The Faculty Board of Architecture and History of Art give notice that they have approved the following special subjects for the History of Art Tripos, 2006 (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 305):
This course will consider the transformation of antique Rome from late Antiquity to the Duecento. The Early Christian city appropriated the legacy of the ancients, transforming antique structures into Christian places of worship and imposing new typologies and meanings. The re-use of spolia and the continuity of craft traditions kept alive aspects of imperial culture throughout the Early Christian and medieval period. Later, as the city shrank to a small nucleus on the banks of the Tiber and ancient monuments fell into ruin, the relationship between antiquity and the Christian tradition shifted. The dynamics of the relationship between the papacy and the commune of Rome further complicated the city's evolution. The course will consider Rome in its broadest sense: its urban planning, devotional and secular architecture, mosaics, frescoes, and sculpture.
This special subject investigates the key period in the development of English Gothic art. It begins by considering the rebuilding and decoration of the choir of Canterbury Cathedral in response to the cult of St Thomas, before moving on to examine the role of the Church in the propagation of Gothic architecture, and especially the 'episcopal style' at such places as Wells, Salisbury, Lincoln, Ely, and York. The course then considers the development of figurative art in sculpture, manuscript painting, wall and panel painting - notably Psalters, Apocalypses, and saints' Lives - stressing collections in Cambridge. The role of court patronage between Henry III and Edward III is explored, at Westminster and elsewhere. Emphasis will also be given to the role of the Church in defining the function of religious art in the wake of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, particularly with respect to the parishes and to lay patronage and religious belief and practice. Doctrinal and devotional issues will thus form an important theme. Other topics covered include the origins and development of the Decorated Style, and the emergence of 'East Anglian' illumination in the fourteenth century, again with reference to art and architecture in and around Cambridge.
The evolution of the Venetian townscape depended on a range of distinctive factors. This course examines the peculiar physical problems of building on marshy lagoon islands and the reasons lying behind this choice of site. Through the chosen period, the changing nature of the respective roles of client, craftsman, and architect is investigated. We consider the nature of Venetian society, both secular and religious, and the architectural settings that evolved to accommodate it. In the context of the city's role as a great international emporium, we analyse how trading contacts influenced architectural expression. With the help of written descriptions and visual renderings of the townscape, the ideological content embodied in both private and public building is explored.
A study of Dürer as a painter, an engraver, a draughtsman, and a theorist demonstrates his prevailing place in the Northern Renaissance. His travels are studied and the impact of new ideas and forms on the development of his art. This involves a comparative analysis of Italian and Northern trends. However, the principal aim is to show the place of Dürer's production within his social and cultural environment (humanist, popular, religious, etc.). This approach should allow an understanding not only of the artistic but also of the cultural aspects of Dürer's art.
Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) is one of the most productive and prolific artists in the history of art. Today, his oeuvre is generally regarded as embodying the 'Baroque', a common, yet controversial term designating the predominant artistic trends and ideas of the seventeenth century. This special subject approaches Rubens' success as the result of his efforts to shape and control the formation of his artistic and social identity. This entails considering the cultural conditions which both provide and constrain an individual's choices in creating a distinct, personal style. The course follows Rubens' artistic development chronologically, introducing students to his most important works and commissions. In accordance with the theme of this course, the paintings are discussed as reflecting Rubens' involvement in the twilight zone of seventeenth-century secret diplomacy and the highly theatrical world of contemporary European courts, as well as his cultivation of a distinct burgher identity. Emphasis is given to Rubens' paintings held in Cambridge and London collections. The course is therefore designed to provide students with a broad knowledge of seventeenth-century visual culture which serves as an introduction to further studies in related fields such as Netherlandish or Italian Baroque art in particular or Early Modern European court culture in general. The course concludes with an examination of the posthumous reception of Rubens' works in the writings of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century writers such as Roger de Piles, Jean François Michel, and others.
This course will explore the making and meanings of Cubism, its critical reception, and its influence on related art movements in Europe before and after the First World War, including Orphism, Futurism, Purism, and Constructivism. As a movement, Cubism will be considered in its broadest span, from the radical deformations of Picasso's proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) to the neo-classicism of the post-war Cubist 'call to order'. We will investigate Picasso and Braque's close aesthetic partnership between 1908 and 1914, and examine the categories of 'analytic' and 'synthetic' Cubism, collage, and construction. However, we will also question the conventional narrative of Cubism as a heroic partnership, extending our focus to the major figures of public, 'Salon' Cubism, such as Gleizes, Metzinger, and Le Fauconnier; the survival of Cubism after the War; and its impact on sculpture, architecture, and the decorative arts up until 1925. Throughout, questions of style and technique will be grounded in an analysis of institutional frameworks and theoretical debates, revealing the broader cultural influences underlying Cubism's revolutionary formal language.
This course examines the Arts and Crafts Movement, an international phenomenon of enormous scope and influence which dates roughly from the 1850s to the First World War. By looking at the work of a range of different artists, critics, architects, and designers, the course assesses both the Movement's intellectual ambitions, and its complex social and political aims. The course begins by addressing the theoretical pre-history of Arts and Crafts ideas in the writing of figures such as A. W. N. Pugin and John Ruskin, both of whom campaigned for artistic unity and 'honesty' in design. It then examines the activities of William Morris and his firm, the communal guilds and workshops of the 1880s, and architects such as Philip Webb and Richard Norman Shaw. The position of Charles Rennie Mackintosh within the Arts and Crafts Movement is also assessed. The second half of the course studies the Movement's expansion outside Britain, from the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright in America to the rise of a new vanguard of design in Austria and Germany. Attention is paid throughout to the way in which ideas that developed within a local, decorative art context continue to inform contemporary debates on the role and responsibilities of art and design.
This option will deal with French painting during a period of extreme political turbulence and great artistic fertility. Although the emphasis will be on the great painters whose work dominates the period - David, Gros, Girodet, Ingres, Géricault, Delacroix, Corot, Millet, and Courbet among others - their activity will be set within the context of governmental change, which brought changes in the pattern and content of state commissions, and broader cultural movements, in which some attention will be paid to contemporary developments in literature. This period is often thought of as comprising Neo-Classicism, Romanticism, and Realism, but it will be seen that such stylistic labels are quite inadequate to describe the wide range of art produced in France at the time.
This paper explores the varying ways in which British architecture was transformed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by the impact of Italian architecture, whether through publications or travel. Attention is paid to the shift of interest from Palladio to antique architecture, both Roman and Greek as in the temples at Paestum and in Sicily. This involves study of the travels and designs of architects such as Jones, Burlington, Chambers, Adam, and Soane, as well as the impact of the archaeologist, engraver, and architectural theorist, Piranesi.