This seminar seeks to investigate the relationship of art to argument, by asking how it is that an icon might persuade its viewer to accept its contents as truthful. The focus is on Medieval Byzantine Art (ca. 500-1500) and addresses painting’s relationship to rhetorical practices, scientific thought, and theology. In a society in which the icon was central to the definition of correct belief, such an “archaeology” of the icon discloses the discursive power of this medium.
View this course on the Registrar’s website.
