ArH 474
Art and the Early Modern City:
Venice, 1400-1797
MW, 10:00 - 11:50
AB 200
Instructor: Dr. Jesse Locker
Office hours: Tuesdays, 2:00-3:00 pm and by appointment
Art Building 310A
(to schedule an appointment, call 503-725-3515)
Course objectives:This course introduces students the art produced in the Venetian Republic during its most remarkable period of cultural, artistic, and musical production—that is, from the fifteenth century to the fallof the republic in 1797. During these centuries, Veniceproduced its greatest artists, from Gentile and Giovanni Bellini in the fifteenth century to Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto in the sixteenthto Canaletto and Tiepolo in the eighteenth. This era also coincides with the highestefflorescence of music in Venice, which saw such composers asGabrieli, Monteverdi, and Vivaldi. Indeed the relationship between Venice’s music, spectacle, and theater and its art are rich, varied, and mutually informative.
Learning outcomes: Throughout the course, students will gain knowledge of the artistic and historical development of Venice, a grasp of the unique historiographical tradition of Venetian art, as well as sharpening skills of art historical research, writing, and analysis.
Required Readings:
Required readings will be available through JSTOR ( or posted on D2L (
Recommended Text:
Art and Music in Venice: From the Renaissance to Baroque, ed. Hilliard Goldfarb (Paris: Editions Hazan, 2013) [Available at the PSU Bookstore].
Attendance policy
Attendance is required. The course is lecture-based and many concepts not covered in the readings will be addressed in class. Attendance is therefore essential to the successful completion of coursework. I cannot fill in students who miss class on the details of a particular lecture and discussion—please seek that information from your fellow students—though I can suggest supplementary readings to help you catch up.
Assignments and Methods of Evaluation
In addition to regular attendance at lectures and weekly reading assignments, students will be turn in a weekly reading log, take a mid-term and final exam (slide ID, short answer), and produce a short research paper. Course can be taken for a letter grade or P/NP.
Approximate grading percentages:
Mid-term exam 25%
Final exam 25%
Weekly Reading log 25%
Final paper 25%
Note: Exams and reading logs cannot be made up. Late papers will lose one point per day (thus, a paper due Tuesday that would receive an A will receive an A- if turned in on Wednesday). Electronic copies of writing assignments will only be accepted through special arrangement, in which case students are responsible for missing or malfunctioning attachments or other technical errors.
Use of personal technology in the classroom
Portable electronic devices, such as mobile phones or tablets must be switched off before class or mentor section begins. Laptops are allowed for the purposes of note-taking, but I reserve the right to revoke that privilege it appears it is being abused.
Plagiarism policy
Plagiarism, intentional or unintentional, is an intolerable infraction in any setting where ideas are exchanged and discussed. It is also a violation of the PSU Student Code of Conduct, and egregious or multiple cases may be grounds for suspension or expulsion from the university. Thanks to recent software advances, detecting plagiarism is extremely easy. Papers that can be shown to have been plagiarized will automatically receive an “F” grade (or “0”). Remember, ignorance is no excuse! The PSU Code of Student Conduct considers as plagiarism work submitted for other courses and turned into me as original, and I will ask students to submit new, original work in addition to taking the penalties above.
Students with disabilities and other resources
Students with disabilities who need additional consideration for the timely completion of any of the course requirements should speak to the instructor at the beginning of the term, and must be registered with PSU’s Disability Resource Center (). For information on additional campus resources (SHAC, Career Advising, the Writing Center), contact the instructor.
E-mail policy
E-mail is a useful tool for communication between students and the course instructor about the course material, content, and assignments, but please bear in mind the following:
• I consider 48-72 hours to be a reasonable period in which to respond to inquiries. I am usually much faster than this, but not always.
• I will not, in general, respond to student e-mails received after 5:00 p.m. until the following day, nor will I generally respond to student e-mail sent after 5:00 on Friday until Monday morning. Please plan accordingly.
• Please remember to identify yourself in your e-mail (e-mail addresses alone are often inadequate for identifying a student) and state your query as clearly as possible.
Portland Art Museum
Through a special arrangement, PSU students are eligible for a one-year pass to the museum for $15. Passes can be obtained by the museum with your PSU ID and filling out a student pass form. It is strongly recommended that you do so.
Course Schedule and reading Assignments
(Note: Schedule is subject to revision during the term)
Week 1.
Monday, Jan. 6: Introduction to course themes
Wednesday, Jan. 8. Venice, spectacle and ceremony
Reading for Wednesday: Patricia Fortini Brown, “Venezianità: The Otherness of the Venetians,” from Art and Life in Renaissance Venice(Saddle River, NJ, 1997)
Recommended Reading: Hilliard Goldfarb, “Life in Venice as Context for Its Art and Music: 1500-1797,” in Art and Music in Venice, pp. 19-29
Week 2.
Monday, Jan. 13: The Beginning of Venetian Painting: the Quattrocento
Wednesday, Jan. 15: Jacopo, Gentile, and Giovanni Bellini
*Reading response for Wednesday:Elizabeth Rodini, “Describing Narrative in Gentile Bellini’s Procession in Piazza San Marco,”Art History, Vol. 21, No. 1 (March 1998), pp. 26-44.
Recommended Reading: Iain Fenlon, “Music, Ceremony and Identity in Sixteenth-Century Venice,” in Art and Music in Venice, pp. 43-47.
Week 3.
Monday, Jan. 20:No class – Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
Wednesday, Jan. 22: Vittorio Carpaccio and Giovanni Bellini
*Reading response for Wednesday:OskarBätschmann“Harmony,” from Giovanni Bellini (London, 2008)
Week 4.
Monday, Jan. 27: Giorgione & Titian
Wednesday, Jan. 29: Titian
*Reading response for Wednesday:David Rosand, “So-and-So Reclining on Her Couch” in Titian 500 (Studies in the History of Art 45)
Recommended Reading: Hilliard Goldfarb, “Some Observations on The Interrupted Concert by Titian and Developments in His Art About 1511-12,” in Art and Music in Venice, pp. 113-21.
Week 5.
Monday, Feb. 3: Titian
Wednesday, Feb. 5: Veronese & Tintoretto
*Reading response for Wednesday:David Rosand, “Action and Piety in Tintoretto’s Religious Pictures,” from Painting in Sixteenth-Century Venice (Cambridge, 1997)
Recommended Reading: Jonathan Glixon, “‘Admirable Sweet Musicke’: Music at the Venetian Confraternities,” in Art and Music in Venice,pp. 81-84.
Week 6.
Monday, Feb. 10:Midterm exam
Wednesday, Feb. 12: Seventeenth-century Venetian painting
[February 15: Exhibition opens]
*Reading response for Wednesday:Bernard Aikema, “Libertines in Words and Images,” from Pietro dellaVecchia and the heritage of the Renaissance in Venice (Florence, 1990)
Recommended Reading: Sergio Guarino, “Venice and Rome at the Time of Carlo Saraceni,” in Art and Music in Venice, pp. 133-37.
Week 7.
Monday, Feb. 17: Baroque Venice
Wednesday, Feb. 19: Baschenis, Strozzi, and Images of Music
*Reading response for Wednesday:Andrew Hopkins,“S. Maria della Salute” from BaldassareLonghena and Venetian Baroque Architecture (New Haven, 2012).
Recommended Reading: Eugene Johnson, “Inventing the Opera House in Seventeenth-Century Venice,” in Art and Music in Venice, pp. 189-95.
Week 8.
Monday, Feb. 24:Early eighteenth-century Venice
Wednesday, Feb. 26: Canaletto and Vedutismo
*Reading response for Wednesday:Francis Haskell, “State, Nobility, and Church,” from Patrons and Painters: Art and Society in Baroque Italy (New Haven, 1980)
Recommended Reading: Dawson Carr, “Canaletto’s The Feast Day of Saint Roch,” in Art and Music in Venice, pp. 87-91.
Week 9.
Monday, Mar. 3: Pietro Longhi and scenes of everyday life*
Wednesday, Mar. 5: Settecento
*Final Paper due in Class (no reading response due)
Week 10.
Monday, Mar. 10: Giambattista Tiepolo and his contemporaries
Wednesday, Mar. 12: Tiepolo and the end of an Age
*Reading response for Wednesday:Keith Christiansen, “Tiepolo, Theater, and the Notion of Theatricality,”The Art Bulletin, Vol. 81, No. 4 (Dec., 1999), pp. 665-692.
Final Exam:Tuesday, Dec. 10 at 8:30 am.