The course is dedicated to the thousand—year history of the artistic culture of Western Europe – from late Antiquity to the legacy of the Middle Ages in the art of the XIX-XX centuries. Using the materials of architecture, sculpture, painting, book miniatures and decorative and applied arts, students will follow how artistic forms and images changed depending on political, religious and cultural processes, discovering the hidden logic connecting barbaric ornaments, monumental Romanesque temples and airy Gothic cathedrals.

The lecturer will examine the key stages in the development of European artistic culture of the period under study, each of which is characterized by unique styles and trends: the transformation of the ancient heritage in early Medieval Europe; the art of the Barbarian kingdoms and the Carolingian Renaissance; the formation of Romanticism and Gothic; the influence of the Crusades on artistic contacts; the heyday of university and court culture of the XIII–XIV centuries; "Autumn of the Middle Ages" in the diversity of regional schools. The lectures combine a rigorous scientific approach with a lively immersion in the era: listeners will "sort out" complex chronologies, learn to "read" architectural and iconographic codes, unravel the symbolism of miniatures, listen to sacred music and peer into the details of medieval life. The course will conclude with an overview of how the Middle Ages "returned" to the art of subsequent centuries — in the Gothic Revival, historicism, Neo-Gothic and romantic interpretations of the Pre-Raphaelites. This course is not only an academic journey through the millennium of art, but also an opportunity to see in it a lively, exciting world in which the high and the earthly, the sacred and the everyday are intertwined in a single fabric of European culture.

The tuition fee is 72,000 rubles.

At the end of the course, a Certificate of the established sample is issued.

Teacher: Svetlana Kovalevskaya, art historian, art historian (morning classes)

Program format

Full-time training at the School of Collectors and Experts at the Winery (additionally, current lectures are broadcast in Zoom, as well as video recordings of lectures on the video hosting service). Classes are held once a week on weekdays (Tuesday) from 11:00 to 14:00.
The course consists of 15 group lectures lasting 3 hours each with a coffee break.

Learn more about the course on the school's website.