This course will focus on developing the students' understanding of how art history is practiced through discussion and writing. It takes as its subject matter the art and architecture of Carolingian Europe. Founded in the German Rhineland during the 8th century CE, the Carolingian empire reunited most of Western Europe for the first time since the end of effective Roman rule. During the 150 years of their dominion over most of Western Europe, Carolingian kings and their subordinates, both lay and ecclesiastical, emerged as prolific patrons of painting, sculpture, and the art of the book--as well as of such monuments of architecture and urbanism as the palace complex at Aachen and monasteries such as Saint-Gall and Corvey. |