Overview
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) had an extraordinarily long and productive artistic career. Within his own lifetime, his creativity was heralded as 'divine'. His various biographers, unprecedented in itself for a living artist, guided by Michelangelo’s own self-mythologising, presented him as a uniquely original figure, free of any contemporary influence and towering far above his peers.
This course will challenge this mythology and place Michelangelo back into detailed relation with the art and society of his time, to better understand the nature of his actual achievement. Due to time pressure, we'll look only at Michelangelo’s paintings and sculpture, considering his architecture only in passing.
The course aims to place Michelangelo's major artworks back into their original art-historical, political and historical contexts. This will enable you to better assess the contemporary impact of these works and gain a better understanding of Michelangelo's artistic achievement.
No prior knowledge about the subject area is assumed. The course is suitable for both beginners and those with more experience of art history. It's intended for anyone interested in engaging with Michelangelo in more detail, who want to consider the inter-relations between the making of an artwork and its time more closely.
Syllabus
- Week 1: Florence and Rome: early works
- Week 2: Rome and Florence: the Pieta and David
- Week 3: Florence: The Madonna and Child theme
- Week 4: Florence and Rome: The Battle of Cascina and the Julian Tomb
- Weeks 5-6: Rome: The Sistine Ceiling
- Week 7: Rome: Collaboration with Sebastiano del Piombo
- Week 8: Florence: The Medici Chapel
- Week 9: Rome: The Last Judgement
- Week 10: Rome: The Pauline Chapel and late works.
Course lecturer
With an academic background originally focusing on British Romantic literature, Dr Peter Finch has been teaching literature and the history of art to a wide variety of adult audiences for many years. Nowadays, his emphasis falls on the history of art, with a particular focus on Italian and Northern European art of the early modern (Renaissance) period, 1300-1600. He is currently writing a book on the shifting relations over this timespan between the ‘inner’ world imaged by an art-work within its frame and the outer world of the beholder.
Course fee
- Standard fee: £155
- Concession fee: £80.
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