2020-21

This introductory course deals with the main features of Byzantine art from the Early Christian period to the Late Byzantine times. To do so, it looks at various representative monuments and works of art, such as wall painting, portable icons and manuscript illustrations. Particular emphasis will be placed upon the social, historical, theological and iconological context and on archaeological evidence

The course deals with the political and socio-economic development of the Balkan nation-states from their foundation up to the mid 20th century. It lays particular emphasis on the military clashes, namely the Balkan Wars and the First and Second World Wars, that shaped the status quo,on the predominance and hold on power of the various Communist regimes and on matters of national identity and minorities.

The roots of modern Greek art, that is, the art that developed in the free Greek state over the 19th and 20th centuries, are to be found in Byzantine painting and the Ionian school of the period before the outbreak of the Greek revolution. After the liberation of Greece, as the result of various composite and mutual influences from Europe, the artistic personality of modern Hellenism was shaped. Many of the works of art of the period express and reproduce the ideological trends, the nature and the transformations in modern Greek society.

The course deals with the primary sources for the period and the basic chronology of the Hellenistic period (323 - 31 BC). It then examines the main political and cultural trends, including the sciences, philosophy and art.