3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

This course serves as an introduction to medieval art by analyzing the formal relationships between architecture and images at important cultural sites between the third century and the fourteenth century. The course will focus primarily on how those relationships structured viewers’ experiences of the divine and other ideological forces by understanding how works of art functioned for specific audiences in a particular spatial context. Along the way we will encounter a wide array of geographical sites and histories, including early Christian examples in Rome and Byzantium (e.g. the Roman catacombs and Hagia Sophia); monastic settlements in France and Germany during the eighth and ninth centuries (e.g. St. Gall); the interaction of Islamic and Christian visual culture in Spain and North Africa; twelfth century architectural sculpture along the pilgrimage routes; French, German, and Italian Romanesque and Gothic churches; and monumental painting cycles in Italy (e.g. the Arena Chapel in Padua).