Step 5: Subject and Thesis

Exercise 1: Pick up 2 or 3 of the following subjects and change them into theses on the pattern of comparing or describing things.

the burial rituals of Ancient Egypt

the Athenian Acropolis

the Greek interest in man

Athena Parthenon by Pheidias

the expansion of Rome over the ancient world

the Great Altar of Zeus in Pergamon

the Greek temples

Roman copies of the Greek originals

the Roman temples

the Roman sculptural portraits

Exercise 2: Add a sentence or two to illustrate your theses.

Exercise 3: Look through the texts on Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome and describe some artifacts to expand your illustrations.

(Up to 10 simple sentences)

Part II

The middle ages

The MiDdLe aGeS

Historical Background

Welcome to “History through Art”. Today we’ll be looking at the Middle Ages. That strange and mysterious time that brings to mind images of knights and castles and maidens in distress, of dark hollow-sounding monasteries filled with the sounds of chanting monks, images of squalid villages infested with the Black Plaque and eerie gargoyles on cavernous churches. Despite the difficulties of life in the early years of the Middle Ages, medieval people managed to meet their basic need for self-expression through art. We’ve been left with a legacy of treasures that reflects the philosophy and culture of both the trying early years and the more progressive later ones.

Historians differ about the exact dates of the Middle Ages. In this program we’ve begun before the traditional start date to include the art of the Early Christian era from AD 1 to the fall of the Roman Empire in AD 475. We did this because the subject and style of Early Christian art and architecture fit better in the Middle Ages than before it. The one thousand years of the Middle Ages itself really starts with a desolate period, sometimes called the Dark Ages that lasted some five hundred years. The remaining years of the Middle Ages saw changes in trade and communication and advances in architecture. These developments opened the way for the next period, the Renaissance.

To cope with the difficult times of the Middle Ages, people turned to the church. Many people had converted to Christianity during the final years of the Roman Empire. The growing popularity of Christianity helped the Roman Catholic church become the most powerful unifying force in Europe during the Middle Ages. In those grim times, the church gave people a sense of worth, even if their worth could not be claimed until they reached heaven.

The high period of the Middle Ages occurred during the reign of Charlemagne, a powerful king from Gaul, which is now mainly France and Belgium. Charlemagne crowned himself emperor of the Holy Roman Empire on Christmas day in the year 800. He was able to unite most of the small warring kingdoms of Europe under his rule, which was sanctified by the Catholic church. This meant that Europe could spend more money on developing its resources and trade than on wars, more on building than on destruction, more on education than on defense.

As living conditions improved under Charlemagne, a revival of the arts and education began to take place. More people learned to read and with that came the spread of ideas even though books were still copied by hand. These books, called illuminated manuscripts, were beautifully illustrated and decorated in gold. Artisans also made advances in their crafts – calligraphy, architecture, painting, and jewelry-making – developing techniques that made possible the achievements of the later Middle Ages.

Almost all of these great achievements centered around the church and reflected its enormous influence. People contributed great sums of money and peasant laborers slaved for years to built magnificent churches like the famous Notre Dame of Paris, in a new style called Gothic. In contrast to the dark and narrow Romanesque-style churches of the so-called Dark Ages, these new churches included beautiful stained glass windows and sculpted figurines fashioned by anonymous artisans.

By the close of the Middle Ages, about 1450, some areas of Europe were waging destructive wars. Others, however, having gained both wealth and leisure time from successful trading ventures, were busy evaluating the role of the church and becoming interested in other intellectual pursuits. Out of their activities grew the Renaissance. And now the art of the Middle Ages.