ART 103: Art History - Renaissance and Baroque Art in Western Europe

Citrus College Course Outline of Record

Citrus College Course Outline of Record
Heading Value
Effective Term: Fall 2026
Credits: 3
Total Contact Hours: 54
Lecture Hours : 54
Lab Hours: 0
Hours Arranged: 0
Outside of Class Hours: 108
Total Student Learning Hours: 162
Strongly Recommended: ENGL C1000.
District General Education: C1. Arts
Transferable to CSU: Yes
Transferable to UC: Yes - Approved
Grading Method: Standard Letter

Catalog Course Description

This course introduces students to the art and architecture of the early Renaissance through the Baroque period with a focus on Europe. The course will further consider global interactions involving this region. 54 lecture hours.

Course Objectives

  • Evaluate the ways visual objects' aesthetics, subject matters and functions were informed by their historical, philosophical, religious and cultural contexts.
  • Demonstrate knowledge of the history of western art from the early Renaissance through the Baroque period.
  • Recognize historic styles and techniques in the general period of western art from the early Renaissance through the Baroque period.
  • Compare historic styles as well as individual artistic styles within western art from the early Renaissance through the Baroque period.
  • Distinguish and recognize major monuments of art and architecture within this period of western art from the early Renaissance through the Baroque period.
  • Comprehend terms, media, techniques and processes of this period of western art from the early Renaissance through the Baroque period.

Major Course Content

  1. Background
    1. Development of Art History as a Discipline
    2. Problematizing the Art Historical 'Canon'
  2. Proto Renaissance 13th and 14th Centuries
  3. Early Renaissance in Italy - 15th Century
  4. Early Renaissance in Northern Europe
  5. High Renaissance
    1. Central Italy - Leonardo, Michelangelo, Bramante, Raphael
    2. Venice (Titian)
    3. Norther Europe (Dürer)
  6. Mannerism and Late Renaissance
    1. Mannerism in Italy
    2. Mannerism outside of Italy 
    3. Renaissance art in Latin America
  7. Baroque
    1. Reformation and effects on art in Northern Europe
    2. Counter-Reformation Italy
    3. Counter-Reformation Spain
    4. Counter-Reformation Flanders and France
    5. Protestant Europe (Dutch Republic)
    6. Baroque art in Latin America

Suggested Reading Other Than Required Textbook

Materials, such as academic articles and primary sources, provided on or linked off the Learning Management System.

Examples of Required Writing Assignments

Write a response paper to an assigned academic article, identifying the author's subject and argument and analyzing major evidence used to support the argument.

Examples of Outside Assignments

Write a two to three page paper (12 point type, double spaced) on a museum visit.
Choose one work by an artist from a period and culture discussed in class, which is displayed in the collection of the museum you visit, and analyze its subject matter, formal visual qualities and function and discuss he relationship between these elements and the artworks historical (socio-political, religious, philosophical, technological) context.

Instruction Type(s)

Lecture, Online Education Lecture

IGETC Area 3: Arts and Humanities

3A. Fine Arts