From Van Eyck to Bruegel: The Northern Renaissance, Part 1

This class explores the flowering of painting, sculpture, and book illumination in France, Germany, Switzerland, and the Low Countries from 1400 to 1500, featuring the first large-scale application of a new technique-oil paint. We spend time on masterpieces as the recently restored Ghent Altarpiece-the most-stolen work of art in history-the first naturalistic portraits, the first landscape paintings since antiquity, and the development of the print medium that made great art accessible all over an expanding world. The class will explore how Italian art influenced Northern Europe, and vice versa. (Hint: Leonardo da Vinci is unthinkable without van Eyck and van der Weyden.)