Pagans, Christians and the Art of Late Antiquity
Online
Dr George Bartlett
10 pre-recorded lectures with 5 live Zoom seminars at 18:30 [London time], over 5 weeks from Wednesday 23 April to Wednesday 21 May 2025
£395
Course description
This course explores the arts of the Eastern and Western Mediterranean region from the years 313 to 565 CE. These dates mark the period from Emperor Constantine’s legalisation of Christianity in the Roman Empire to the death of Emperor Justinian, under whom the Byzantine Empire was at its largest and most powerful. It was a period of remarkable transition within the Mediterranean world: Christianity emerged from suppression to become the dominant religion; the capital of Rome moved to Constantinople in 330 and the Western Empire fell in the fifth century. The Eastern half, now known as Byzantium, continued for another 1000 years.
Late Antiquity produced some of the most fascinating and perplexing works of art ever created. In this period we see a large-scale emergence of Christian art, which often borrowed directly from Roman pagan iconographies, materials and traditions, but assumed altogether new meanings and functions. We shall examine a wide range of objects including mosaics, ivories, reliquaries and icons from across the Mediterranean, including Rome, Ravenna, Constantinople, and the Holy Land. These objects will be our starting points for a critical examination of the labels we traditionally associate with such art works – ‘Pagan’ ‘Christian’, ‘Antique’, ‘Byzantine’, and ‘Medieval’ – and of Bernard Berenson’s notion that this was an art of ‘decline’. Together we shall attempt a re-evaluation of the way in which we classify and consider images, geography and history.
How to book
To book your chosen course(s) please use the book now button below and you will be taken to our booking system where you can book and pay (Visa / Mastercard / GooglePay / ApplePay).
At checkout, you will be prompted to login (if you have previously booked gallery tickets) or to register and create a new account.
(Please note: this ticketing login is not the same as your Short Courses VLE login if you have one).
Please note that in the EU new VAT rules for online courses are coming into effect. This means that from 1 January 2025 we will be required to charge EU participants their local VAT rate. VAT-inclusive prices for EU students will be displayed at check-out.
If you have any questions please email us at short.courses@courtauld.ac.uk
Lecturer's biography
Dr George Bartlett is an Associate Lecturer at The Courtauld, where he teaches on Late Antique, Medieval and Byzantine art. George completed his PhD in Art History at the University of Sussex in 2020, with a thesis on Christ’s naming inscriptions in Byzantine art and taught there on the BA and MA programmes. Since 2019 George has contributed to The Courtauld’s Summer School, with courses on medieval mosaics and on the transition from pagan to Christian art in late antiquity and has recently also worked at the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London.