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HART 434
Art and Architecture of the Medieval Mediterranean,
Summer 2010
Instructor: Saygın Salgırlı
E-mail: salgirli@sabanciuniv.edu
Course Description: This course provides a comparative survey of the medieval art
and architecture (3rd - 13th centuries) of the Mediterranean basin. The history of
medieval art and architecture has been traditionally divided into various (Late
Antique, Early Christian, Islamic, Romanesque, Gothic, Jewish) compartments by
temporal, stylistic and geographic lines. One aim of this course is to challenge such
divisions by focusing on the larger Mediterranean basin in comparative light, and
introducing continuities, interactions, contacts and conflicts that render the above
categories obsolete. Another aim is to challenge the established practice of art and
architectural history by focusing, instead of the form alone, on the comparable
circumstances under which art and architecture were produced.
Textbook: Otto Karl Werckmeister, Medieval Art History: A Short Survey, 1986.
Additional articles and selected chapters will be provided as a reading package,
available for purchase at Canon.
Recommended: Eva R. Hoffman, ed. Late Antique and Medieval Art of the
Mediterranean World. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.
Course Format and Grading: This course is designed as a cross between lecture and
seminar. Therefore, student participation is an essential element, which means that
“class participation and attendance” does not refer to simply being present in class
and taking notes. It refers to joining the discussion, generating discussions, speaking
and speaking up. While I will be trying to present you with one particular way of
looking at medieval art history, you are most welcome, and encouraged, to challenge
it.
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Take-home Midterm: 25 %
Two-Page Weekly Response Papers: 35 %
Take-home Final: 25 %
Class Participation and Attendance: 15 %
Course Outline:
History, Historiography and Art 1:
Meyer Schapiro, “Style,” (143-150) in Donald Preziosi, ed. The Art of Art History: A
Critical Anthology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998
Otto Karl Werckmeister, “Jugglers in a Monastery,” (60-64) in Oxford Art Journal,
Vol. 17, No. 1, Meyer Schapiro (1994)
History, Historiography and Art 2:
Elizabeth Sears, “’Reading’ Images,” (1-9) in Elizabeth Sears, Thelma K. Thomas,
eds. Reading Medieval Images: The Art Historian and the Object. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 2002
Robert Hillenbrand, “Studying Islamic Architecture: Challenges and Perspectives,”
(1-18) in Architectural History, Vol. 46 (2003)
Overcoming the Dichotomies 1:
Richard Krautheimer, “Introduction to an ‘Iconography of Medieval Architecture’,”
(115-151) in Richard Krautheimer. Studies in Early Christian, Medieval, and
Renaissance Art. New York: New York University Press, 1969
Jonathan M. Bloom, “On the Transmission of Designs in Early Islamic Architecture,”
(21-28) in Muqarnas, Vol. 10, Essays in Honor of Oleg Grabar (1993)
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Overcoming the Dichotomies 2:
Jás Elsner, “The Changing Nature of Roman Art and the Art-Historical Problem of
Style,” (11-18) in Eva R. Hoffman, ed. Late Antique and Medieval Art of the
Mediterranean World. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.
Annabel Jane Wharton, “Good and Bad Images from the Synagogue of Dura Europos:
Contexts, Subtexts, Intertexts,” (19-39) in Hoffman, ed. Late Antique and
Medieval Art…
G. W. Bowersock, “Hellenism and Islam,” (85-96) in Hoffman, ed. Late Antique and
Medieval Art…
Image, Icon and Iconography 1:
John Lowden, “The Beginnings of Biblical Illustration,” (117-134) in Hoffman, ed.
Late Antique and Medieval Art…
Erica Cruikshank Dodd, “The Image of the Word: Notes on the Religious
Iconography of Islam,” (185-212) in Hoffman, ed. Late Antique and Medieval
Art…
Image, Icon and Iconography 2:
Gary Vikan, “Sacred Image, Sacred Power,” (135-146) in Hoffman, ed. Late Antique
and Medieval Art…
G. R. D. King, “Islam, Iconoclasm, and the Declaration of Doctrine,” (213-226) in
Hoffman, ed. Late Antique and Medieval Art…
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Old St. Peter’s and the Great Mosque of Damascus:
Richard Krautheimer, “The Beginning of Early Christian Architecture,” (1-21) in
Krautheimer, Studies in Early Christian…
James Snyder, et al. Art of the Middle Ages. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2006, pp.
219-224;
Rafi Grafman and Myriam Rosen-Ayalon, “The Two Great Syrian Umayyad
Mosques: Jerusalem and Damascus,” (1-15) in Muqarnas, Vol. 16, 1999.
Textbook: 32-38.
On Contested Grounds: The Holy Sepulcher and the Dome of the Rock:
Robert Ousterhout, “The Temple, the Sepulchre, and the Martyrion of the Savior,”
(44-53) in Gesta, Vol. 29, No. 1 (1990)
Robert Ousterhout, “Architecture as Relic and the Construction of Sanctity: The
Stones of the Holy Sepulcher,” (4-23) in The Journal of the Society of
Architectural Historians, Vol. 62, No. 1 (Mar., 2003)
Nasser Rabbat, “The Meaning of the Umayyad Dome of the Rock,” (12-21) in
Muqarnas, Vol. 6, (1989)
Nuha N. N. Khoury, “The Dome of the Rock, the Ka‘ba, and Ghumdan: Arab Myths
and Umayyad Monuments,” (57-65) in Muqarnas, Vol. 10, Essays in Honor of
Oleg Grabar (1993).
Textbook: pp. 36, 37.
Architecture, Politics and Ideology: The Carolingian Empire and Al-Andalus:
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Richard Krautheimer, “The Carolingian Revival of Early Christian Architecture,”
(203-257) in Krautheimer, Studies in Early Christian…
Jerrilynn D. Dodds, “The Great Mosque of Córdoba,” (11-25) in Jerrilynn D. Dodds,
ed. Al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic Spain. New York: The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, 1992
Jerrilynn D. Dodds. Architecture and Ideology in Early Medieval Spain. University
Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990, pp. 94-106.
Textbook: 79-81 / 88-90 / 136-138.
Interaction and Conflict in Images 1:
Rachel Milstein, “Hebrew Book Illumination in the Fatimid Era,” (229-241) in
Hoffman, ed. Late Antique and Medieval Art…
Robert S. Nelson, “An Icon at Mt. Sinai and Christian Painting in Muslim Egypt
during the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,” (242-269) in Hoffman, ed.
Late Antique and Medieval Art…
Interaction and Conflict in Images 2:
O. K. Werckmeister, “The Islamic Rider in the Beatus of Girona,” (101-106) in Gesta,
Vol. 36, No. 2 (1997)
Oya Pancaroğlu, “The Itinerant Dragon-Slayer: Forging Paths of Image and Identity
in Medieval Anatolia,” (151-164) in Gesta, Vol. 43, No. 2 (2004)
Architecture of the Conquerors:
Charles E. Nicklies, “Builders, Patrons, and Identity: The Domed Basilicas of Sicily
and Calabria,” (99-114) in Gesta, Vol. 43, No. 2 (2004)
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William Tronzo, “The Medieval Object-Enigma, and the Problem of the Cappella
Palatina in Palermo,” (367-388) in Hoffman, ed. Late Antique and Medieval Art…
Scott Redford, “The Alaeddin Mosque in Konya Reconsidered,” (54-74) in Muqarnas,
Vol. 51, No. 1/2 (1991).
Ascetics Reinvented: Cistercians and Dervishes:
Ethel Sara Wolper. Cities and Saints: Sufism and the Transformation of Urban Space
in Medieval Anatolia. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University
Press, 2003, pp. 16-42
Ethel Sara Wolper, “The Politics of Patronage: Political Change and the Construction
of Dervish Lodges in Sivas,” (39-47) in Muqarnas, Vol. 12, (1995);
Caecilia-Davis Weyer. Early Medieval Art, 300-1150: Sources and Documents.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 168-170.
Textbook: 201, 202 / 204-207.
Economics and Politics of Patronage:
Abou-El-Haj, Barbara, “The Urban Setting for Late Medieval Church Building:
Reims and its Cathedral between 1210-1240” (17-41) in Art History, Vol. 11,
No. 1, 1988
Abou-El-Haj, Barbara, “Program and Power in the Glass of Reims” (22-33, 226-233)
in Radical Art History: Internationale, Anthologie. Zurich: Zurich Inter
Publishers, 1997
Abou-El-Haj, Barbara. “Building and Decorating at Reims and Amiens” (763-776) in
Herbert Beck, ed. Studien zur Geschichte der europanischen Skulptur im
12./13. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt am Main: Liebieghaus: Heinrich, 1994
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Henry Kraus. Gold was the Mortar: The Economics of Cathedral Building. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979, pp. 39-59; Textbook: pp. 232-236.