The topic for this class will be the icon, a medium that developed in Late Antiquity and that continues to be a major and influential form of painting. Although, in theory, the term is broad, we will understand it to mean the panel painting of a religious subject. In this class we will examine the history, function, theory and meaning of the icon. We will also examine the icon’s influence upon the discourses of Modernism. A more practical aspect of this class is that participants in the course will work with icons and drawings in the Princeton University Art Museum and with the Sinai Archive.
