The sacred made visible: Art, belief and patronage in the Middle Ages

This is a five-week online course from the National Gallery exploring how painting became a powerful tool of faith, storytelling and persuasion in medieval Europe. It is taught by Dr Richard Stemp, a lecturer at the National Gallery for over 25 years, and uses some of the Gallery's earliest artworks, from glittering altarpieces to monumental frescoes. The sessions cover the origins of Christian imagery, the medieval theology of light, the identities of saints in paintings, how artists worked with gold leaf and tempera, and the art of narrative, with painters such as Cimabue, Duccio and Giotto. Each two-hour session includes a lecture, a break, discussion and optional homework, and recordings are available until two weeks after the final session.