Buffoon with a Lute, ca. 1626, by Frans Hals (Photo: Lourvre)
Nothing tells the creative story of the 17th and 18th centuries more eloquently than the profusion of great masters and masterpieces it produced: Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, Gainsborough, St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome, Versailles, and St. Paul's Cathedral London. These enduring achievements stretch from the brilliant baroque period to the exuberance of the rococo to the formal sobriety of the neoclassical era.
Focusing on major masters and pivotal masterpieces, art historian Karin Alexis places these periods within an historical and cultural context, emphasizing artistic styles, aesthetics, and meaning.
FRIDAY, OCT. 21 SCHEDULE
6:15–7:15 p.m. The Beginnings of the Baroque
Renaissance versus baroque; post-High Renaissance art; mannerism (late Michelangelo, Pontormo) to 16th-century eclecticism; Bernini, Caravaggio, and Carracci.
7:15–8:15 p.m. International Classicism
The triumph of classicism; the French and German-speaking worlds and the Holy Roman Empire; Versailles; the splendor of Vienna and Prague; Schonbrunn Palace; French painting and sculpture; Poussin, Lorrain, and pastoral and classical landscapes.
SATURDAY, OCT. 22 SCHEDULE
9:30–10:45 a.m. Drama Most Splendid
Flemish masters: the dramatic and emotive art of Rubens, van Dyck, and portraiture; contributions of the Spanish School: El Greco, Velasquez, Ribera, Murillo.
11 a.m.–12:15 p.m. Dutch Masters
Netherlandish traditions and the Dutch School; the expansion of subject matter; Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, Steen, Leyster, Ruisdael.
12:15–1:15 p.m. Lunch (participants provide their own)
1:15–2:15 p.m. The North
Christopher Wren and Georgian baroque: Hampton Court, St. Paul's; 18th-century masters Gainsborough, Romney, and Hogarth; the English country house; Drottningholm Royal Palace; Denmark; the Baltic; sculptors Tessin and Thorvaldsen.
2:30–3:30 p.m. The 18th Century
Late baroque, rococo and neoclassicism; the Enlightenment; Canaletto and the age of the Grand Tour; French masters Chardin, Fragonard, Boucher, David, and Houdon; creating a capital for the American Republic: Thomas Jefferson, Gilbert Stuart, and the beginnings of industrialization; the Napoleonic era.
World Art History certificate core course: Earn 1 credit
2 sessions
