ARTH 212(S) Distant Encounters: East Meets West in the Art of the European Middle Ages
This lecture course investigates the rich artistic consequences-in architecture, manuscript illumination, mosaic, sculpture, panel painting, fresco, metalwork, and other minor arts-of European contact with the Eastern Mediterranean between approximately 300 and 1450 AD. From the beginnings of Christianity, pilgrims from Europe made the long journey to sacred sites in the Holy Land (extending across parts of present-day Egypt, Israel, Syria, and Turkey). When these sites became less accessible with the spread of Islam in the seventh century, Europeans sought to recreate the sites at home. Later, from 1095 onward, Christian Europeans attempted to reclaim and hold the Holy Land from non-Christians by force, through an ill-fated series of five major and several lesser "crusades." Over the centuries, before, during, and after the Crusades, exposure to the peoples, ideas, and cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean also came through trade and through the travel and settlement of non-Europeans in Europe itself, particularly in Spain, Sicily, and Venice. The course aims to survey artistic production within each of these different contexts of East-West encounter.
Format: lecture/discussion. Requirements: two to three short papers, midterm, and final exam.
No prerequisite, but previous coursework in medieval art helpful (ArtH 101-102, 223, or 224). Enrollment limit: 25 (expected: 20).
Satisfies the pre-1400 and pre-1800 requirements.
Hour: LOW