The autumn term is themed around diminutive artworks, to be held in the hand and worn on the body (rings, reliquaries, microarchitecture, seals, books of hours), while the spring term focuses on monumental projects (towers, tombs, giants, portals, cathedrals). Medieval artists experimented with scale in the design of objects and buildings, both as a demonstration of their technical skill and as a strategy to provoke particular modes of interaction between the viewer and the artwork. Documentary evidence reveals that patrons placed as much-and sometimes more-emphasis on the size of their commission as its iconography. Photographs and illustrations often represent objects of vastly differing dimensions as equivalent in size, but this was a period in which size was weighted with social, religious, even legal significance. It is easy to overlook the importance of scale in understanding how people in the Middle Ages experienced the intricate microarchitecture of royal seals, the monumental pillars of Gothic cathedrals, the diminutive figures lurking in the borders of icons, or the nested domes of a muqarnas ceiling. Encompassing a chronology from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries and a broad geographic area, this course aims to ask new questions of old objects, reconsidering some of the most famous artworks of the Middle Ages as well as discovering others long overlooked. By what means did medieval artworks delight and persuade their viewers? With a particular focus on scale, from imposing monumental sculpture to intricate manuscript miniatures, this MA Special Option explores the embodied experience of medieval art.

Medieval buildings miniature