CSCH.3082 Women Artists of the Italian Renaissance And Baroque: 1450-1700
This interdisciplinary honors seminar explores the careers of women artists in early modern Italy. The course begins with a discussion of Linda Nochlin's article of 1971, "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" In this first major work of feminist art history, Nochlin set out to answer her own rhetorical question by examining social and institutional structures that shaped artistic production in the early modern period and discouraged women from participating in the art world in meaningful ways. In later years, Nochlin and other feminist art historians began to more seriously investigate the work of women artists who forged careers despite the odds, and whose life stories and works had been all but written out of the history of art. This too will also be our task: to examine the lives of women in early modern Italy, relying extensively on primary texts (biographies, letters, transcripts, and early feminist tracts written both by men and women), to develop a better understanding of the socioeconomic, religious, and professional restrictions that shaped their lives, experiences, and expectations. As Joan Kelly Gadol queried in 1977, we will ask whether "women had a Renaisssance." Our inquiry will be broad, and will include female authors, art collectors, and patrons, as well as political figures and thought leaders such as Vittoria Colonna, Isabella D'Este, and Lucrezia Borgia. In addition to renowned artists such as Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, Elisabetta Sirani, and Artemisia Gentileschi. We will explore how these extraordinary women managed to defy the odds and have professional careers that brought them fame and a degree of financial independence.