HArt 671: Topics in German Art: The Renaissance

In his introduction to The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer, Erwin Panofsky observes that “German psychology is marked by a curious dichotomy clearly reflected in Luther’s doctrine of “Christian Liberty,” as well as in Kant’s distinction between an ‘intelligible character’ which is free even in a state of material slavery and an ‘empirical character’ which is predetermined even in a state of material freedom. The Germans, so easily regimented in political and military life, were prone to extreme subjectivity and individualism in religion, in metaphysical thought, and, above all, in art.”

In part this observation resonates with the book’s date of publication, 1943; in part it addresses German Renaissance culture. In this seminar we will explore the possibility in German Renaissance art of the simultaneous affirmation and negation of a topic, point of reference or tradition iconographically represented or invoked by a work of art. This practice may be implicit or explicit, an inadvertent byproduct or a form of resistance; it may stay within the parameters of an established genre and/or medium (altarpiece, portrait, history; sculpture, painting, print) or use a satirical mode. We will explore this phenomenon empirically, through a series of case studies in the art of Veit Stoss, Tilman Riemenschneider, Albrecht Dürer, Hans Baldung Grien, Hans Holbein and others. We will also explore it theoretically, for example as dialectic (Benjamin), latency (Freud), melancholia (Kristeva), negativity (Agamben), and through particluar interpretive paradigms in art history (Panofsky, Baxandall, Hults, Koerner and others). In their research projects seminar participants will work with these or choose their own artistic examples and interpretive paradigms.