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How does material impact meaning? What does it mean that a given statue is carved from alabaster or cast in bronze? How is material reflected in the object’s form and appearance, and how was it perceived by contemporary audiences? What associations do and did viewers have with the material in itself?
Also: how do the specific techniques and trainings required to work in this material impact the product? Where does it come from, and how much labor is required before an artist, craftsperson, or workshop makes the work of art? How expensive is it? How does a model in one material change when translated to another?
These questions, both practical and interpretive, have been increasingly asked of works of art in the 21st century, as works of art and other aspects of life, “dematerialize” or transform into signals saved in data centers.
Perhaps no other period of Western European art production was as full of different materials, from the luxurious to the cheap, as the Middle Ages: glass, copper, sandstone, clay, poplar, stucco, parchment, bone, linen, crystal, gold… the list of materials in use for the making of medieval works of art is nearly endless. This course provides an introduction to the study of materials in sculpture by focusing on medieval art.
As a case study in the first half of the course, students will consider the use of elephant ivory in medieval art. Few materials are as fraught with different meanings as ivory: harvested from the bodies of elephants, traded over long distances, desired for its whiteness and ability to be finely carved, known through key texts of the past, made into everything from checkerboards to holy images, ivory was subject to many transformations as it moved through the medieval world.
To understand this material, the course will cover a variety of different current approaches: from the incorporation of the natural sciences, to global economic history, to craft-centered seeing, to the iconography of materials. In the second part of the class, students will form groups to study different materials and apply some of the same methods to objects in Berlin collections.
The seminar will be conducted in English. Reading knowledge of German is helpful but not necessary. Written work may be submitted in either English or German. |
