During the term, students will:

·       Develop an accurate internal, mental map of the broad development of art and architecture in Europe, the Near and Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Americas from c. 400 C.E. to c. 1300 C.E., with reference to specific works of art and architecture.

·       Assiduously practice and cultivate their skill at describing works of art and architecture vividly, evocatively, accurately

·       Analyze iconographies vis-à-vis their sources in specific texts and earlier iconographies

·       Compare and contrast the aesthetic and material-visual traditions of medieval Europe with those of Islamic, American, and African cultures of the same period

AH142 surveys the art and architecture of europe, western Asia, Africa, and the Americas beginning at the end of antiquity in the mediterranean (fifh-sixth centuries c.e.) and ending in c. 1300, with gothic art and the first glimmerings of a return to pictorial illusionism in european

painting. Its principal foci are the arts of medieval Europe, the Byzantine Empire, and Islamic territories, with briefer units on the arts of sub-Saharan Africa and pre-Columbian America.

The chief objective of the course is to equip students with a mental map of artistic developments of the period in their broader cultural-historical contexts. Special attention will be given to religious traditions and to the languages of art developed to serve, express, and enrich those

traditions. The course will also assist students in cultivating basic art-historical skills, in particular description, stylistic analysis, and iconographic and iconological analysis.

Specifically, students will learn to:

·       Identify major monuments of late ancient, medieval European, Byzantine, Islamic, African, and Pre-Columbian American art from c. 400 to c. 1300, specifying their respective dates, authors, medias, and cultures and periods of origin.

·       Describe and analyze works of art from those periods and cultures, with particular attention to their iconographies, period meanings, and social functions.

In this course students will:

° Form an accurate mental map of the broad development of art and architecture in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas

from c. 400 C.E. to c. 1300 C.E., learning to identify and analyze specific, representative works of art and architecture.

° Acquire and exercise the basic descriptive abd analytical skills of art history: visual description; formal, iconographic, and contextual

analysis