| Description: | Over time art, besides its functional and aesthetic purposes, has been conceived also as a symbolic and conceptual language. Often this language is difficult to understand today, but in the past it communicated powerfully to the majority of viewers. In addition, sometimes works of art were intended to transmit special, secret messages to a select group of people. For example, over the centuries artworks sometimes contained meanings based on astrology or alchemy that were intended only for a secret group of experts in these fields. The study of the different subjects and of the different iconographical and symbolical meanings of the works of art is a definite field of art history known as "iconography". In this course students explore a wide range of different kinds of art from diverse origins and centuries, and they examine the fascinating and complex range of different meanings that such artworks were intended to transmit. |