Class Reflections

While I have taken an AP Art History class previously, there were in fact some parts of this course that introduced things either completely new to me, or more in depth than I had before learned. One such instance occurred in the section about early Christian and Byzantine art leading into medieval art and architecture. While this period was certainly covered in my AP class, there wasn’t nearly as much depth to it, and because of my previous teacher’s fondness for architecture, that was the greater emphasis. Granted, I also particularly like good architecture, but I found this time around, that this class expounded much more on how Greek and Roman art sort-of transformed into, and still had an effect on, what would become medieval art. One that I had not really paid attention to before. In all, focusing more on its origins and relationship to past art, I have begun to see how medieval art is not only more than just architecture, but also an evolution of its own style far more related to the times and history than I had thought.

It was interesting beginning with the catacomb paintings, that clearly had a large Roman influence simply because of the times in which the artists were living, and then moving to wall paintings in larger and more public places of worship once Christianity became a force to be reckoned with, and accepted. After that, mosaics and smaller panel paintings joined the mix along with illustrated manuscripts and sculpture sculpted into architecture. When we looked at these in class, their influences and visual style were expanded upon and their ties to Roman and Greek artistry pointed out as well, making me realize that what had once seemed such a leap backwards in skill around this time period, was more of a difference in world-view and artistic value at the time. So while the training of medieval artists may have been less based on the idea of photo-realism, or even naturalism, they were not necessarily ignoring what came before them, nor were they strictly “unskilled”.

Along with the discussion on influences, the piece we watched about how cultures tended to produce art emphasizing and exaggerating their most important cultural aspects and ideals related even more to me the reasoning behind the change in focus and seeming skill after the fall of Rome, and through the Middle Ages. This helped explain to me that what I had generally assumed before, that there was a loss of knowledge on technique and skill, was in fact more of a shift in what society preferred the artists to focus on and emphasize.