TOPICS: FALSE IDOLS in Spring 2021 (AH2091)

In 2015, ISIS militants smashed ancient Assyrian statues, calling them “false idols.” Since the ancient world to the present, people have endowed material objects with powers that go beyond their physical appearance. Statues of gods, miraculous icons, amulets, and relics are just a few examples of art that is believed to point to an otherworldly reality. Yet how were these material manifestations of different gods able to co-exist in an increasingly global world? The European colonization of parts of Africa, Asia, and the New World brought about the meeting of clashing belief systems and the cult objects that embodied them. What did Europeans do when they encountered the veneration of non-Christian gods and spirits? How did African, Japanese, and Latin American cultures integrate, appropriate, or resist the Christian cult images of their colonizers? To answer these questions, and others, we will examine the topic of idolatry—the worship of lifeless images or false gods—and its significance for the arts of Western and non-Western cultures. In doing so, this course will explore the ramifications of cross-cultural encounters between societies whose gods and objects of worship were often radically different from one another. As you investigate the cultural and material exchanges of the 16th-18th centuries, you will work with sources pertaining to the perspectives of both the colonizer and the colonized. Our objects of study will include a video showing the destruction of ancient statues by ISIS, Martin Scorsese’s film Silence (2016), watercolors and engravings documenting missionary activities and the burning of idols, devotional paintings, codices, textiles, and sculptures, among others. For your final self-designed project, you will have the option of researching a modern work of art made in response to the history of colonialism.