What was it like to “see” in antiquity? What was the role of vision in philosophy, the natural sciences, mathematics, medicine, and cosmology? How did the visual arts influence ancient ideas about love, beauty, and religion? The goal of this course is to explore such questions by thinking about vision and the visual arts as stimuli of wonder and curiosity. We will think about why seeing and knowing are often two sides of the same coin, while exploring the role of the arts in ancient conceptions of culture and the cosmos.
