Art and Print Culture in Renaissance Venice at The Courtauld Institute of Art

Renaissance Venice was a global hub of visual and textual communication. This position was strengthened in the late fifteenth century with the establishment of printing houses there. Venice was to become the most significant centre for the production of printed images and texts in Europe for a century. The rise of the printing industry provided opportunities for artists and architects working in the city. This involved not just book illustration and print-making but personal friendships with writers and publishers, cheaper and more varied source material and ultimately a more powerful position vis-à-vis their clients in a growing art market. This course will focus on how artists and architects responded to this radically new order. How did the colour-based tradition of Venetian painters like Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Titian and Veronese adapt to the modern, black-and-white age of mechanical reproduction? How did Palladio and others use printing to spread the language of classical architecture? In addition to lectures and seminars there will be more object-based classes during visits to The Courtauld Gallery Print Room, the National Gallery, the British Museum and the British Library.