Michelangelo, Bernini, and Caravaggio

The course will focus on major artistic movements from Michelangelo to Caravaggio and Bernini. We will begin by analyzing Michelangelo Buonarroti as an architect, painter, and sculptor who served as a foundation and model for following generations, and as a figure in art history who is most closely associated with the High Renaissance. The course will examine his exemplary artistic creations that paved the way to a period that is vaguely circumscribed by the term “Baroque.”

We will then focus on Michelangelo da Merisi, known as Caravaggio, and on issues of severe criticism and problems in his troubled life, and the tremendous influence this artist exerted on the art of Europe.

Our studies will then take us to Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who is synonymous with the Baroque period. The course will examine his artistic life as a sculptor and architect who found compelling and outstanding visual embodiment for the aspirations of Roman Counter-Reformation and the idea of triumphant Catholicism as well as secular absolutism.