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'Queen City of Europe': Art, Culture and Society in Renaissance Antwerp, c.1500-70

Module description

This course focusses on visual culture in Antwerp (modern-day Belgium) during the city’s ‘Golden Age’, c.1500-1570. At the time, Antwerp was one of Europe’s largest, most densely populated and prosperous cities , leading world markets in finance, cloth, spices, books and, crucially, the visual arts; for these reasons, the merchant and writer Lodovico Guicciardini memorably described Antwerp in 1567 as being the ‘Queen City of Europe’. In this module you will develop an in-depth understanding of the art, culture and society of Renaissance Antwerp and examine the factors that enabled and sustained the city’s remarkable rise to prominence. Major themes include the commercialisation of art and the rise of the art market; the intended locations for art and their functions in such locations; art and religion; and the role of visual culture in the formation of local and national identities. You will consider well-known paintings by famous artists such as Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1526/30-69) and Frans Floris (1519/20-70), but will also explore architecture and urban planning, prints and printmaking, ephemeral art, chronicles and maps.  

Module aims - intentions of the module

Drawing heavily on primary visual and literary (in translation) evidence, and fostering a critical approach towards that evidence, this module aims to equip you with the knowledge and analytical skills required to interrogate and understand the diverse cultural output and urban landscape of Renaissance Antwerp. It is structured chronologically, considering Antwerp’s ascendency as Northern Europe’s cultural and economic capital and the wider factors that brought this about, its artistic heyday in the middle decades of the 1500s, and the start of its decline during the 1560s as a result of social, religious and political upheavals. Each week addresses a specific theme, focussing on key artistic monuments and personalities, or key “moments” in the city’s history, and in all these respects requires you to critically engage with new and ongoing research into this often-overlooked city. You will also look at recent developments that have sought to situate Antwerp visual culture in a global perspective, considering the distribution of Antwerp goods throughout the known world. You will draw heavily on the growing scholarship on Antwerp art and the social history of art more broadly, as well as on cross-disciplinary concerns in cognate fields including urban and economic history, as well as anthropology. Ultimately, you will consolidate and develop your ability to analyse and understand a range of artworks and cultural artefacts, from the well- to the lesser-known, and to situate these in broader contexts of religion, politics, economics, and identity.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate an understanding of the range of types of visual culture produced and consumed in Antwerp in this period
• 2. Demonstrate knowledge of recent debates and issues in the scholarship of art history, visual culture and social history of Renaissance Antwerp
• 3. Demonstrate familiarity with the history and significance of various forms of cultural expression made in this locality, such as painting, prints, architecture, chronicles and maps
• 4. Demonstrate knowledge of the social, political and religious history of Antwerp in the wider socio-political context of the Early Modern Netherlands

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Recognise, understand and use relevant art-historical terminology and concepts
• 6. With guidance, access and use learning resources specified by the course tutor
• 7. Use a reading list to identify material relevant to a given aspect of the subject, and communicate ideas effectively in both oral and written forms
• 8. Research independently and interpret information by consulting a range of primary and secondary sources

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 9. Assimilate, select and organise material in order to produce persuasive and coherent written or oral arguments
• 10. Undertake structured learning activities with guidance from course tutor and with the help of written guidelines

Syllabus plan

The course is structured chronologically, so as to enable a thorough and in-depth understanding of Antwerp’s history and its emergence as Northern Europe’s cultural and economic capital. Lectures focus on key themes in the visual culture of the city, and often focus on specific artists and their works; and these are supplemented with other lectures that address broader themes in the history of Antwerp and the Netherlands that provide vital framing for understanding the city’s cultural output. Key themes include (but are not limited to):

• Economies of scale and the rise of the modern art market in Antwerp;
• Artist rivalries and opposing artistic priorities and traditions;
• Industrial printmaking and distribution;
• The role of religion in Antwerp visual culture;
• Functions of artworks in their intended locations (places of worship, homes, etc);
• Representation of marginalised or subjugated groups in Antwerp art and literature.

Seminars will explore key case-studies and topics that emerge from the lecture series, using primary evidence and drawing on new and recent scholarship.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Alpers, Svetlana, ‘Realism as a Comic Mode: Low-Life Painting Seen through Bredero’s Eyes,’ Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 8 (1976-1976), 115-44.
• Edwards, Jamie L., 'Erasmus's De Copia and Pieter Bruegel the Elder's 'inverted' Carrying of the Cross (1564): An 'abundant style' in Rhetoric, Literature and Art?', in Christina Currie et al., eds, The Bruegel Success Story (Peeters: Leuven, Paris and Bristol, CT) 2021, pp 369-84.
• Ewing, Dan, ‘Marketing Art in Antwerp, 1460-1560: Our Lady’s Pand,’ The Art Bulletin 72 (Dec., 1990), 558-84
• Limberger, Michael, ‘ “No town in the world provides more advantages”: Economies of Agglomeration and the Golden Age of Antwerp,’ in Patrick O’Brien ed., Urban Achievement in Early Modern Europe: Golden Ages in Antwerp, Amsterdam and London, Cambridge and New York, 2001, 39–62
• Limberger, Michael, ‘A Merchant Describing the City: Lodovico Guicciardini’s Descrittione di tutti I Paesi Bassi as a Source for the Urban History of the Low Countries,’ Histoire compareÌ?e des villes europeÌ?ennes (2009), 11-18
• Lombaerde, Piet, ‘Antwerp in Its Golden Age: “one of the largest cities in the Low Countries” and “one of the best fortified in Europe,” ’ in Urban Achievement (as above), 99–127
• Van Grieken, Joris et al. (eds), Hieronymus Cock: the Renaissance in Print, exh. cat. (M-Museum, Leuven and the Institut NeÌ?erlandais, Paris, 2013), New Haven and London, 2013
• Vlieghe, Hans, ‘The Fine and Decorative Art in Antwerp’s Golden Age,’ in Urban Achievement (as above), 173-85.

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – Faculty to provide hyperlink to appropriate pages

Key words search

Queen City, Antwerp, Renaissance, Netherlands