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Season 10 of the Art Curious podcast is sponsored by Anchorlight. For more information about their

programs and residences, please visit Anchorlight. For more information about their programs and residences,

please visit anchorlightrolly.com. When someone says the words, the Middle Ages, what's the first thing

you think about? Perhaps it's the word dark. Dark, meaning not like there wasn't sunshine or that

things were unbearably awful,

though, of course, both of those were naturally true at various stages of this nearly

1,000-year span of history. But dark, as in the Dark Ages, a time where nothing flourished

from a cultural or artistic standpoint. All the great works and innovations

from ancient Rome, poof, gone, replaced by a strangely and crudely painted or sculpted figure.

It's a common question that is still lobbed about quite frequently. Why is medieval art so

bad? In fact, when you type in the words, why is medieval art into Google,

as I did for an experiment, you'll find that the words so bad actually auto-fill first as a

suggestion in your search. It's all over YouTube, Quora, Reddit, and elsewhere. And in 2019, the Guardian newspaper in the UK

posted this as an online question from a reader, hoping that other readers would chime in

with their own answers and theories. Because, yeah, on the surface, works made in the dark

ages don't look so amazing. But could all of that be a lie? Or bad PR?

...