The Arts of Living

One of the most enduring origin stories of the modern European avant-gardes is that they wanted to transform art into life. But what...

Advanced Lecture in the History of Art (2) A (HART0036)

The Arts of Living

One of the most enduring origin stories of the modern European avant-gardes is that they wanted to transform art into life. But what exactly does that mean? Why must art end for life to begin? And what other stories are there to be told, if we broaden the scope of modernity and of who/what counts as living? Focussing on modern art and architecture between c. 1900–1950, this module will engage with the different ways in which artists, architects and writers figured, staged or produced “life” – in material, social or ecological form – within art and at its very margins. The module will think about how concerns with vitality relate to questions of gender, race and class and introduce different frameworks for understanding modernity’s multiple arts of living.

&#039;Between the Body and the Worms&#039;: Medicine and Death in Late Medieval Art

From exposed lungs in anatomical manuscripts to decaying marble corpses in...

Advanced Lecture in the History of Art (1) A (HART0035)

'Between the Body and the Worms': Medicine and Death in Late Medieval Art

From exposed lungs in anatomical manuscripts to decaying marble corpses in churches, this course explores how living and dead bodies were represented in the late medieval period (ca. 1250-1500). Engaging with both contemporary theoretical approaches to the body and issues of making, we will question what such objects can tell us about medieval people’s multifaceted and diverse attitudes toward their own bodies and mortality. We will consider a myriad of scientific, religious, and secular objects from medieval Europe, ranging from manuscripts to illustrated poems, sculptures, and murals. By encountering medieval bodies as complex mutable entities which could be opened and wounded, the course explores such topics as anatomy, dissection, death, decay, the macabre, and the timely question of pandemics. How common or useful were anatomical illustrations? What was the role of images in a funerary context? Why would someone want to be immortalised as a rotting cadaver, eaten by worms for eternity? ‘Between the Body and the Worms’ explores such complex questions and the fascinating responses to the challenges of everyday life medieval bodies encountered.