ART 310 Introduction to Early Christian Art and Archaeology
An exploration of art, architecture, and material culture from the mid-3rd century through the 8th century AD, a time when the Christian faith grew from one of many practiced throughout the Roman world to an empire-wide state religion. This course will investigate Christian iconography's origins in the pagan and Jewish art of late antiquity, and the innovative visual forms that arose to express Christianity's new spiritual concepts. The dynamic effects of competing "heresies," iconoclasm, and the increasingly defined doctrines, rituals, and structures of the Church will be examined in relation to the visual arts, within the context of the political fracturing of the Roman Empire, the persistence of Greco-Roman cultural heritage, and the rise of Islam in the 7th century. Examples drawn from western Europe and the eastern Mediterranean region will include church architecture, wall paintings, mosaics, icons, sculptures, manuscripts, and objects in ivory, ceramic, and glass. Visits to Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C. and the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore may be arranged.