Course detail

Ancient and Classical Art History Overview

FaVU-1PDU-PSAcad. year: 2026/2027

The course presents the history of prehistoric and ancient art as a history of transformations of the image, its functions, and its meanings. It does not proceed solely from a traditional chronological overview of individual civilizations, but focuses on questions of the emergence of images, their materiality, and their relationship to religion, political power, and collective memory. Alongside the cultures of the Paleolithic, Neolithic, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, it also reflects upon cultural contacts in the ancient Mediterranean and Western Asia, and introduces contemporary methodological approaches such as visual studies and the anthropology of the image. Teaching is based on the interpretation of specific case studies that introduce students to the diversity of media, techniques, and functions of images from the Paleolithic to Late Antiquity. The course is structured primarily around thematic lectures, but active student participation and debate are strongly encouraged during each session.

Language of instruction

Czech

Number of ECTS credits

3

Assignment to study programme types

Bachelor's

Mode of study

Not applicable.

Guarantor

PhDr. Kaliopi Chamonikolasová, Ph.D.

Department

Department of Art History and Theory (KTDU)

Entry knowledge

Secondary school konwledge of history/art history. 

Rules for evaluation and completion of the course

The final oral exam evaluates visual literacy through the analysis of four images (two from lectures, two unseen comparative works). Up to two absences during the semester are permitted without requiring justification.

Aims

The aim of the course is to develop the capacity for close reading of images and artifacts through visual analysis and their interpretation within historical, religious, and social contexts. Students will learn to identify key formal, iconographic, material, and technological aspects of artifacts and to interpret them using specialized terminology and foundational methods of art history.

At the same time, the course provides a basic orientation in the visual culture of prehistory and antiquity, guiding students to understand works of art not merely as aesthetic objects, but also as historical sources whose function and meaning transform depending on the cultural environment for which they were created.

 

Study aids

Not applicable.

Prerequisites and corequisites

Not applicable.

Basic literature

Beard, Mary, Henderson, John. Classical Art: From Greece to Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. (EN)
Belting, Hans. Obraz a kult. Dějiny obrazu před obdobím umění. Brno: Books and Pipes 2026. (CS)
Elsner, Jas. Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. (EN)
Freedberg, David. The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. (EN)
Hans Belting, Antropologie obrazu. Návrhy vědy o obrazu. Brno, 2022. (CS)
Kitzinger, Ernst. Byzantine Art in the Making: Main Lines of Stylistic Development in Mediterranean Art, 3rd–7th Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977. (EN)
Lewis-Williams, David. The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art. London: Thames & Hudson, 2002. (EN)
Marconi, Clemente (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Art and Architecture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015 (EN)
Osborne, Robin. Archaic and Classical Greek Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. (EN)
Robins, Gay. The Art of Ancient Egypt. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008. (EN)
Tuck, Steven L. A History of Roman Art. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015. (EN)
Wengrow, David. What Makes Civilization? The Ancient Near East and the Future of the West. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. (EN)
Zanker, Paul. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988. (EN)

Recommended reading

Clottes Jean, Půtová Barbora, Soukup Václav: Pravěké umění. Evoluce člověka a kultury, Praha, Karolinum, 2021. (CS)

Classification of course in study plans

  • Programme VUM_B Bachelor's 1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory, fundamental theoretical courses of the profile core
    1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory, fundamental theoretical courses of the profile core
    1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory, fundamental theoretical courses of the profile core
    1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory, fundamental theoretical courses of the profile core
    1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory, fundamental theoretical courses of the profile core
    1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory, fundamental theoretical courses of the profile core
    1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory, fundamental theoretical courses of the profile core
    1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory, fundamental theoretical courses of the profile core
    1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory, fundamental theoretical courses of the profile core
    1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory, fundamental theoretical courses of the profile core
    1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory, fundamental theoretical courses of the profile core
    1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory, fundamental theoretical courses of the profile core

Type of course unit

 

Lecture

26 hours, compulsory

Teacher / Lecturer

PhDr. Kaliopi Chamonikolasová, Ph.D.

Syllabus

    1. What is an Image? Historiography, Methodology, and the Boundaries of Art History
    2. The Paleolithic, or How It All Began
    3. The Neolithic: Early Cities and the Ancestor Cult
    4. Mesopotamia I: Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, and Assyria
    5. Mesopotamia II: The Neo-Babylonian Empire, the Hittites, the Phoenicians, and the Persian Empire
    6. Egypt Between Life and the Afterlife
    7. Greece I: Cycladic Culture, Crete, Mycenae, and the Archaic Style
    8. Greece II: Classical Greece and Hellenism
    9. The Etruscans and the Visual Culture of the Roman Republic
    10. The Roman Empire
    11. Late Antiquity I
    12. Late Antiquity II

 

Individual preparation - study of technical texts

20 hours, compulsory

Teacher / Lecturer

PhDr. Kaliopi Chamonikolasová, Ph.D.

Individual preparation for a final exam

16 hours, compulsory

Teacher / Lecturer

PhDr. Kaliopi Chamonikolasová, Ph.D.