravaggio’s Masque,” in G. Warwick, ed., Realism, Rebellion, Reception (Newark, 2006), pp. 82-90. Linda Nochlin, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?,” in Women, Art and Power and Other Essays (New York, 1983), pp. 145-177, 1st publ. 1971. Mary Garrard, Artemisia Gentileschi, The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art (Princeton, 1989), esp. chpts. 2-3, pp. 141-209 and chpts. 5-6, pp. 278-370. Keith Christiansen and Judith Mann, eds,, Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi, exh. cat. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2001), esp. Elizabeth Cropper’s essay “Life on the Edge: Artemisia Gentileschi, Famous Woman Painter,” p. 263-281 & Judith Mann’s essay “Artemisia and Orazio Gentileschi,” pp. 249-261. Griselda Pollock, Review of Mary Garrard, Artemisia Gentileschi, The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art, The Art Bulletin 72 (1990), pp. 499-505.
Evaluate the varying approaches to interpreting the role played by gender in the paintings of Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi. Is Caravaggio’s early work “homoerotic”? Should Artemisia’s art be considered “proto-feminist”? Develop an informed position on these debated issues in dialogue with the readings listed above, in addition to at least three other sources. Question 2: Bernini and the Popes
Francis Haskell, Patrons and Painters: A Study in the Relation between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque (New York, 1963), esp. chpts 1-2, pp. 3-62 and chpt 7, pp. 168-202. Irving Lavin, Bernini and the Crossing of St. Peter’s (New York, 1968). Genevieve Warwick, Bernini: Art as Theater (New Haven & London, 2012), chpt. 4, pp. 131-185. Richard Krautheimer, The Rome of Alexander VII, 1665-1667 (Princeton, 1985). Compare and contrast the patronage of Popes Urban VIII, Innocent X, and Alexander VII, focusing primarily but not exclusively on Bernini’s work for these important seventeenth-century pontiffs. Your essay should address Rome’s changing political and cultural landscape during the 1620s-1660s. Develop a position informed by the readings listed above, in addition to at least three other sources.
Question 3: Interpreting Poussin
Elizabeth Cropper and Charles Dempsey, Nicolas Poussin: Friendship and the Love of Painting (Princeton, 1996), esp. chpt. 3, pp. 109-144 and chpt. 5, pp.177-215. Todd Olson, “Painting for the French: Poussin, the Fronde and the Politics of Difficulty,” in Commemorating Poussin: Reception and Interpretation of the Artist, ed. Katie Scott and Genevieve Warwick (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 155-189. Jonathan Unglaub, “Poussin’s Reflection,” The Art Bulletin 86 (2004), pp. 505-528 (available on JSTOR). Jonathan Unglaub, “Poussin’s Esther Before Ahasuerus: Beauty, Majesty, Bondage”, The Art Bulletin 85 (2003), pp. 114-136. Sheila McTighe, “Nicolas Poussin’s Representations of Storms and Libertinage in the Mid-Seventeenth Century,’ Word and Image 5 (1989), pp. 333-361. Pierre Rosenberg and Keith Christiansen, eds., Poussin and Nature: Arcadian Visions, exh. cat. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2008).
Discuss and evaluate various scholarly interpretations of Poussin’s art. Choose at least four but no more than six of his paintings to analyze, and include at least one landscape allegory. Develop a position informed by the readings listed above, in addition to at least three other sources.
  Question 4: Velázquez’s Las Meninas
Jonathan Brown, Images and Ideas in Seventeenth Century Painting (Princeton, 1978), esp. pp. 21-110. Svetlana Alpers, “Interpretation without Representation, or, The Viewing of Las Meninas,” Representations (1983), pp. 31-42. Madlyn Kahr, “Velázquez and the Las Meninas,” The Art Bulletin 57 (1975), pp. 225-246. Leo Steinberg, “Velázquez’s Las Meninas,” October 15 (1981), pp. 45-54 Svetlana Alpers, The Vexations of Art: Velázquez and Others (New Haven and London, 2005), esp. chpt. 6, pp. 135-180 (On Velazquez’s The Spinners, but useful). Byron Ellsworth Hamann, “Interventions: The Mirrors of Las Meninas: Cochineal, Silver, and Clay,” The Art Bulletin 92 (2010), pp. 6-35. Michel Foucault, “Las Meninas,” in The Order of Things (English version of Les Mots et les Choses)
Analyze the various approaches to interpreting Velázquez’s Las Meninas. Develop an informed position in dialogue with the scholarship of Brown, Alpers, Kahr, Hamann, and Foucault, among others. Question 5: Paris and Versailles: Henri IV to Louis XIV Hilary Ballon, The Paris of Henri IV: Architecture and Urbanism (Cambridge, Mass, 1991). Hilary Ballon, Louis Le Vau: Mazarin’s College, Colbert’s Revenge (Princeton, 2001). Part 12, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 Robert W. Berger, A Royal Passion: Louis XIV as Patron of Architecture (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 1-11; 27-37; 53-72; 107-14. Burke, Peter, Fabrication of Louis XIV (New Haven and London, 1992), chapter 1 and chapter 2, pp. 1-37. Ziskin, Rochelle, “The Place de Nos Conquêtes and the Unraveling of the Myth of Louis XIV,” Art Bulletin (1994), pp. 147-162 (available on JSTOR). Compare and contrast the architectural patronage of King Henri IV and Louis XIV, and the roles played by the first ministers Mazarin and Colbert, in the changing political and cultural circumstances of their times. Your essay should focus on Paris and Versailles as sites developed for the display and performance of royal authority. Develop a position informed by the readings listed above, in addition to at least three other sources.