Course Description
An exploration into the intellectual context of the art and architecture of the Middle Ages. More precisely, a study of a variety of medieval sources and their relationship to medieval artistic and architectural achievements.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students will be expected to produce an extensive
research paper on specific works or issues related to the field
and the methodologies appropriate to the topic under
consideration in the course. This paper will be a detailed,
in-depth consideration of the student's chosen theme requiring
not only a demonstration of advanced research skills (including
the ability to read and use material presented in foreign
languages), but also an articulation of the student's ability to
understand and manipulate the critical apparatus of art history
in connection with research on intellectual history.
Athena Title
Found Medi Art and Arch
Prerequisite
Two ARHI 3000-level courses and permission of major
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
From the desire to emulate Biblical prototypes to the rejection of art as superfluous luxury, diverse attitudes existed towards art production in the Middle Ages. This course will investigate medieval art and architecture from the perspective of written sources. Besides the Scriptures, this class will also cover scientific writings, writings on the liberal arts, as well as drawings and illustrations providing information on art and architecture from ca. 1000-1450. The main focus will be architecture, but the intellectual aspects of medieval sculpture, particularly monumental, will also be analyzed. Visual and written documents will be considered as a whole, mutually informative on the arts from an era before the separation between the arts and the sciences. This class is intended to offer students a basis for understanding the specificity of medieval art and its intellectual underpinnings. Successful students will pass two written tests and prove their mastery of the materials through a developed research paper on an assigned topic.
Topical Outline
1. Medieval Sources of Inspiration 2. Questionable approaches on Medieval Thought and Art 3. The Foundations a. The Scriptures: The Source for Architecture and Sculpture b. The Biblical Architectural Prototype: Exegeses on the Temple c. The Classical Treatise: Vitruvius in the Middle Ages d. The Tradition of Roman Land Surveyors e. The Seven Liberal Arts in the Middle Ages 4. Thought in The High Middle Ages a. Cistercian Rational Architecture? b. Education and Curricula: Hugh of Saint-Victor’s Didascalicon c. Chartres’s West portals: The Quest for Divine Wisdom d. Geometry in the Middle Ages e. Thirteenth-Century Architectural Drawings: Villard de Honnecourt 5. The Later Middle Ages a. Geometry, Arithmetic and the Art of Building b. The debates and construction of Milan Cathedral c. Milan Cathedral and Stornaloco: a case study of mathematics and construction d. Late Medieval Architectural drawings 6. Epilogue a. Nineteenth- and Twentieth-century Scientific Understanding of Buildings b. New Approaches to Medieval Art