Artists and authorship: the case of Raphael

Individual artists have been the traditional focus of art history, but how do we evaluate the figure of the artist? This free course, Artists and authorship: the case of Raphael, takes the life of Raphael as a case study. You will examine sixteenth-century sources to explore the creation of artistic authorship in the early modern era. The course explores past and current approaches to the artist in terms of authorship, identity and subjectivity. You will consider issues such as the relationship between the artist's life and work, the enduring notion of 'genius' and the artist as a source of meaning.

• Introduction
• Learning outcomes
• 1 Methodological transformations: 1970s and 1980s
• 1 Methodological transformations: 1970s and 1980s
• 1.1 The new art history
• 1.1.1 Reformulation
• 1.1.2 From subject to subjectivity
• 1.2 How can subjects act critically or independently?
• 1.3 Foucault, ‘What is an author?’
• 1.4 Foucault’s author function
• 1.5 Subjectification: self fashioning
• 1.5.1 Greenblatt on Holbein’s Ambassadors
• 1.5.2 Ambassadors
• 2 Raphael, prince of painters
• 2 Raphael, prince of painters
• 2.1 Misconceptions and misreadings
• 2.2 Vasari and the reception of Raphael
• 2.3 Critiques of Vasari, by Freud, and Kris and Kurz
• 2.4 Other responses to Renaissance artists
• 2.4.1 Positivism
• 2.4.2 Vasari’s legacy
• 2.4.3 Artist as genius
• 2.5 Raphael’s death: the primary sources
• 2.6 ‘Raphael’ in death
• 2.7 A divine Raphael
• 2.8 Christ’s portrait
• 2.9 Raphael’s portrait
• 2.10 The intersubjectivity of Raphael and Castiglione
• 2.10.1 Raphael paints Castiglione
• 2.10.2 Castiglione ‘paints’ Raphael
• 2.11 Identity and style
• 2.11.1 Raphael and Michelangelo
• Conclusion
• References
• Further reading
• Acknowledgements