ARTH 6310 - [Methods in Medieval]

(crosslisted) JWST 6310 , MEDVL 6310 , NES 6700 , RELST 6310 , SPAN 6590

Spring. Not offered: 2022-2023. Next offered: 2023-2024. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Co-meets with ARTH 4310/JWST 4310/MEDVL 4310/NES 4700/RELST 4310/SPAN 4570.

C. Robinson.

Topic: The Late Medieval Devotional Image. A commonplace in the scholarly literature surrounding late medieval visual culture in Spain is that it was always “late”. The Spaniards lagged behind the Italians – so the story goes – in getting a handle on perspective, and trailed after van Eyck and van der Weyden in mastering the niceties of oil painting and realistic effects. Spain’s visual production, in other words, is generally treated from a standpoint of connoisseurship and “history of styles,” producing predictable results: evaluations of how it does (or does not) conform to the models established for other European contexts whose appropriateness to late medieval Iberia is doubtful to say the least. We will examine, through the contextually based study of the introduction of the retablo (altarpiece) into Iberian churches, chapels and palaces (these contexts, of course, included a significant consciousness, and often presence, of Jews, Muslims, or recent converts to Christianity from those latter two religions) in the early 15th century, both the problems enumerated above and the problematic culture of the religious image in Iberia.

Topics rotate. Previous topics include: Narratives of Medieval Art, Making a Place for the Mediterranean, and The Arts of Conflict: Burgos, Granada and Toledo, 1200-1500.