Initially, this course just had a direction other than the fact that I knew I wanted to study Italian art, I didn't have any specific periods in mind or regions of interest. My first attempts to locate sources to analyze later left me feeling even more lost and confused about how to narrow my scope. However, after several hours of meetings and research, I was able to narrow my scope of interest to an area that I feel comfortable pursuing further for my Lumen application and also for subsequent thesis research. After finally obtaining a title, this course is entitled “Parallelisms and power in the historiography and criticism of Italian art”. With this focus, my research will concern critical theory, art criticism and politics and how all these aspects then underlie and express the phenomena of parallelism within Italian art and why this theme is so relevant. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Underlying all the research I will complete in this course is an understanding of how to use different critical theories in order to bring in-depth analysis to my work. This understanding can be gained through reading various sources that use different methodologies. Therefore, much of this course will involve reading sources that do not necessarily relate to the research I intend to complete, but which are nevertheless incredibly relevant to my studies as they teach me how to write within different methodological mindsets. this research will constitute the study of the evolution of Italian art criticism. Art criticism, when viewed as a primary source or as a synthesis of several primary sources, can offer valuable insights into how and why art was evaluated in the time it was written. It is important to recognize that art history or art criticism written today in reference to the art of a different era is intrinsically influenced by the writer's presence in the contemporary world. As Keith Moxey points out in his book Visual Time: The Image in History, "The plot of the past is woven through an account of the work's reception in the present." In essence, no contemporary art criticism or research will ever truly capture how a work would have been received in its time, thus giving credence to the importance of a historiography of art criticism. It is as Moxey further states: “By emphasizing the contemporaneity of their response to images, by folding the historicity of their temporal positions into accounts of historical horizons, such scholars effectively destroy any absolute distinction between past and present.” it often contains political imagery or is in some way related to political ideology, thus making politics one of the most important aspects of this course. By making a political connection, this course connects significantly to both my majors in Art History and Political Science, as well as my degree in Italian. The art of Italian politics can be viewed across time and regions, allowing me to satisfy my interest in a wide range of areas and time periods within Italy while still having a concise focus. The political can be found explicitly in Renaissance art, Futurism, and the contemporary movement, among others, and remains relevant throughout the rest of Italian art, including in the form of patronage and power. While all of these aspects are important to naturally in their own right, what unites these different themes are the tools they provide for studying parallels in Italian art. First of all it is necessary.