ART 333 - The Art of the Garden in Renaissance and Baroque Italy

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

Changing attitudes toward the relationship between art and nature were played out in the decoration of villas and gardens, c. 1450- c. 1650. These extensive estates by top artists and patrons featured paintings, sculptures, fountains, grottoes, and plantings that blurred distinctions between indoors and outdoors, and between nature and artifice. We examine sites from Florence, Rome, the Veneto, and Naples to France, considering the inheritance of ancient Roman, medieval, and Islamic gardens. We explore the influx of new flora and fauna during the exploration of “new” worlds, and changing patterns of collecting and display. Readings explore villa ideology, the relation between city and country life, utopian conceptions of garden and landscape, and human dominion over nature. On a field trip, we experience the role of the ambulatory spectator, and consider the reception of the Italian garden in America. Ms. Elet.

Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.

One 3-hour period.