Looking Group 1 · Completed
European Painting, 1300–1800
From the medieval world to the eighteenth century
A Looking Group tracing the birth and development of post-Medieval European Painting from International Gothic through the eighteenth century.
June–September 2025
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Participants discuss Berlinghiero’s Madonna and Child
About this series
- Where
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Gallery 600 - When
- Sundays (see individual session notes)
2:30 p.m. - Taking part
- Sessions are modular. You do not need to have attended previous meetings, and the readings are optional.
- Admission
- Looking Group is free. Museum admission varies by venue.
14 sessions
The syllabus
Open a session to see the works, galleries, and reading suggestions. All readings are optional.
This is an archived syllabus. Gallery arrangements and museum displays may have changed.
Introductory reading suggestions
- Farago, Jason. “700 Paintings, 45 Galleries: A Guide to the Met’s New European Wing”, The New York Times, Nov. 24, 2023.
- John Berger’s Ways of Seeing
- Episode 1 here; also in essay form here.
- Andrei Pop, How to do Things with Pictures: A Guide to Writing in Art History, Harvard College, 2008
- Sylvan Barnett, A Short Guide to Writing About Art, Pearson, 2015
- Arnold Hauser, The Social History of Art, Vol. 2 and 3
1European Painting: Origins & International GothicJune 8, 2025
Galleries
601 (“European Painting: A Starting Point”), 603 (“International Gothic”), 635 (“Beyond the Wall”)
Readings
- Camille, Michael. "Introduction: New Ways of Seeing Gothic Art." In Gothic Art: Visions and Revelations of the Medieval World, 8-25. The Everyman Art Library, 1996.
- Kumler, Aden. "Materials, Materia, 'Materiality'." In A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, 95-117. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2019.
- Huizinga, Johan. The Autumn of the Middle Ages. The University of Chicago Press, 1997 [1924].
2Early Renaissance ItalyJune 15, 2025
Galleries
602 (“Faces of the Renaissance”), 604 (“The Home in Renaissance Italy”), 606 (“Trade and Transformation in Venice”)
Readings
- Baxandall, Michael. Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy. Oxford University Press, 1988, “The Period Eye”, pp. 29-41
- Panofsky, Erwin. Perspective as Symbolic Form. Zone Books, 1991 [1927].
- Alberti, Leon Battista. On Painting. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966 [1436]
- Simmons, Patricia. “Women in Frames, the gaze, the eye, the profile in Renaissance portraiture”
3Northern Renaissance & the ReformationJune 22, 2025
Galleries
605 (“Early Netherlandish Painting”), 607 (“The Reformation and the Age of Dürer”)
Readings
- Panofsky, Erwin. “Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait,” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Mar., 1934, Vol. 64, No. 372 (Mar., 1934), pp. 117-119 and 122-127.
4Late Renaissance / MannerismJune 29, 2025
Galleries
608 (“Faith and Love in Venice”), 609 (“Sacred Images and the Viewer”), 610 (“Artists at the Italian Courts”)
Readings
- Howard Hibbard, “The High Renaissance in Florence,” in Michelangelo (Cambridge: Harper and Row, 1974), 51-61 Excerpts from Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects Michelangelo
5Naturalism and Early Baroque (Caravaggio/Carracci)July 6, 2025
Galleries
611 (“A Search for Truth in Lombardy”), 620 (“Italian Baroque: ‘To Destroy Painting’”)
Readings
- Giovanni Pietro Bellori, The Lives of the Modern Painters, 1672 Excerpt: “Life of Carravagio”
- Gombrich, The Story of Art, Excerpt: Chapter 19, “Vision and Visions”
6PortraitureJuly 13, 2025
Galleries
612 (“The Powers of Portraiture”)
Readings
- Shearer West, Portraiture (2004) Excerpt: Introduction and Chap. 1 Read online
- Richard Brilliant, Portraiture (1991) Excerpt: Introduction
- Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting (1436) Excerpt: Book 2 Read online
7“Genre”July 20, 2025
Galleries
613 (“Origins of Landscape”), 614 (“Behind Closed Doors”), 617 (“Still Life”)
Readings
- Brusati, Celeste. “Stilled Lives: Self-Portraiture and Self-Reflection in Seventeenth-Century Netherlandish Still-Life Painting,” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, Vol. 20, No. 2/3 (1990 – 1991), pp. 168-182
- Vergara, Alejandro. “The Problem of Meaning in Still Lives”, “The Value of Objects in the Still Lives of Clara Peeters” and “The Realism of Clara Peeters,” in The Art of Clara Peeters. Museo Nacional del Prado, 2016, 32-44
- de Vries, Jan. “Luxury and Calvinism/ Luxury and Capitalism: Supply and Demand for Luxury Goods in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic,” The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, 1999, Vol. 57, Place and Culture in Northern Art (1999), pp. 73-85
8Dutch Landscape, Group Portraiture, RembrandtJuly 27, 2025
Galleries
615 (“The Patriotic Landscape”), 616 (“Painters, Critics, and Rivals in the Age of Rembrandt”), 618 (“Putting on a Show”)
Readings
- Riegl, Alois “The Dutch Group Portraiture”, October 74 (1995).
- Houbraken, Arnold. “Life of Rembrandt.” Lives of Rembrandt. Pallas Athene, 2007 [De Groote Schouburg der Nederlandtsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen, 1718].
- Alpers, Svetlana. Rembrandt’s Enterprise: The Studio and the Market. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. Excerpt, “The Master’s Touch,” pp. 14-33
- Wölfflin, Heinrich. Renaissance and Baroque. Collins, 1964 [1888] Excerpt, “The Painterly Style”, pp. 27-37
9El Greco, Rubens, Poussin & ClaudeAugust 3, 2025
Galleries
619 (“El Greco”), 621 (“Flesh and the Spirit in the Age of Rubens”), 622 (“Founding French Painting”), 623 (“Classical Landscape: Poussin and Claude”)
Readings
- Giovanni Pietro Bellori, The Lives of the Modern Painters, 1672 Excerpt: “Life of Nicolas Poussin” Excerpt: “Life of Rubens”
- Keith Christansen, “El Greco” Read online
- Roger de Piles, “A Dialogue Upon Colouring” (1673) Read online
10Techniques, Materials & the StudioAugust 17, 2025
Galleries
638 (“The Artist’s Studio”), 639 (“Oil Sketches”), 640 (“Supports”), 642 (“Immersive Interiors/Pastels”)
Readings
- Keith Christansen, “Tiepolo” Read online
- Marjorie Shelley, “The Rise of Pastel in the Eighteenth Century” Read online
11Early Modern SpainAugust 24, 2025
Galleries
624 (“Spanish Religious Art”), 625 (“Portraits and Power in Spain”), 626 (“The Art of Spanish America, 1550-1820”)
Readings
- Palomino, Antonio. Excerpts from Lives of the Eminent Spanish Painters and Sculptors, Cambridge University Press, 1987.
12Eighteenth Century Venice and the Grand TourAugust 31, 2025
Galleries
643 (“Tiepolo and Multiracial Europe”), 644 (“Venetian Views”), 627 (“Grand Tour”)
Readings
- Jean Sorabella – “The Grand Tour” Read online
13The British and Atlantic WorldSeptember 7, 2025
Galleries
628 (“The British Atlantic World”), 629 (“Outside Court Strictures”)
Readings
- TBD
14French Academy, Revolution & GoyaSeptember 14, 2025
Galleries
630 (“Class Dynamics”), 631 (“Urban Luxuries”), 632 (“Hierarchy, Gender, and the French Academy”), 633 (“Political Portraiture and Empire”), 634 (“Revolution”), 641 (“Goya”)
Readings
- Goya, Francisco. “Address to the Royal Academy of San Fernando Regarding the Method of Teaching the Visual Arts” [1792]
- Tomlinson, Janis. Goya in the Twilight of Enlightenment. Yale UP, 1992.
- Crow, Thomas. “The tensions of enlightenment: Goya.” In Stephen Eisenman, Nineteenth century art: a critical history. London: Thames and Hudson, 1994.
- Weston, Helen. “Witnessing Revolution.” Jacques-Louis David: New Perspectives. U of Delaware Press, 2006.
- Mirzoeff, Nicholas. “Revolution, Representation, Equality- Gender, Genre and Emulation in the Académie Royale de Peinture et Sculpture 1785-93,” Eighteenth Century Studies, vol. 31, no. 2 (1997-98), 153-174.
- Nochlin, Linda. “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? (1971),” Women, Art, and Power, and Other Essays. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.
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