Venetian Splendor: Color, Light & Fantasy

A rich cultural patronage flourished in The Republic of Venice (La Serenissima) because of its geographic location, topography, and eco-social-political power. Painters were enchanted by the light and color effects reflected in the lagoon and captured them with brilliant vigor in their sacred and profane paintings, transforming the vitality of the visualization into thematic fantasies. This seminar focuses the art of Venice from 1450-1550. The selected painters to be discussed are Giovanni Bellini, Carlo Crivelli, Andrea Mantegna, Giorgione, Carpaccio, Lorenzo Lotto, Tintoretto, and Veronese.

Suggested Readings: For profiles of the artists, see the links in Wikipedia.
Loren Partridge, Art of Renaissance Venice:1400-1600 (Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press, 2015)
Peter Humphrey, Painting in Renaissance Venice (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997)

Course Recordings:  (Click on the links below to watch the individual class recordings.)

Session 1 - October 7 - Recording Unavailable

Session 2 - October 14

Session 3 - October 21

Session 4 - October 28

Session 5 - November 4

Session 6 - November 11

Session 7 - November 18


Group Leader: LIANA CHENEY
Venue: online
Meets on: Thursdays 3:30 to 5:30 pm
Starting: 10/7/2021
Sessions: 6
Class Size: 50
Teaching Style: Lecture with questions
Weekly Preparation: None

Liana De Girolami Cheney received a PhD in art history from Boston University and is an emerita professor of art history at University of Massachusetts Lowell. She is author and coauthor of many articles and books, including Botticelli’s Mythological Paintings (Washington, DC, 1993); Neoplatonic Aesthetics: Music, Literature and the Visual Art (London, 2004); Giorgio Vasari’s Artistic and Emblematic Manifestations (London, 2011); and Lavinia Fontana’s Mythological Paintings (Cambridge, 2020).