The Painting of Caravaggio
A single session on campus Saturday 13 June, 10am - 4pm
Overview
The short, turbulent and fugitive life of Caravaggio is famously dramatic. This day-school returns to the paintings themselves, however, in order to explore their complex presentations with more precision. Join us, as we attempt to get the measure of the extraordinary powerful and original art that Caravaggio produced in Rome, southern Italy and the Mediterranean, and to place it back into its social, historical and art-historical contexts, so that it works on its own terms and stands somewhat apart from the life of the artist that produced it.
The day-school aims to give participants the opportunity to investigate a range of Caravaggio’s paintings in detail, placing them back into their social and art-historical contexts, so as to provide participants with the means to reconsider the art-works in terms of their likely original meanings and their effects on their contemporary audiences.
No prior knowledge about the subject area is assumed, and the day-school is suitable for both beginners and those with more experience of art history: the sessions are intended for anyone interested in engaging with the period in more detail, and wanting to consider more closely the inter-relations between the making of an art-work and its time.
Syllabus
Session 1: Northern Italian painting in the 1580s; Caravaggio in the early 1590s
Session 2: Caravaggio and the Carracci in Rome
Session 3: Rome: the Contarelli Chapel; the Cerasi Chapel
Session 4: The Final Years: Rome, Naples, Malta and Sicily
Course lecturer
With an academic background originally focusing on British Romantic literature, Peter 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: £55