The Renaissance Art of the Unfinished

Unfinished art captivates by revealing its maker's creative processes, by leaving its subject matter open and unresolved, and by inviting its viewers to imagine its completion. This seminar examines the rise of unfinishedness as a central, and disruptive, new category of Renaissance art, and probes its meanings and implications. Incomplete paintings, statues, prints, and architecture by Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Titian, and others, will be brought into dialogue with incompleteness in art-theoretical, religious, literary, scientific, political, and theatrical contexts. This class will coincide with a major conference on the topic.