Dr Sally Dormer
V & A ACADEMY FROM COURT TO CLOISTER: EUROPE 800-1050 V&A ACADEMY ONLINE FROM COURT TO CLOISTER: EUROPE 800 - 1050 On this twelve-week online course, we will explore the visual arts between 800 and 1050, with the V&A’s abundant medieval collections as our inspiration. In 800, Charlemagne, King of the Franks, became Emperor of the Romans. He, and the subsequent dynasty of Carolingian emperors, sought to revive Christian Antiquity, instigating what has been termed a renaissance. Assuming the imperial title in 962 the Saxon Ottonians also revered Antiquity and sought, for political ends, to emulate the aesthetics of the Byzantine Empire. Many Carolingian and Ottonian commissions were linked to imperial court patronage, frequently through the intermediary of monasteries, which became epicentres of craftsmanship and learning. In late 10th to mid-11th century England the visual arts flourished, influenced by Continental developments, with monasteries playing a vital role. By the 960s the influence of Iconoclasm had waned in Western Europe and monumental, three-dimensional sculpture became acceptable again. The year 1000 was greeted with anxiety, and its passing with relief. The new millennium’s confident mood witnessed an emerging, centralized Western church, the most powerful organization of the high Middle Ages, dominated by monastic orders; some well-established, others, like the Cistercians, newly founded. Unprecedented investment was placed in church buildings, many inspired by aspects of surviving Roman monuments. The mighty Romanesque style will be explored, with case studies to highlight regional stylistic variation. V&A ACADEMY ONLINE DR SALLY DORMER Dr Sally Dormer is a specialist medieval art historian, with an MA in Medieval Art History and PhD on Medieval manuscript illumination from the Courtauld Institute.
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