Curated Guides > Syllabus > Renaissance to the Modern Era: Europe Syllabus
Renaissance to the Modern Era: Europe Syllabus
This syllabus is a broad introduction to the period between c. 1200–1940 and begins with a critical look at art history itself and the tools of art history. The focus is on Europe and its entanglements with the Americas, Asia, and Africa.
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Collapse AllThis unit begins with fundamental questions about the value of studying art history and provides introductory material in the form of “brief histories.” We then go back to the Ancient World and the beginnings of Christianity—this material helps set up the Renaissance in Unit 3.
Loren Munk, History of Art Timeline, 2004–06, oil on linen (Sheldon Art Museum, Lincoln, Nebraska)
- Why art history?
- Why you don’t like art history
- What is art history and where is it going?
- Kerry James Marshall: Mastry
- Why are there so few female artists?
- Brief histories
- Common questions about dates
- A brief history of Western culture
- A brief history of religion in art
- Ancient Greek and Roman art
- Polykleitos, Doryphoros (Spear-Bearer)
- Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus
- The Symmachi Panel
- Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine
- Enter Christianity, c. 400 C.E.
- A new pictorial language: the image in early medieval art
- Christianity, an introduction
- How have the definitions of what art is changed?
- How does art history help us understand the past and the present?
- How has art history changed?
- What are some characteristics of the shift from the ancient Greek and Roman (classical) world to the medieval world?
- How does the classical world remain important through the Middle Ages?
- Ancient (c. 3000 B.C.E. to c. 400 C.E.)
- Middle Ages / medieval (c. 400 C.E. to c. 1400 C.E.)
- Renaissance (c. 1400 to 1600)
- Early Modern (c. 1600 to 1800)
- Modern (after c. 1800)
- aniconism
- pagan
- polytheistic
- Judaism
- Christianity
- Islam
- canon
- contrapposto
- Prophet Muhammad
- Jesus Christ
Key Questions
Key Terms
Looking back to the art of the medieval world (c. 400–1400) helps us understand the enormous historical shift that happened during the Renaissance.
Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1538, oil on canvas, 119.20 x 165.50 cm (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence)
- Describing and interpreting what you see
- Chiaroscuro explained
- Surface and Depth
- How to do visual (formal) analysis
- Introduction to art historical analysis
- Introduction
- Introduction to the Middle Ages
- The life of Christ in medieval and Renaissance art
- Travel, trade and exploration in the Middle Ages
- Painting, sculpture, and architecture
- Inventing the image of Saint Francis
- The Crucifixion, c. 1200 (from Christus triumphans to Christus patiens)
- Why is describing what you see important?
- What are some of the key issues to keep in mind when you look at a work of art?
- What are the characteristics of the art of the Middle Ages?
- What are some of the ways that art and society changed at the end of the Middle Ages?
- chiaroscuro (modeling)
- formal analysis
- atmospheric perspective
- linear perspective
- Middle Ages / medieval
- Christus triumphans
- Christus patiens
- Crusades
- mappa mundi
- tempera
- Saint Francis
- stigmata
- mendicants
- Franciscans
- Dominicans
Key Questions
Key Terms
In Europe, at the end of the Middle Ages, we begin to see a transformation in images of divine figures—they begin to appear more human.
Fresco in the former Abbey of Saint-André-de-Lavaudieu, France, 14th century
- Introduction
- The Black Death
- Making a panel painting (the Norfolk Triptych)
- Painting
- Duccio, Heaven on earth— The Rucellai Madonna
- Duccio, Maestà
- Simone Martini, Maestà
- Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel (part 1 of 4)
- Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel (part 2 of 4)
- Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel (part 3 of 4)
- Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel (part 4 of 4)
- Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Allegory and Effects of Good and Bad Government
- Sculpture
- Röttgen Pietà
- Synagoga and Ecclesia, Strasbourg Cathedral
- Death of the Virgin, South portal, Strasbourg Cathedral
- How did representations of biblical figures change during this period?
- How did the republican form of government in Siena inform Lorenzetti’s frescoes for the town hall?
- What were some of the reasons that art was commissioned during this period?
- How did Christians understand Judaism during this period?
- What was the impact of the Black Death on the art of the 14th century?
- relics
- transubstantiation
- polyptych
- altarpiece
- Christ Triumphant (Christus triumphans)
- Franciscans
- Dominicans
- mendicants
- purgatory
- naturalism
- fresco / secco fresco
- usury
- Synagoga / Ecclesia
- city-state
- republic
Key Questions
Key Terms
The Renaissance occurs in many forms across Europe (and then in locations European artists traveled to), but it always involved a focus on human experience and an interest in the visible world.
Veduta della catena (chain map) of Florence, c. 1471–72, attributed to Francesco and Raffaello Petrini, etching, 1.25 x 1.38 m (Palazzo Vecchio, Florence)
- Introduction
- Humanism in renaissance Italy
- How one-point linear perspective works
- Painting
- Masaccio, Holy Trinity
- Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus
- Piero della Francesca, Resurrection
- Andrea Mantegna, Dead Christ
- Giovanni Bellini, San Zaccaria Altarpiece
- Sculpture
- Filippo Brunelleschi and Lorenzo Ghiberti, Sacrifice of Isaac
- Donatello, David
- Donatello, Feast of Herod
- Architecture
- Michelozzo di Bartolomeo, Palazzo Medici
- Filippo Brunelleschi, Dome of the Cathedral of Florence
- Alberti, Façade of Santa Maria Novella, Florence
- How did the status of the artist change in the Renaissance?
- What tools did the painters of the Italian Renaissance use to make their art appear more naturalistic?
- In what ways did ancient Greek and Roman art influence the art of the Italian Renaissance?
- How do we see humanism in the art of the Italian Renaissance?
- humanism
- Renaissance
- patron
- commission
- free-standing
- Florence
- Medici
- Rucellai
- Alberti, On Painting
- memento mori
- rusticated
- barrel vault
- relief sculpture (high relief / low relief)
- linear perspective / horizon line / vanishing point / orthogonals
- Throne of Mercy
Key Questions
Key Terms
Many of the same factors (cities, commerce, wealth) that led to a Renaissance in Italy are also present elsewhere in Europe, but styles developed in distinct ways.
Jan van Eyck, The Virgin of Chancellor Rolin, oil on panel, c. 1430–35, 66 x 62 cm (Musée du Louvre, Paris)
- Introduction
- 15th-century Flanders, an introduction
- Flanders
- Workshop of Robert Campin, Annunciation Triptych (Merode Altarpiece)
- Jan Van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait
- Rogier van der Weyden, The Crucifixion, with the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist Mourning
- Hugo van der Goes, Portinari Altarpiece
- Petrus Christus, A Goldsmith in his Shop
- The Holy Thorn Reliquary of Jean, duc de Berry
- Hans Memling, Saint Ursula Shrine
- Spain and Germany
- A Renaissance Saint James as pilgrim
- Stefan Lochner, Madonna of the Rose Bower
- Treasure from Spain, lusterware as luxury
- France
- The Unicorn Tapestries
- Baltic
- Hermen Rode, Saints Nicholas and Victor Altarpiece
- What are some key characteristics of the Northern Renaissance?
- What was the importance of oil paint for the art of the Northern Renaissance?
- What is the importance of Saint James?
- How were the Dukes of Burgundy important patrons of Northern Renaissance art?
- humanism
- Renaissance
- pilgrim / pilgrimage
- relic
- reliquary
- Flanders / Flemish
- mille-fleurs
- Netherlandish
- patron saint
- Burgundy
- glazing
- lusterware
- triptych
- polyptych
- enamel
Key Questions
Key Terms
When Europeans invaded the Americas, centuries of exploitation, slavery, and forced Christianization followed. This unit also touches on Europe’s relationships with Africa and Asia.
Al-Idrisi, Mappa Mundi, Oxford Pococke Manuscript (Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Pococke 375, folios 3 verso–4 recto)
- Mapping
- What maps tell us
- The Cantino Planisphere
- Europe and the Americas
- Introduction to the Spanish Viceroyalties in the Americas
- New Spain, an introduction
- Johannes Stradanus and Theodoor Galle, “The Discovery of America”
- Alejo Fernández, The Virgin of the Navigators
- Bernardo Bitti, Coronation of the Virgin
- The Medici collect the Americas
- Europe and Africa
- African art and the effects of European contact and colonization
- Spoons from West Africa in Renaissance Lisbon
- Lidded Saltcellar
- Europe and Asia
- Medici porcelain, a failed experiment
- Mimar Sinan, Süleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul
- What can maps tell us about how people understand the world around them?
- Why were Europeans fascinated by the Americas? How did they demonstrate this fascination?
- How did Europeans learn about the Americas?
- How did the Portuguese taste for luxury goods influence African art?
- Christopher Columbus
- Spanish conquistadores
- Pre-Columbian
- ivory
- cochineal
- planisphere
- Amerigo Vespucci
- New Spain
- viceroyalty
- Hernan Cortes
- Mexica (Aztec)
- Inka
- reconquest
- Medici
- Sapi
Key Questions
Key Terms
In Europe, three powerful changes that usher in the early modern era mark the 16th century: printmaking (which transformed how images were made and created new possibilities for art collecting and mass communication), the printing press (which allowed for the mass-production of images and texts), and the Protestant Reformation (which challenged the authority of the Pope and the Catholic church across Europe).
Rogier van der Weyden, The Seven Sacraments Altarpiece, 1445–50 (Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp)
- The Protestant Reformation and the Counter-Reformation
- Introduction to the Protestant Reformation (part 1 of 4): Setting the stage
- Introduction to the Protestant Reformation (part 2 of 4): Martin Luther
- Introduction to the Protestant Reformation (part 3 of 4): Varieties of Protestantism
- Introduction to the Protestant Reformation (part 4 of 4): The Counter-Reformation
- The Protestant Reformation
- Lucas Cranach the Elder, Law and Gospel (Law and Grace)
- Iconoclasm in the Netherlands in the 16th century
- The Council of Trent and the call to reform art
- Il Gesù, Rome
- The reproducible image
- Printmaking in Europe, c. 1400−1800
- Dürer’s Rhinoceros: art, science, and the Northern Renaissance
- Albrecht Dürer, The Triumphal Arch or Arch of Honor
- The printed book
- Aldo Manuzio (Aldus Manutius): inventor of the modern book
- What practices of the Catholic church did Martin Luther object to?
- In what ways was art an issue for Protestants?
- How was the reproducible format of print important?
- What role did the printing press play in the Protestant Reformation?
- How is the mission of the Jesuits expressed in their art and architecture?
- Protestant Reformation
- Counter-Reformation
- printing press
- iconoclasm
- Council of Trent
- Martin Luther
- good works
- Eucharist
- transubstantiation
- indulgence
- Maximilian I
- Hapsburg
- Ignatius of Loyola
- Jesuit
Key Questions
Key Terms
The first half of the 1500s saw the continuation of the Renaissance with the work of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo. But with the Protestant Reformation, which began in 1517, and then the Catholic church’s response (the Counter-Reformation), everything changed.
Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper, oil, tempera, fresco, 1495–98 (Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan)
- Florence and Rome
- Leonardo, Last Supper
- Raphael, School of Athens
- Michelangelo, David
- Michelangelo, Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
- Plautilla Nelli, The Last Supper
- Jacopo Pontormo, Entombment (or Deposition from the Cross)
- Venice
- Gentile Bellini and Giovanni Bellini, Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria
- Titian, Pastoral Concert
- Paolo Veronese, Feast in the House of Levi
- Three synagogues in the Venetian Ghetto
- Northern Europe
- Matthias Grünewald, Isenheim Altarpiece
- The carpet and the globe: Holbein’s The Ambassadors reframed
- Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights
- Spain
- El Greco, Burial of the Count Orgaz
- Who was Pope Julius II and why was he important?
- What are the defining characteristics of art in the late Renaissance period in Italy?
- How do we define the Mannerist style and its difference from the High Renaissance?
- How do portraits communicate ideas about the sitters and their world?
- What is unique about painting in Venice?
- sfumato
- linear perspective
- Mannerism
- Plato
- Aristotle
- stanze
- Vatican
- Ghetto
- polyptych
- confraternity
- Saint Anthony
- anamorphic
- the ideal
Key Questions
Key Terms
The Catholic church saw itself as triumphant over Protestantism, and the art that was commissioned during this period reflected that confidence and affirmed the power of art to instill faith. Protestant artists turned to portraits, still lifes, landscapes, and genre scenes.
Caravaggio, The Crowning with Thorns, 1602–04, oil on canvas, 165.5 x 127 cm (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)
- Introduction
- Baroque art, an introduction
- Italy (Catholic)
- Andrea Pozzo, Glorification of Saint Ignatius
- Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Saint Peter’s Square
- Caravaggio, Calling of Saint Matthew
- Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes
- Francesco Borromini, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Rome
- Flanders (Catholic)
- Peter Paul Rubens, Elevation of the Cross
- Dutch Republic (Protestant)
- Rembrandt, Aristotle with a Bust of Homer
- Osias Beert, Still Life with Various Vessels on a Table
- Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring
- Jacob van Ruisdael, View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds
- Early Dutch Torah Finials
- Spain (Catholic)
- Diego Velázquez, Portrait of Sebastián de Morra
- Juan de Pareja, The Calling of Saint Matthew
- How does Baroque art differ from the art of the Renaissance?
- How did the Counter-Reformation and a sense of the victory of the Catholic Church over the Protestants inform Baroque art?
- How do the Torah finials tell us what life was like for Jews in Europe?
- Jesuits
- colonial period
- Reformation
- Counter-Reformation
- manumission
- genre
- Torah
- Torah finials
- staves
- tenebroso / tenebrism
- triptych
- specular light
- high altar
- nave
Key Questions
Key Terms
This unit goes from king Louis XIV and the assertion of absolute monarchy to the French Revolution’s establishment of the Republic of France. This is also a time when Europe continued to benefit from the exploitation of people and natural resources in the Americas, Africa, and Asia.
Joseph Wright of Derby, A Philosopher Giving A Lecture at the Orrery, c. 1765, oil on canvas, 147 x 203 cm (Derby Museum and Art Gallery)
- Introduction
- The Age of Enlightenment, an introduction
- The Formation of a French School: the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture
- Rococo
- Antoine Watteau, Pilgrimage to Cythera
- Hyacinthe Rigaud, Louis XIV
- Louis le Vau, André le Nôtre, and Charles le Brun, Château de Versailles
- Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing
- Neoclassicism
- Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii
- Angelica Kauffmann, Cornelia Pointing to her Children as Her Treasures
- Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Portrait of Madeleine
- European entanglements
- A Portrait of Humanity: The Compelling Story of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo
- Sir Joshua Reynolds, Portrait of Syacust Ukah
- Tipu’s Tiger
- Agostino Brunias, Free Women of Color with Their Children and Servants in a Landscape
- Portraits of Francisca Ramírez de Laredo and Antonio de Ulloa
- How did Louis XIV express his absolute power in art and architecture?
- How did the ideals of revolution inform the art of the period?
- How did the art of the period express ideas about European superiority?
- transatlantic slave trade
- colonialism
- French Revolution
- Enlightenment
- divine right
- Sun King
- Caribbean
- Cherokee
- Seven Years' War
- East India Company
- Mughal
- wampum
Key Questions
Key Terms
Europe was transformed after the French Revolution and the rise and fall of Napoleon. But there was also a sense of pessimism that the revolution in France had failed when the monarchy was restored. The Industrial Revolution and the birth of photography ushered in the modern era, with its interest in individual experience.
Watt's First Rotary Engine, engraving, illustration for Lives of the Engineers, The Steam Engine, Boulton and Watt, by Samuel Smiles (1878)
- Introduction
- What was the Industrial Revolution?
- Becoming Modern, an introduction
- France
- Jacques-Louis David, Napoleon Crossing the Alps
- Kehinde Wiley, Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps
- Painting colonial culture: Ingres’s La Grande Odalisque
- Théodore Géricault, Raft of the Medusa
- Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People
- Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, The Artist’s Studio / Still Life with Plaster Casts
- Spain
- Francisco Goya, And there’s nothing to be done from The Disasters of War
- Art historical analysis with Goya’s Third of May, 1808
- Germany
- Caspar David Friedrich, Monk by the Sea
- England
- John Constable, The Hay Wain
- Latin America
- Early Scientific Exploration in Latin America
- How did Napoleon use art to his advantage?
- What was the Industrial Revolution and how did it impact art?
- What are the characteristics of the style of Romanticism and how was it related to contemporary issues?
- What was the relationship between the first photographs and art?
- Industrial Revolution
- steam engine
- factories
- Great Reform Act of 1832
- Napoleon
- Revolution of 1830
- Latin America
- daguerreotype
- Romanticism
- Prix de Rome
Key Questions
Key Terms
The second half of the 19th century saw the growing effects of urbanization and industrialization, including the struggle for the suffrage and legislation curtailing unfettered capitalism. The Realists and Impressionists embraced modern life in the changing city of Paris, but later artists turned their backs on modernity and searched for what they saw as more authentic experiences.
Honoré Daumier, Nadar Elevating Photography to the Height of an Art, 1862, lithograph from Souvenirs d’Artistes, 44.8 x 30.9 cm (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)
- France
- Realism
- Honoré Daumier, Nadar Elevating Photography to the Height of an Art
- Gustave Courbet, A Burial at Ornans
- Édouard Manet, Olympia
- Impressionism
- Impressionism: painting modern life
- A summer day in Paris: Berthe Morisot’s Hunting Butterflies
- Claude Monet, The Gare Saint-Lazare
- Mary Cassatt, In the Loge
- Post-impressionism
- Vincent van Gogh, Irises
- Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte – 1884
- Paul Cézanne, The Basket of Apples
- England
- Ford Madox Brown, Work
- Sleeping Beauty — but without the Kiss: Burne-Jones and the Briar Rose series
- William Morris, The Green Dining Room
- How would you define Realism, as it emerged in the 1850s with Gustave Courbet?
- Why did Manet and the Impressionists believe it was important to shed the classical, academic tradition and embrace the modern world?
- How did artists like Burne-Jones and William Morris understand the purpose of art in the modern world?
- Salon
- Salon des Refusés
- Realism
- Impressionism
- en plein air
- Neo-Impressionism
- Post-Impressionism
- Japonisme
- Symbolism
- Aesthetic Movement
- Charles Baudelaire
- Pre-Raphaelite
Key Questions
Key Terms
This period sees art respond to the dramatic changes of the early 20th century: Einstein’s theory of relativity—which revolutionized our understanding of space, time, and gravity—Freud’s theory of the unconscious, and the technology-enabled brutality of World War I.
Left: Hilma af Klint, Group X, No. 1, Altarpiece (Altarbild), 1915, oil and metal leaf on canvas, 237.5 x 179.5 cm; Right: Piet Mondrian, Composition, 1929, oil on canvas, 45.1 x 45.3 cm (Guggenheim Museum, New York)
- Introduction
- Modern art and reality
- Expression and modern art
- Must art be beautiful? Picasso’s Old Guitarist
- Fauvism, Expressionism, and the beginnings of abstraction
- Fauvism, an introduction
- Henri Matisse, Bonheur de Vivre
- Kandinsky, Apocalypse, Abstraction
- The Case for Abstraction
- Cubism and Dada
- Pablo Picasso and the new language of Cubism
- Pablo Picasso, The Three Musicians
- Dada Readymades
- Art as concept: Marcel Duchamp, In Advance of the Broken Arm
- Latin American Modernism
- The History of Mexico: Diego Rivera’s Murals at the National Palace
- Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas (Las dos Fridas)
- Why did artists turn away from naturalism and to abstraction?
- How did the artists of the early 20th century redefine art itself?
- Must art be something handmade by the artist?
- Fauvism
- Expressionism
- Cubism
- Dada
- Surrealism
- abstract / abstraction
- Latin America
- Mexican Revolution
- World War I
- readymade
- Conceptual art
