| Kommentar |
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 contemporaries 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, and others like them, are fundamental to many aspects of art history. They can be crucial to the understanding of much modern and contemporary art, from Brancusi’s oak and limestone to Eva Hesse’s latex to Kara Walker’s sugary Subtlety (2014). Similar questions can be posed of historic art. 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 by focusing on medieval art, notably on medieval art in Berlin collections.
As a case study on alternating weeks of the course, students will consider the use of elephant ivory in medieval art, exploring a variety of different approaches: from the incorporation of the natural sciences, to global economic history, to the iconography of materials. In parallel, students will consider an object in another material, and discuss how to apply the same approaches to these objects.
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. |
| Literatur |
Tim Ingold, “Materials against Materiality,” Archaeological Dialogues 14, no. 1 (June 2007): 1–16, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1380203807002127. Alberto Saviello, Susanne Müller-Wolff, and Grit Keller, eds., Schrecklich schön: Elefant - Mensch - Elfenbein (München: Hirmer, 2021), exh. cat. Berlin; in English as Terrible Beauty: Elephant, human, ivory. |
