The art and architecture of the Middle Ages in Western Europe from the time of Charlemagne until the Late Gothic era. The spread of indigenous Germanic traditions, and the eventual demise of Roman culture. Charlemagne's renovatio as the threshold of both an ordered society and a new age of faith. Churches and monasteries proliferating in Carolingian and Romanesque Europe as new centers of learning and art. The subsequent shift of the economy from the countryside to the growing cities, leading to a new cultural milieu displaying unprecedented responsiveness to the material world. The contrasts between the realism of Gothic imagery and the highly stylized, almost abstract forms of the Romanesque; between the bright interiors of the new soaring cathedrals that rose over the skylines of medieval cities, and the dark, massive structures of the preceding era. Gothic cathedrals as the most impressive symbols of this High Medieval moment. For the possibility of being taken as a graduate-level taught course, subject to extra readings and other requirements, see HART 533.
