European Art & Absolute Power 1660-1815 (AHIS30003)

This subject examines the visual culture of Europe in the period 1660–1815, from the reign of Louis XIV of France to the end of the Napoleonic wars. We will consider several significant centres of power in France, England, Italy and the Holy Roman Empire to study how powerful political, religious, social and cultural factors shaped changes in the production, patronage and reception of images, objects and buildings.

We will also consider how European contact with cultures around the globe led to a fascination with the foreign other that indelibly shaped European visual culture at this time. Close study of artworks in local collections – including paintings, prints, furniture, ceramics, glass, metalwork and textiles – will explore how these objects were deployed in the construction of social identity in the courts and cities of eighteenth-century Europe.