HAA 250M - Mysticism and the Limits of Representation, from the Middle Ages to the Baroque

Felipe Pereda, Jeffrey Hamburger

The course looks at the ways in which artists pushed the boundaries of representation to capture ineffable experiences evoked in accounts of mystical experience. Drawing on the writings of famous mystics from the 6th through the 17th  centuries, it will be organized thematically around the erotic, the aesthetic, and somatic dimensions of visual images, as well as what it means to visualize the invisible.