Painting Italy in Context
(May 25 - June 29, 2008)
Professors Jennifer Moses and Mara Witzling
The department of Art and Art History will be offering a 4-credit, 5-week team-taught painting-art history course during the summer of 2008 in Ascoli Piceno, Italy. Located in the Marches region of central-northern Italy, Ascoli Piceno is a beautiful and culturally rich city of approximately 60,000 inhabitants.
The course will be taught under the Arts 695 Special Problems in Visual Arts designation and will offer an integrated experience in which students gain a deep knowledge and understanding of the environs of Ascoli Piceno and selected sites within Italy, that they put into practice through painting. The course will consist of two ongoing threads: the layering of time and space in Italy and in Italian art, and narrative painting as expressed in cycles of the life of Christ, the Virgin, and the lives of saints. The course will include trips to Venice, Florence, Rome and other selected sites in Italy.
The art history component will involve exploration of the art historical layers of Ascoli: Roman, Medieval, Renaissance-Baroque; the experience of architecture in Ascoli and other selected venues as it unfolds from the interior to the exterior; painted lives of the saints in Ascoli and at other sites. Students will be expected to keep a guided journal and write critical analyses of site visits.
The painting component will focus on observational painting that includes the layering and compositing of time, linking the contemporary Italian landscape and its life with its ancient substructure. There will be a major final project that demonstrates familiarity with how Italian narrative painting has been constructed over the years.
Can be used for credit to fulfill a UNH 600-level painting or art history course requirement for studio majors or a 600-level in any area requirement for art history majors.
Prerequisites – Arts 532 Intro Drawing, Arts 546 Intro Painting, and an introductory level art history class; or permission of instructors.
Participants are housed in comfortable apartments located within historic center of the city.
The costs for the program are:
$3,572 program fee for NH residents ($3,680 for non-NH residents) which covers tuition for 4 undergraduate credits (graduate credits will incur a higher program fee - $3,748 NH residents, $3,876 non-NH residents), housing, approximately two group meals per week, travel within Italy on program trips (including lodging on overnight trips), and entrance fees to selected museums
$40 application fee
$20 UNH summer registration
$14.50 UNH technology fee
$1040 group airfare (arranged for all participants from Boston to Italy - students may also opt to make their own travel)
UNH-in-Italy reserves the right to adjust costs at any time.
Application and instructions: www.unhinitaly.unh.edu