Images tell stories that carry us to imaginary worlds other than our own. An arresting story in pictures engages us deeply, opening the doors of fantastic places and times. In antiquity many architectural monuments displayed pictorial narratives that animated public spaces and enthralled broad audiences. This course explores cultural aspects of visual narrative imagery from Western Asian and Mediterranean worlds, from magical hunt scenes in Palaeolithic caves to mythical histories of Mesopotamian sculpted stones; from the paradises on Egyptian tomb walls to Aegean frescoes and Assyrian reliefs of exotic landscapes, from domestic intimacies on Greek vases to Roman commemorations of campaigns to the fringes of the known world. Using contemporary perspectives on ancient art, we will explore the material power and the everyday significance of such pictorial representations as intimate visual spectacles.

This course intends to cover cross-cultural perspectives on pictorial narrative programs that one encounters extensively on Ancient Near Eastern, Egyptian, Aegean, Greek and Roman monuments. Using cross-cultural comparisons across time and in different cultural contexts, we will explore how pictorial narrative scenes were produced, presented and received by their audiences. In a chronological sequence, every week, the class will collaboratively work on a separate visual narrative program, study its historical and cultural context and attempt to unpack it using a critical tools of visual analysis. In these exercises of writing about pictures, we will explore issues of representation, narrative, textuality, space, monumentality, ideology and politics as well as technology and materials. We will also explore the relationship between pictorial representations and monumental inscriptions, and discuss how reading images differed from or overlapped with reading monumental inscriptions.

The primary aim of the course is to enhance student skills in critical thinking, reading and writing. In accessing this objective, students will in fact be invited to think precisely on acts of "reading" (in the visual sense) and "describing" (verbal). Developing skills of in-depth description (ekphrasis) and critical analysis of pictorial narrative imagery will be central aspects of the course. A series of museum visits (RISD Museum and Museum of Fine Arts) will allow students to have first hand experience in engaging with artifacts with pictorial representations, and they will be asked to think about museum strategies of exhibiting such objects. Students will also be guided to be creative about the use of different modes and media of presentation of their arguments, not only in academic and creative prose but also through the use of visual/aural/material media.

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