ARTH 332 - Sin,Fear and Death in European Art,1050-1550

Institution:

DePauw University

Subject:

Description:

Group 4, 1 course This course explores a range of visual genres which, for medieval and early modern Europeans, thematized ideas about sin and vice, guilt and penance, contempt for the world, death, burial and decay, the horrors of Hell, the quest for purgation and the hope of resurrection at the end of time. Panoramic Last Judgment scenes from church portals; gruesome depictions of saints' deaths and the Passion of Christ; tomb sculpture showing the deceased as a worm-eaten skeleton; visions of Hell and its torments; the "Dance of Death" and other macabre themes--all are studied in the cultural context of Christian theology, popular religion and devotions, the catastrophes of the Black Death era, radical millenarianism and the repression of dangerous minority groups (heretics, Jews, witches, homosexuals). Did the Middle Ages and Reformation period bequeath to us, as one-historian claims, a distinctly Western "guilt culture", and if so, how has the iconography of sin and death persisted in Western art up to the present day May be counted toward the European Studies interdisciplinary minor.

Credits:

1.00 - 4.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.depauw.edu

Phone Number:

(765) 658-4800

Regional Accreditation:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Four-one-four plan

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