Details

When: Wednesdays Feb 16 – March 30 1:30 – 3:30 pm
No class March 30

Where: The Hampton Inn

Cost: $185.00 for 6 session(s)

Type: In Person

Category:

Instructor: Kevin Justus , PhD received his Ph.D. in Art History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Kevin Justus

Urbanization, art and architecture and the transference of political and artistic power.

Rome and Paris are two of the world’s most beautiful cities, but they were not always that way. Quite the contrary, they were known to be violent, disorganized, dirty and packed with people.  This series will look at the transformations that were afoot in both cities in the 17th and 18th Centuries, investigating how and why urbanization, architecture, as well as sculpture and painting transformed these cities into beacons of culture and beauty, even if they were still violent disorganized, dirty and packed with people.  We will consider how one city (Rome) ceded artistic influence and political power to the other (Paris) as we examine how these two cities were created to encourage different ideas and agendas.

Week 1. Introduction.  Two cities in the 16th Century and a little before. What is going on?  Everything is a mess. Will peace and prosperity ever return to the Eternal city or the capital of the kingdom of France?

Week 2. The Rising of the Sun or the Renovatio of Rome:  the harmony of the arts. Churches, churches, everywhere and lots of water to drink.  Urbanization of the eternal city and the glory of the papacy.

Week 3. The greatness of Counter Reformation Rome: palaces, churches, squares and fountains.  The glory of Rome has returned, but a new sun has arrived and the eternal city is no longer casting its cultural shadow.

Week 4. The artistic orbit changes to Paris, but what a mess. Paris in the early 1600s: palaces, churches and sewage.  The Louvre and the Luxembourg.

Week 5. Here come the Bourbons. The glorification Paris and the role of the monarchy. The agenda of Louis XIV and Colbert to turn Paris into the new Rome; the role of urbanization and grand monuments.  They succeed, well almost.

Week 6. The Paris of Louis XV and Paris before the Revolution or the Triumph of urbanization, La Place Louis XV and Fragility of monarchical prestige:  The Setting of the Sun.

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Register for A Tale of Two Cities: Rome and Paris in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.

Online registration has been closed for this class. Please call (520) 777-5817 for information.