Working on my Comprehensive Exam in Renaissance Art History—any advice?

[Doppio Macchiato]

Hi,

I am a PhD student in art history at Arizona State University. My major area of focus in Renaissance, my minor is Asian. My advisor wants me to take the comprehensive exam first thing in the fall, so I will be studying for it all summer. He basically just rattled off a lot of names of important scholars to read and some of their books. I asked him if there needs to be a more specific idea of what books to read of theirs exactly, and he said that for something like this that I don't want an exact bibliography. The point of the exam, according to him is to gain a comprehensive knowledge of the important works of art history, and the important works of art that are discussed by those authors. He says to take notes, and try to create a kind of map as to where everything is in the texts, and the way in which the different author's methods and the artworks discussed connect historically and theoretically. 

 

My advisor is cool, but he is a very "shoot from the hip" type of young Italian professor, who kind of lets me figure things out on my own. So it was also his suggestion to start a forum here, to get guidance and support from other doctoral students. 

 

Thanks,

Noé Badillo

[Johann seez]

I would search for some documentaries on that subject. 

 

I watched one about Da Vinci the other day just on youtube. I found it fascinating.

[knp]

Do you have any other committee members, advisors, or relevant professors to ask? I'd do so, because as far as I can tell from here (I am just a worker bee applying for my first cycle next year), it is very unusual not to have a precise list of books to read. So maybe other professors at your institution can help you with your situation. It's not like this forum can't help you, but people with a better knowledge of your institution and your scholarly interests within the Renaissance are in a better position to do so. For instance, re: scholarly interests, somebody studying engravings/prints in the northern/later Renaissance will have a pretty different reading list than somebody studying the transition from late medieval to early Renaissance paintings in a couple Italian city-states. There'll be some overlap, but they won't be identical.