UC Riverside

Augusitne of Hippo was born in Thagaste, North Africa, in 354, and died in 430 after serving as bishop of the North African city of Hippo Regius for thirty-five years. His writings are an invaluable account of a tumultuous period of the Christian Roman empire, internally divided along ethinic, cultural, and religious lines, and externally beset by barbarian tribes. Whether considered as one of the last great voices of ancient Rome or as a foundational mind of the nascent medieval culture, Augustine towers, in part because he was adept and eloquent in recording his thoughts and feelings amidst pivotal historic as well as personal moments. Augustine was an extremely prolific writer and not only a deep but also a broad thinker. Within just his theological writings can be found speculative concerns as in "The City of God," which is both an apologetic work and a theology of history, and "De Trinitate," an effort to gain some insight into the transcendent godhead. But Augustine’s theology was not without its practical side, which is manifested in essays on moral topic such as lying, in treatises on subjects such as the proper treatment of the dead, and in his many pastoral sermons and letters. Visual art appears among the variety of subjects contained in his writings, though never in a single treatise or theory of art. Scholars of Augustine’s theology and metaphysics have been eager to link these scattered passages on the visual arts to his theological and metaphysical thought, and even to Augustine’s development as a man and a soul. By contrast, this Thesis presents a new analysis of Augustine’s writings on visual art, grounded in a historical analysis of their relation to relevant cultural issues, including Late Antique Milanese trend of Christianized Neoplatonism, the ambiguous relationship between neo-paganism and Christianity which is exemplified in practices associated with the cult of the dead, and the distinction even among the Christian community between those more advanced and those less advanced in their spiritual preparation and education.