HR2008 FAITH & ART

This course is designed to situate art and artists in a number of diverse spiritual, geographical and historical contexts and in so doing allow you to explore art history through a variety of human beliefs. This will include, but is not limited to the rituals of worship, sacred spaces, divine objects, images of magic, illuminated manuscripts and so on. We will examine case studies that demonstrate how stained-glass windows tell us Biblical stories; ask what kind of secrets the faceless Venus of the Stone Age hides from us; suggest which tunes Islamic calligraphy `sings' to our eyes; analyze what Jocho's Amida Buddha has been telling us throughout the centuries, and much more. This course is open to all students from any academic background. Once completed you will have a deeper understanding of these concepts and they can provide the basis for further study in Art History and History.