Early Christian Art and Architecture (CH3012Y)

Content

This unit studies the origins and growth of Christian art by exploring ways in which liturgy and devotions in the early church found expression in visual culture. Themes and topics to be presented will include: the art of the catacombs; the centrality of monasticism and of the city of Constantinople in Eastern Christianity; the mosaics of Ravenna and Rome; the emergence of new art forms such as the icon; the iconoclastic controversy; the impact of Byzantine art and architecture in the medieval West e.g. Monreale in Norman Sicily and San Marco in Venice.

Learning outcomes

Pedagogy

Lectures, class discussion

Indicative Bibliography

• Brubaker, Leslie, and Mary Cunningham (eds.).The Cult of the Mother of God in Byzantium: Texts and Images. Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate, 2011.
• Cormack, R.Writing in Gold: Byzantine Society and Its Icons. London: George Philip, 1985.
• Cormack, R.Byzantine Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
• Finney, Paul Corbey.The Invisible God: The Earliest Christians on Art. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
• Grabar, A. Christian Iconography: A Study of Its Origins. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968.
• James, Liz. Mosaics, Empresses and Other Things in Byzantium: Art and Culture 330-1453. 1st ed. Oxford: Routledge, 2025. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003462842.
• Jensen, R.M.Understanding Early Christian Art. London: Routledge, 2000.
• Jensen, R.M.From Idols to Icons : The Rise of the Devotional Image in Early Christianity. Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2022. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/j.ctv2ks6v15.
• Safran, Linda. (ed.). Heaven on Earth. Art and the Church in Byzantium. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002.
• Spier, Jeffrey. (ed.). Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.

Assessment