ARTH 4030 - Art and Religion Along the Silk Road

This course investigates the diverse intersections of art, trade and religion along the Silk Road, the network of overload routes that stretched from China in the east to the ports of Roman Empire in the west. In the first part of the course, we will explore the chronological and geographical breadth of the Silk Road, while the second part is devoted to a focused study of the basic styles and iconographies of Buddhist art from the cave temple of Dunhuang, the most important repository of Buddhist art from the historical Silk Road.