FAH1221H: Inside the Painter's Studio

Painters at work in Italy, France and Germany, 1550-1700. The aim of this seminar is to understand studios as places for painting, teaching, selling and modelling, and hence painters as a craftsman, teacher and team boss, negotiator and salesroom manager. Research topics include: the physical location and environment of painters’ studios; painting as a corporeal act; painting as a performance for studio visitors; self-representation of painters at work; bodily traces in paintings (fingerprints and finger painting); visual and literary evidence of production. An eclectic array of approaches and sources will be used: material culture, anthropology, scientific conservation, social and economic history, and literary analysis. Source material will include biographies, letters, diaries, account books, inventories, testaments, lawsuits, technical manuals and (naturally) prints, drawings and paintings. Reading knowledge of Italian, German, or French is required.

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