ART 295-02 - Special Topic: Gender, Race and Fashion in Western Portraiture, 1550-1950

4 credits (Spring)

This course examines portrayals of race, gender, and fashionable dress. For elite early modern sitters, portraits were a valued means of constructing a public image, securing a spouse, memorializing the dead, and emphasizing political and dynastic relationships. Taking as our point of departure Renaissance and Baroque notions of likeness, otherness, and verisimilitude, we will investigate the problems of mimesis and self/representation through various artistic subgenres as they alter and re-imagine themselves over the course of five centuries.

Prerequisite: ART 103.
Instructor: Lyon