Art and Architecture of Medieval Germany

This undergraduate seminar is designed for advanced Columbia and Barnard undergraduate students in the history of art. It offers an opportunity to examine a set of important monuments, themes, and developments in the art and architecture of medieval Germany, spanning chronologically from the establishment of the Carolingian Empire in the early 9th century to the Protestant Reformation in the early 16th century. The course will commence with an exploration of the formation of medieval art and its indebtedness to late Roman and insular traditions, the renovatio of a Christian Roman Empire under Charlemagne, and the continuation of Carolingian cultural and artistic achievements under the Ottonian and Salian emperors of the tenth and eleventh centuries. Students will devote the first half of the semester studying major trends in the development of early medieval, Romanesque, and Gothic art and architecture with a special focus on carved altarpieces and artistic personalities of the late Gothic and early Renaissance periods. Topics of special interest will further include the function of art and architecture as a means of imperial self-representation, the role of bishops, abbots, and abbesses as patrons of the arts, issues of cultural and artistic exchange between the Byzantine and German empires, the development of medieval church architecture and its function as a liturgical space, the cult of saints and saintly relics, the production methods and use of precious liturgical books and sacred vessels, and the rise of artistic personalities and master craftsmen.