Results for ARTHIST409

This seminar explores the role of images in the three major powers of the medieval Mediterranean: the Umayyads, the Carolingians, and the Byzantines. For each the definition of an image- sura, imago, or eikon respectively-became an important means of establishing religious identity and a fault-line between distinct cultural traditions. This course troubles the identification of image with figural representation and presents instead a performative paradigm where chant or recitation are treated as images. As such, students will be able to see the connections between medieval image theory and contemporary art practices such as installation.

This course explores the phenomenon of iconoclasm, iconophobia, and aniconism as markers of a vast and profound cultural transformation of the Mediterranean in the period from the seventh to the ninth centuries. As the Arabs established the Umayyad caliphate in the seventh century, quickly conquering Holy Land, Egypt, and advancing all the way to Spain, they perpetrated an identity crisis in the region. By the seventh century three large political entities formed in the Mediterranean ¿ the Umayyads, the Carolingians, and the Byzantines ¿ each competed for legitimacy; all three emerged from the ashes of Late Antique culture, yet each tried to carve out an identity out of this common foundation. In this parting of the ways, the three cultures took among others the issue of what constituted an image and what role it played in devotion. Eik¿n, imago, ¿ura became the basis on which to built differences and accuse the other political players of idolatry.