Professor

Art, Russian & Eurasian Studies

Ruth Kolarik has been on the faculty of Colorado College for more than forty years.  She teaches survey courses in the history of the built environment, architecture and landscape design, that combine historical perspectives with discussions of crucial issues in contemporary architecture, landscape architecture and urbanism. She also advises students in the Integrative Design and Architecture track of the Art Major.  Her upper-level classes in ancient and medieval art history include The Golden Age of Greece, Mosaics: Tesselated Perspectives, Late Antiquity, Byzantine Art and Islamic Art.

Her scholarly research focuses on the art and architecture of Late Antiquity, the period from 200 to 600 CE that saw the end of classical culture and the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire. She studies how the built environment and the visual arts were adapted to the changing political, cultural and religious realities particularly in the Balkan Peninsula, a region that played a pivotal role in this period. As an archaeologist at the ancient city of Stobi in North Macedonia, she studied the mosaic floors that decorated residences, a synagogue and churches. Her publications center on the late antique and early Byzantine floor mosaics as well as early Christian architecture from the Balkan Peninsula and Greece. In more recent years she has researched the monuments of Turkey as well as the revival of the mosaic medium in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 

Area of Specialization

The art and architecture of late antiquity from Greece and the Balkan Peninsula, most notably the mosaic floors and ecclesiastical architecture of the ancient city of Stobi in North Macedonia.

Activities & Interests

Vice president of the North American branch of the Association for the Study of Ancient Mosaics.  

Aiema-Namerica    http://www.aiema-namerica.org/

Professor Kolarik enjoys reading historical novels, gardening, travel and walks with her dog. 

Selected Recent Publications

“The Earliest Christian Floor Mosaics:  A Reassessment,” 14th International Congress of the Association International pour l' Etude de la Mosaïque Antique, Nicosia, Cyprus, October 15-19, 2018. In press.

“Canopies over Baptismal Fonts:  The Episcopal Basilica Baptistery at Stobi," Seventeenth International Congress of Christian Archaeology, Utrecht/Nijmegen, the Netherlands, July 2-6,, 2018. In press.

"The Mosaic from the House of Peristeria at Stobi,"  Studies in the Antiquities of Stobi IV, (Stobi 2018) 260-285.

“A Study of Mosaic Workshops—Macedonia Secunda and Epirus Nova.”Estudios sobre mosaicos antiguos y medievales, Luz Neira Jiménez, ed., (Rome 2017). 189-198.

"Transitions in Mosaic in the Age of Constantine." Acta XVI Congressus Internationalis Archaeologiae Christianae:  Costantino e i Costantinidi, l'innovazione Costantiniana, le sue radici e i suoi sviluppi  (Vatican City 2016). 1379-1392. 

"Synagogue Floors from the Balkans:  Religious and Historical Implications,"  Niš and Byzantium, 12 (Niš, Serbia 2014). 115-128.

“The Episcopal Basilica at Stobi:  The Baptistery and Related Structures”  XV Congress of Christian Archaeology, Toledo, Spain, September 2008  (Vatican City 2013) 939-952. 

“Mosaics from Antioch:  Chronological Implications for other Regions?”  M. Şahin, ed., Mosaics of Turkey and Parallel Developments in the Rest of the Ancient and Medieval World:  Questions of Iconography, Style and Technique from the Beginnings of Mosaics until the Late Byzantine Era, Eleventh International Conference on Ancient Mosaics,  (Istanbul 2011) 519-530.

“Late Antique Mosaics of the Balkans," Niš and Byzantium, (Niš, Serbia 2006) 159-177.

"Seasonal Animals in the Narthex Mosaic of the Large Basilica at Heraclea Lyncestis," Tenth International Conference of the Association International pour l' Etude de la Mosaïque Antique (Coimbra, Portugal 2011) 137-146.

"Sixth-Century Bishops as Patrons of Floor Mosaics in the Balkan Peninsula," IXe Colloque international pour l'Etude de la Mosaïque antique et médiévale, (Rome 2001) 1255-1267.

Regular Classes

AH105 Ideologies of Landscape (with Professor Tamara Bentley)

AH120  Global Architecture I:  Pyramids to Cathedrals

AH121 Global Architecture II:  Renaissance to the 21^st Century

AH202 Art and the Landscape

AH 200 Topics:  The Golden Age of Greece

AH200 Topics:  Mosaics—Tesselated Perspectives

AH208 Byzantine Art

AH209/CL209 Late Antiquity

AH210 Islamic Art