Topics in Medieval Art:
Death & the Afterlife

AH 415

Medieval Christianity was preoccupied with the care and commemoration of the dead. This course explores how funerary art and architecture and images of the eschaton (“last things”) fostered the interdependence of the living and the dead through ritual and memory, and projected the essential belief in resurrection and judgement at the end of time. Amongst the topics to be discussed are: the changing topography of burial; the orchestration of the cult of the saints as “the very special dead” through both architecture and pictorial narrative; the creation of privileged burial spaces for aristocratic families and royal dynasties; the development of the Last Judgement and the concrete conceptualization of the afterlife; the development of tomb effigies as idealised portraits of the resurrected; and the shift in the fourteenth century (especially in the context of the Black Death) towards increasingly realistic images of the “Macabre” which prepare the viewer for the grim realit ies of corporeal decay.

The final grade will be determined on the basis of class participation and discussion/presentation of readings: 25%; occasional 2-page written responses to readings: 25%; and a major research paper (15-20 pages): 50%. Over the course of the semester you will be asked to submit preliminary, ungraded exercises that relate to the topic of your paper. Graduate students will also be asked to make a brief oral presentation. There will be no final examination for this course.