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 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.