HUAS75020 - Women and Gender in Renaissance Art

Course Description

This course examines women, gender, sexuality, and visual culture in the Renaissance period, ca. 1400-1600. Topics to be considered include visual constructions of male and female identity and understandings of homoeroticism; the functions of works of art and objects of material culture in the lives of Renaissance women and men; the exceptional women who produced art and their relation to male artists and patrons; and the diverse ways in which gender and sexuality were represented in the visual arts. Questions include the following: Who was intended to see particular works of art and how were they understood by both male and female viewers? Who requested and paid for these works and was patronage of art gendered? What was the role of sexually explicit imagery in Renaissance Italy? Close readings of primary and secondary sources will reveal a preoccupation with gender, sexuality and the visual not unlike that of contemporary society.

Notes

Online registration deadline: Thursday, December 29 at 5 pm CT.

Course Syllabus