Art History Lecture Series | Italian Renaissance

After popular courses on women artists and Van Gogh and Gauguin, art historian Linda Yang presents an informative and lively six-week lecture series that provides foundational knowledge of Italian Renaissance art. Choose between joining in our auditorium, or access the recorded lectures. Prices include all 6 lectures.

Note: class dates are 11, 18, 25 Feb & 4, 18, 25 Mar. There is no class on Wed 11 March.

This is a Members-only lecture series. Gallery Members get free unlimited entry to all exhibitions, discounts, access to the Members Lounge and much more. Click here to find out more about our Membership programme.

 

The Italian Renaissance

The Italian Renaissance, spanning roughly the 14th to 17th century, is a rich visual feast, coloured with iconic images of Western European art history and artists who are household names. This course gives an overview of the period considered within societal, religious and artistic contexts. We will travel through Florence, Venice and Rome, exploring the different approaches artists and patrons embraced in these city states. 

 

Lecture Programme

Week 1: Art in the Making

Technique and skill were central to artists’ training and the way art was valued in the Renaissance. We will examine the different materials and working processes that artists employed, gaining an insider’s perspective on the machinations behind these artworks.  

Week 2: Carving a Civic Identity, Florence

In this lecture we will take a walking tour of Florence, examining how public sculpture declared a particularly Florentine pride in Christian and civic identities. 

Week 3: Last Suppers

We are all familiar with Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Last Supper, but what about the innumerable other versions that precede his? We will survey other interpretations of the Last Supper, contextualising what set Leonardo’s Milanese fresco apart from the crowd. 

Week 4: Patrons and privilege

As ever with Western European art history, the history of art overlaps with the history of privilege. This class will look at patrons and their ambitions behind commissions, and how these personal and political motivations informed the final artworks.

Week 5: Venice and Poesia 
In Venice, a particular style of painting flourished: poesia. Loosely translated as visual poetry, these paintings depart from grandiose, moralising narratives, and instead revel in ambiguity and allusion. Intended for private audiences, often in intimate spaces, these artworks hold a different kind of tantalising appeal.

Week 6: Papal Rome

We finish our lecture series with High Renaissance pomp and circumstance in Saint Peter’s Basilica. We will examine how art catered for the taste and needs of an ambitious papal audience with Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and Raphael’s adjoining Stanze frescoes. 

About the lecturer

Linda Yang (BFA/BA Hons, MA) is an art historian and educator. She has taught a range of art history and photography classes to secondary and tertiary students as well as adults at the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau, New Zealand School of Education, Browne School of Art and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Linda was a long-time assistant of Marti Friedlander (1928–2016), one of New Zealand’s most famous and celebrated photographers. She is the archivist for the Marti Friedlander Archive, which is held by the Gallery’s E H McCormick Research Library. Linda prides herself on creating a safe environment where ideas can be exchanged and explored freely in discussion.

Image credits: Benozzo Gozzoli, Procession of the Old King (west wall), details, 1459-60, fresco, Chapel, Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, Florence | Linda Yang