A paper representation in "Disciplining Emotions," a Conference held at Bar-Ilan University 31.5.... more A paper representation in "Disciplining Emotions," a Conference held at Bar-Ilan University 31.5.21 - 1.6.21
Blurred Boundaries and Deceptive Dichotomies in Pre-Modern Texts and Images, 2023
A bifolio from a Book of Hours made for Louis of Laval is the point of
departure for this artic... more A bifolio from a Book of Hours made for Louis of Laval is the point of departure for this article. I explore the blurred boundaries between the sacred and the secular in the portrait of the patron and his attendants and the depiction of the Virgin, the Infant, and a choir of angels. I contend that as in other portraits of noble devotees praying to the Virgin and Child, in Laval’s Book of Hours, the two parts of the bifolio were designed to give the owner a sense of familiarity with the sacred figures. Through a series of choices, the artist suggested the shared character of the secular and profane figures, that is, their humanness, and other points of similarity. The cognitive-emotional experience of kinship might well have encouraged the devotee to aspire toward spiritual union with the Divine.
This article explores the significance of the secular figures in the Goldenes Rossl, a resplenden... more This article explores the significance of the secular figures in the Goldenes Rossl, a resplendent sculpture that Queen Isabella gave to her husband, King Charles VI, in a French court ceremonial in 1405. The sculpture, which was designed primarily to encourage the king’s private religious devotion, includes several components that might have had a bearing on the king’s sense of his own reality. I look at the reasons that account for the work’s unusual combination of secular and religious elements and try to distinguish between those aspects of the sculpture that were meant to encourage devotion and those that represent the queen’s personal motivations. I discuss the import of the secular figures, which add to the traditional meaning of the personal prayer to Mary and Jesus. I first approach the sculpture using a comparative iconographic method, in order to decipher the significance of these secular figures. I then analyze historic sources to elucidate the queen’s uncertain politica...
Portraits of French aristocrats within prayer books created in the late Middle Ages brought the b... more Portraits of French aristocrats within prayer books created in the late Middle Ages brought the book owners together with a visual representation that included realistic detail with the design of an ideal figure of a Christian ruler. Studies in this genre have shown that they marked ownership, served as a spiritual transcendence tool, and helped internalize personal religious practice. This article examines the emotional reception of eight portraits from a book of hours (2 f 76.ms, Library National, Hague The, 1455, Tavernier Le) commissioned for Philip the Good (1467–1396, Bon le III Philippe), Duke of Burgundy. An examination of the iconography and artistic means that direct the viewer to the mental processes of comparison and recollection indicates the potential purpose of the portraits to stimulate feelings of identification and pleasure. Later, I discuss the novella Petit Le Saintré de Jehan (Petra Le Saintré de Jehan) by Antoine de la Sal (mid-fifteenth century). It helps to clarify that the emotion of pleasure played a central role in the education of the noble individual for self-improvement and that this emotion could have served as an incentive to achieve future goals. A study examining works of art from this perspective reveals the portrait's ability to be an emotional agency that has contributed to shaping its owner's inner world and actions.
Abstract: Anne of Brittany commissioned three images of Saint Ursula, and I utilize these to deve... more Abstract: Anne of Brittany commissioned three images of Saint Ursula, and I utilize these to develop a case study to demonstrate that a sense of familiarity with a holy figure was a factor in a worshipper choosing to engage with a particular saint. The iconography of Ursula’s portrayals in the Grandes Heures and Saint Ursula’s Nef reflects a likeness between Anne and the image toward which she directed her piety. I argue that they were commissioned by the queen to help her intensify her initial sense of identification with the saint. Queen Anne, a pious Christian and an educated woman, was familiar with patterns of thinking that enabled comparison and association while reading and contemplating on the vitae of saints. There were three points in Ursula’s vita that might have evoked a sense of kinship with the saint: they were both born in British lands, linked to a royal family, and were faced with marriages to foreign princes. These aspects received significant artistic attention in...
Abstract: Anne of Brittany commissioned three images of Saint Ursula, and I utilize these to deve... more Abstract: Anne of Brittany commissioned three images of Saint Ursula, and I utilize these to develop a case study to demonstrate that a sense of familiarity with a holy figure was a factor in a worshipper choosing to engage with a particular saint. The iconography of Ursula’s portrayals in the Grandes Heures and Saint Ursula’s Nef reflects a likeness between Anne and the image toward which she directed her piety. I argue that they were commissioned by the queen to help her intensify her initial sense of identification with the saint. Queen Anne, a pious Christian and an educated woman, was familiar with patterns of thinking that enabled comparison and association while reading and contemplating on the vitae of saints. There were three points in Ursula’s vita that might have evoked a sense of kinship with the saint: they were both born in British lands, linked to a royal family, and were faced with marriages to foreign princes. These aspects received significant artistic attention in the portrayals of Ursula under discussion. However, the artists created the images with an interplay between the saint’s likeness to Queen Anne and a slight divergence, an approach that promoted identification with the saint but at the same time could motivate the celebrant to translate the saint’s virtues into her own life. Through an interdisciplinary perspective on the artworks and a survey of the relevant contemporary texts, this study demonstrates that the intimate and internal process of selecting a patron saint and the resulting worship with the aid of images enabled a devotee to negotiate a whole range of aspects linked to his/her self-identity and to promote religiosity and construction of secular aspects of his/her personality.
For the Owner's Pleasure: Portraits of Valois Patrons in Devotional Contexts and Their Reception, 1350 - 1500 , 2020
The present research explores fifteenth-century portraits made for the Valois royal family, the V... more The present research explores fifteenth-century portraits made for the Valois royal family, the Valois and Burgundian Courts, and the members of high nobility that were figured on devotional objects and in manuscripts. I consider these portraits as social agents that depicted their subjects through an intertwined artistic relationship between an ideal image and visual mimetic representation. I explore the portraits, many of them include relatives and court attendants (expanded portraits), as a nexus of contemporary ideas, a rendering that was designed to evoke specific pattern of thoughts and feelings in the viewer. I argue that by eliciting feelings of pleasure, satisfaction, and delight, the portraits implicitly helped their owners to maintain and enhance their religious and secular identities. In light of these diverse functions, I utilized two different approaches-one that puts the artwork at the center of concern and a second that directs attention to processes of self-observation, to constructing the external appearance of the nobility, and to the gradual acquisition of cultural norms where emotions played a central role. Fifteenth-century portraits in devotional contexts beckon their viewers to gaze, to engage in devotions, and more. Visual imagery in the Middle Ages could, among other aspects, be conceived and apprehended as a learning tool. It was expected that by gazing at their portraits, subjects would construct and enhance their religious and noble identities. Portraits within the many extant prayer books and on devotional objects, the latter evidencing comparatively fewer portraits, provided an opportunity for their owners to engage in observing and reflecting on their portrayed selves. In this respect, the portraits fostered a long-lasting relationship with their owners, who looked at them in the context of both their own self-knowledge and the cultural codes of behavior and proper appearances; hence, these portraits fulfilled their essential role as agencies that engendered feelings of satisfaction, delight, and pleasure Although we cannot consider the art of northern Europe during the fifteenth century as reflecting a unified style, we can see that it revealed a gradual interest in mimesis of particular and sometimes anecdotal appearances of objects and people. Portraits of individuals were executed with an evolving interest in materiality and texture, together with an interest in the locations chosen for them. A new interest in the facial traits of a portrayed individual is also recorded. In fifteenth-century depictions of owners, we often find a sensitive formulation of the subject's visage. I associate the style of northern art with late medieval interest in the gaze, where one of
This article explores the significance of the secular figures in the Goldenes Rössl, a resplenden... more This article explores the significance of the secular figures in the Goldenes Rössl, a resplendent sculpture that Queen Isabella gave to her husband, King Charles VI, in a French court ceremonial in 1405. The sculpture, which was designed primarily to encourage the king’s private religious devotion, includes several components that might have had a bearing on the king’s sense of his own reality. I look at the reasons that account for the work’s unusual combination of secular and religious elements and try to distinguish between those aspects of the sculpture that were meant to encourage devotion and those that represent the queen’s personal motivations. I discuss the import of the secular figures, which add to the traditional meaning of the personal prayer to Mary and Jesus. I first approach the sculpture using a comparative iconographic method, in order to decipher the significance of these secular figures. I then analyze historic sources to elucidate the queen’s uncertain political status within the French court. I also integrate current studies on the king’s mental illness in order to evaluate his condition and to the way he related his wife. I delineate the sculpture as a healing object, alongside the queen’s political and personal motivations for presenting the gift and interpret the layers of significance inherent in the statue’s content and context.
Plagues in general and the Black Death in particular sowed fear in the hearts of medieval and ear... more Plagues in general and the Black Death in particular sowed fear in the hearts of medieval and early modern people even if they themselves had never experienced a pandemic. Giovanni Boccaccio’s novel The Decameron (1348–1353), set against the background of the Black Death that raged in Florence in the late 1340s provides a frame for 100 tales recited by ten young ladies and noblemen who fled the dying city. In the prologue to the first day, the author recounts the terrible consequences of the plague on Florentine moral and the way of life in the city. The text was translated into the vernacular by Laurent de Premierfalit (1370–1418) at the beginning of the fifteenth century and was copied and transcribed at various times for the elite in France and Burgundy. Philip the Good, the duke of Burgundy, commissioned two illustrated manuscripts of The Decameron (Bodleian Library ms. Douce 213 and Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, ms. 5070). The various tales and the accompanying illustrations in both manuscripts suggest an incongruous atmosphere in the face of the devastating illness and death described in the prologue. I argue that some of the illustrations in Philip's manuscripts reflect conventional visual formulas for depicting late medieval court entertainment. I will show that these illustrations suggest court pleasures as a defense against fear and as a way to foster Christian society when such periods of plague stripped it of all virtue, compassion, and civil order.
The banquet celebrating the wedding of Charles the Bold and Margaret of York in 1468 was remarkab... more The banquet celebrating the wedding of Charles the Bold and Margaret of York in 1468 was remarkable for its grand scale. It included six sumptuous feasts, including innovative decorations that incorporated various materials and unique iconography – stone-carved archers whose arrows streamed wine, chandeliers in the form of a naturalistic castle having seven large mirrors reflecting the hall, and more. Scholarships discussing ephemeral objects, artistic decorations, and multimedia performances (entremets) in court festivals have highlighted the political messages conveyed and the significance of showcasing magnificence during social gatherings. Recently, Christina Normore has noted the potency of the performative sensual decoration in Burgundian banquets to construct a sense of elite community in the attendees. While her work integrates a close examination of objects and artistic imagery and the cultural context of such events, I draw on her assertion while examining some of the decorations in the wedding celebrations of Charles and Margaret from perspectives of reception aesthetics and the history of emotions. This angle proposes an opportunity to unravel the expected sensual, emotional, and cognitive process of helping elite attendees cling to their inborn affiliation with the high nobility.
The notion that images of art patrons kneeling before Mary and Infant Jesus served as a point of ... more The notion that images of art patrons kneeling before Mary and Infant Jesus served as a point of conjunction between a genuine act of prayer and a visionary realm is well accepted in medieval art research. However, a lot of work still has to be done on the way human senses, emotions, and perception were incorporated in the process of activating these images during personal devotion and converting the fictive into real. This paper will be focused on a bifolio illumination from Laval’s Book of Hours (1485, BnF, lat. 920, 50v-51r) where the patron, flanked by his distinguished courtiers, prays before the Virgin and Child, who in turn are attended by a silent choir of angels. Prayer books such as books of hours were objects that required what may be called active handling in order to articulate their significance and aid the users in cultivating their devotion. A whole set of acts was practiced by the devotees during daily prayer: flipping the pages, kissing and smoothly touching the images, reciting the prayers and the like. At the same time the two-dimensional presence of the Deity was tangible to the gaze of the spectator, it will be shown that the diptych-like composition of the bifolio was designed in such a way that when Laval turned the pages, he would see his portrayed mouth kissing a point between the Virgin’s lap and baby Jesus’ head. The central claim is that the pleasure of self-observation while gazing, handling, and touching the image at the sacred silent moment of encountering the Deity is a central factor in converting the illusionary and fictive into the real. Moreover, the realistic features of the Duke and his entourage contribute to the pleasure effect of the image on his owner and to the image’s ability to be converted into an actual event.
A paper representation in "Disciplining Emotions," a Conference held at Bar-Ilan University 31.5.... more A paper representation in "Disciplining Emotions," a Conference held at Bar-Ilan University 31.5.21 - 1.6.21
Blurred Boundaries and Deceptive Dichotomies in Pre-Modern Texts and Images, 2023
A bifolio from a Book of Hours made for Louis of Laval is the point of
departure for this artic... more A bifolio from a Book of Hours made for Louis of Laval is the point of departure for this article. I explore the blurred boundaries between the sacred and the secular in the portrait of the patron and his attendants and the depiction of the Virgin, the Infant, and a choir of angels. I contend that as in other portraits of noble devotees praying to the Virgin and Child, in Laval’s Book of Hours, the two parts of the bifolio were designed to give the owner a sense of familiarity with the sacred figures. Through a series of choices, the artist suggested the shared character of the secular and profane figures, that is, their humanness, and other points of similarity. The cognitive-emotional experience of kinship might well have encouraged the devotee to aspire toward spiritual union with the Divine.
This article explores the significance of the secular figures in the Goldenes Rossl, a resplenden... more This article explores the significance of the secular figures in the Goldenes Rossl, a resplendent sculpture that Queen Isabella gave to her husband, King Charles VI, in a French court ceremonial in 1405. The sculpture, which was designed primarily to encourage the king’s private religious devotion, includes several components that might have had a bearing on the king’s sense of his own reality. I look at the reasons that account for the work’s unusual combination of secular and religious elements and try to distinguish between those aspects of the sculpture that were meant to encourage devotion and those that represent the queen’s personal motivations. I discuss the import of the secular figures, which add to the traditional meaning of the personal prayer to Mary and Jesus. I first approach the sculpture using a comparative iconographic method, in order to decipher the significance of these secular figures. I then analyze historic sources to elucidate the queen’s uncertain politica...
Portraits of French aristocrats within prayer books created in the late Middle Ages brought the b... more Portraits of French aristocrats within prayer books created in the late Middle Ages brought the book owners together with a visual representation that included realistic detail with the design of an ideal figure of a Christian ruler. Studies in this genre have shown that they marked ownership, served as a spiritual transcendence tool, and helped internalize personal religious practice. This article examines the emotional reception of eight portraits from a book of hours (2 f 76.ms, Library National, Hague The, 1455, Tavernier Le) commissioned for Philip the Good (1467–1396, Bon le III Philippe), Duke of Burgundy. An examination of the iconography and artistic means that direct the viewer to the mental processes of comparison and recollection indicates the potential purpose of the portraits to stimulate feelings of identification and pleasure. Later, I discuss the novella Petit Le Saintré de Jehan (Petra Le Saintré de Jehan) by Antoine de la Sal (mid-fifteenth century). It helps to clarify that the emotion of pleasure played a central role in the education of the noble individual for self-improvement and that this emotion could have served as an incentive to achieve future goals. A study examining works of art from this perspective reveals the portrait's ability to be an emotional agency that has contributed to shaping its owner's inner world and actions.
Abstract: Anne of Brittany commissioned three images of Saint Ursula, and I utilize these to deve... more Abstract: Anne of Brittany commissioned three images of Saint Ursula, and I utilize these to develop a case study to demonstrate that a sense of familiarity with a holy figure was a factor in a worshipper choosing to engage with a particular saint. The iconography of Ursula’s portrayals in the Grandes Heures and Saint Ursula’s Nef reflects a likeness between Anne and the image toward which she directed her piety. I argue that they were commissioned by the queen to help her intensify her initial sense of identification with the saint. Queen Anne, a pious Christian and an educated woman, was familiar with patterns of thinking that enabled comparison and association while reading and contemplating on the vitae of saints. There were three points in Ursula’s vita that might have evoked a sense of kinship with the saint: they were both born in British lands, linked to a royal family, and were faced with marriages to foreign princes. These aspects received significant artistic attention in...
Abstract: Anne of Brittany commissioned three images of Saint Ursula, and I utilize these to deve... more Abstract: Anne of Brittany commissioned three images of Saint Ursula, and I utilize these to develop a case study to demonstrate that a sense of familiarity with a holy figure was a factor in a worshipper choosing to engage with a particular saint. The iconography of Ursula’s portrayals in the Grandes Heures and Saint Ursula’s Nef reflects a likeness between Anne and the image toward which she directed her piety. I argue that they were commissioned by the queen to help her intensify her initial sense of identification with the saint. Queen Anne, a pious Christian and an educated woman, was familiar with patterns of thinking that enabled comparison and association while reading and contemplating on the vitae of saints. There were three points in Ursula’s vita that might have evoked a sense of kinship with the saint: they were both born in British lands, linked to a royal family, and were faced with marriages to foreign princes. These aspects received significant artistic attention in the portrayals of Ursula under discussion. However, the artists created the images with an interplay between the saint’s likeness to Queen Anne and a slight divergence, an approach that promoted identification with the saint but at the same time could motivate the celebrant to translate the saint’s virtues into her own life. Through an interdisciplinary perspective on the artworks and a survey of the relevant contemporary texts, this study demonstrates that the intimate and internal process of selecting a patron saint and the resulting worship with the aid of images enabled a devotee to negotiate a whole range of aspects linked to his/her self-identity and to promote religiosity and construction of secular aspects of his/her personality.
For the Owner's Pleasure: Portraits of Valois Patrons in Devotional Contexts and Their Reception, 1350 - 1500 , 2020
The present research explores fifteenth-century portraits made for the Valois royal family, the V... more The present research explores fifteenth-century portraits made for the Valois royal family, the Valois and Burgundian Courts, and the members of high nobility that were figured on devotional objects and in manuscripts. I consider these portraits as social agents that depicted their subjects through an intertwined artistic relationship between an ideal image and visual mimetic representation. I explore the portraits, many of them include relatives and court attendants (expanded portraits), as a nexus of contemporary ideas, a rendering that was designed to evoke specific pattern of thoughts and feelings in the viewer. I argue that by eliciting feelings of pleasure, satisfaction, and delight, the portraits implicitly helped their owners to maintain and enhance their religious and secular identities. In light of these diverse functions, I utilized two different approaches-one that puts the artwork at the center of concern and a second that directs attention to processes of self-observation, to constructing the external appearance of the nobility, and to the gradual acquisition of cultural norms where emotions played a central role. Fifteenth-century portraits in devotional contexts beckon their viewers to gaze, to engage in devotions, and more. Visual imagery in the Middle Ages could, among other aspects, be conceived and apprehended as a learning tool. It was expected that by gazing at their portraits, subjects would construct and enhance their religious and noble identities. Portraits within the many extant prayer books and on devotional objects, the latter evidencing comparatively fewer portraits, provided an opportunity for their owners to engage in observing and reflecting on their portrayed selves. In this respect, the portraits fostered a long-lasting relationship with their owners, who looked at them in the context of both their own self-knowledge and the cultural codes of behavior and proper appearances; hence, these portraits fulfilled their essential role as agencies that engendered feelings of satisfaction, delight, and pleasure Although we cannot consider the art of northern Europe during the fifteenth century as reflecting a unified style, we can see that it revealed a gradual interest in mimesis of particular and sometimes anecdotal appearances of objects and people. Portraits of individuals were executed with an evolving interest in materiality and texture, together with an interest in the locations chosen for them. A new interest in the facial traits of a portrayed individual is also recorded. In fifteenth-century depictions of owners, we often find a sensitive formulation of the subject's visage. I associate the style of northern art with late medieval interest in the gaze, where one of
This article explores the significance of the secular figures in the Goldenes Rössl, a resplenden... more This article explores the significance of the secular figures in the Goldenes Rössl, a resplendent sculpture that Queen Isabella gave to her husband, King Charles VI, in a French court ceremonial in 1405. The sculpture, which was designed primarily to encourage the king’s private religious devotion, includes several components that might have had a bearing on the king’s sense of his own reality. I look at the reasons that account for the work’s unusual combination of secular and religious elements and try to distinguish between those aspects of the sculpture that were meant to encourage devotion and those that represent the queen’s personal motivations. I discuss the import of the secular figures, which add to the traditional meaning of the personal prayer to Mary and Jesus. I first approach the sculpture using a comparative iconographic method, in order to decipher the significance of these secular figures. I then analyze historic sources to elucidate the queen’s uncertain political status within the French court. I also integrate current studies on the king’s mental illness in order to evaluate his condition and to the way he related his wife. I delineate the sculpture as a healing object, alongside the queen’s political and personal motivations for presenting the gift and interpret the layers of significance inherent in the statue’s content and context.
Plagues in general and the Black Death in particular sowed fear in the hearts of medieval and ear... more Plagues in general and the Black Death in particular sowed fear in the hearts of medieval and early modern people even if they themselves had never experienced a pandemic. Giovanni Boccaccio’s novel The Decameron (1348–1353), set against the background of the Black Death that raged in Florence in the late 1340s provides a frame for 100 tales recited by ten young ladies and noblemen who fled the dying city. In the prologue to the first day, the author recounts the terrible consequences of the plague on Florentine moral and the way of life in the city. The text was translated into the vernacular by Laurent de Premierfalit (1370–1418) at the beginning of the fifteenth century and was copied and transcribed at various times for the elite in France and Burgundy. Philip the Good, the duke of Burgundy, commissioned two illustrated manuscripts of The Decameron (Bodleian Library ms. Douce 213 and Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, ms. 5070). The various tales and the accompanying illustrations in both manuscripts suggest an incongruous atmosphere in the face of the devastating illness and death described in the prologue. I argue that some of the illustrations in Philip's manuscripts reflect conventional visual formulas for depicting late medieval court entertainment. I will show that these illustrations suggest court pleasures as a defense against fear and as a way to foster Christian society when such periods of plague stripped it of all virtue, compassion, and civil order.
The banquet celebrating the wedding of Charles the Bold and Margaret of York in 1468 was remarkab... more The banquet celebrating the wedding of Charles the Bold and Margaret of York in 1468 was remarkable for its grand scale. It included six sumptuous feasts, including innovative decorations that incorporated various materials and unique iconography – stone-carved archers whose arrows streamed wine, chandeliers in the form of a naturalistic castle having seven large mirrors reflecting the hall, and more. Scholarships discussing ephemeral objects, artistic decorations, and multimedia performances (entremets) in court festivals have highlighted the political messages conveyed and the significance of showcasing magnificence during social gatherings. Recently, Christina Normore has noted the potency of the performative sensual decoration in Burgundian banquets to construct a sense of elite community in the attendees. While her work integrates a close examination of objects and artistic imagery and the cultural context of such events, I draw on her assertion while examining some of the decorations in the wedding celebrations of Charles and Margaret from perspectives of reception aesthetics and the history of emotions. This angle proposes an opportunity to unravel the expected sensual, emotional, and cognitive process of helping elite attendees cling to their inborn affiliation with the high nobility.
The notion that images of art patrons kneeling before Mary and Infant Jesus served as a point of ... more The notion that images of art patrons kneeling before Mary and Infant Jesus served as a point of conjunction between a genuine act of prayer and a visionary realm is well accepted in medieval art research. However, a lot of work still has to be done on the way human senses, emotions, and perception were incorporated in the process of activating these images during personal devotion and converting the fictive into real. This paper will be focused on a bifolio illumination from Laval’s Book of Hours (1485, BnF, lat. 920, 50v-51r) where the patron, flanked by his distinguished courtiers, prays before the Virgin and Child, who in turn are attended by a silent choir of angels. Prayer books such as books of hours were objects that required what may be called active handling in order to articulate their significance and aid the users in cultivating their devotion. A whole set of acts was practiced by the devotees during daily prayer: flipping the pages, kissing and smoothly touching the images, reciting the prayers and the like. At the same time the two-dimensional presence of the Deity was tangible to the gaze of the spectator, it will be shown that the diptych-like composition of the bifolio was designed in such a way that when Laval turned the pages, he would see his portrayed mouth kissing a point between the Virgin’s lap and baby Jesus’ head. The central claim is that the pleasure of self-observation while gazing, handling, and touching the image at the sacred silent moment of encountering the Deity is a central factor in converting the illusionary and fictive into the real. Moreover, the realistic features of the Duke and his entourage contribute to the pleasure effect of the image on his owner and to the image’s ability to be converted into an actual event.
This collection of essays focuses on the way blurred boundaries are represented in pre-modern tex... more This collection of essays focuses on the way blurred boundaries are represented in pre-modern texts and visual art and how they were received and perceived by their audiences: readers, listeners, and viewers. According to the current understanding that opposing cognitive categories that are so common in modern thinking do not apply to pre-modern mentalities, we argue that individuals in medieval and pre-modern societies did not necessarily consider sacred and secular, male and female, real and fictional, and opposing emotions as absolute dichotomies. The contributors to the present collection examine a wide range of cultural artifacts – literary texts, wall paintings, sculptures, jewelry, manuscript illustrations, and various objects as to what they reflect regarding the dominant perceptual system – the network of beliefs, worldviews, presumptions, values, and norms of viewing/reading/hearing different from modern epistemology strongly predicated on the binary nature of things and people. The essays suggest that analyzing pre-modern cultural works of art or literature in light of reception theory can lead to a better understanding of how those cultural products influenced individuals and impacted their thoughts and actions.
Uploads
departure for this article. I explore the blurred boundaries between the sacred and the secular in the portrait of the patron and his attendants and the depiction of the Virgin, the Infant, and a choir of angels. I contend that as in other portraits of noble devotees praying to the Virgin and Child, in Laval’s Book of Hours, the two parts of the bifolio were designed to give the owner a sense of familiarity with the sacred figures. Through a series of choices, the artist suggested the shared character of the secular and profane figures, that is, their humanness, and other points of similarity. The
cognitive-emotional experience of kinship might well have encouraged the devotee to aspire toward spiritual union with the Divine.
in the Grandes Heures and Saint Ursula’s Nef reflects a likeness between Anne and the image toward which she directed her piety. I argue that they were commissioned by the queen to help her intensify her initial sense of identification with the saint. Queen Anne, a pious Christian and an educated woman, was familiar with patterns of thinking that enabled comparison and association while reading and contemplating on the vitae of saints. There were three points in Ursula’s vita that might have evoked a sense of kinship with the saint: they were both born in British lands, linked to a royal family, and were faced with marriages to foreign princes. These aspects received significant artistic attention in the portrayals of Ursula under discussion. However, the artists created the images with an interplay between the saint’s likeness to Queen Anne and a slight divergence, an approach that promoted identification with the saint but at the same time could motivate the celebrant to translate the saint’s virtues into her own life. Through an interdisciplinary perspective on the artworks and a survey of the relevant contemporary texts, this study demonstrates that the intimate and internal process of selecting a patron saint and the resulting worship with the aid of images enabled a devotee to negotiate a whole range of aspects linked to his/her self-identity and to promote religiosity and construction of secular aspects of his/her personality.
sculpture that Queen Isabella gave to her husband, King Charles VI, in a French court ceremonial in
1405. The sculpture, which was designed primarily to encourage the king’s private religious
devotion, includes several components that might have had a bearing on the king’s sense of his own
reality. I look at the reasons that account for the work’s unusual combination of secular and
religious elements and try to distinguish between those aspects of the sculpture that were meant to
encourage devotion and those that represent the queen’s personal motivations. I discuss the import
of the secular figures, which add to the traditional meaning of the personal prayer to Mary and
Jesus. I first approach the sculpture using a comparative iconographic method, in order to decipher
the significance of these secular figures. I then analyze historic sources to elucidate the queen’s
uncertain political status within the French court. I also integrate current studies on the king’s
mental illness in order to evaluate his condition and to the way he related his wife. I delineate the
sculpture as a healing object, alongside the queen’s political and personal motivations for
presenting the gift and interpret the layers of significance inherent in the statue’s content and
context.
Prayer books such as books of hours were objects that required what may be called active handling in order to articulate their significance and aid the users in cultivating their devotion. A whole set of acts was practiced by the devotees during daily prayer: flipping the pages, kissing and smoothly touching the images, reciting the prayers and the like. At the same time the two-dimensional presence of the Deity was tangible to the gaze of the spectator, it will be shown that the diptych-like composition of the bifolio was designed in such a way that when Laval turned the pages, he would see his portrayed mouth kissing a point between the Virgin’s lap and baby Jesus’ head. The central claim is that the pleasure of self-observation while gazing, handling, and touching the image at the sacred silent moment of encountering the Deity is a central factor in converting the illusionary and fictive into the real. Moreover, the realistic features of the Duke and his entourage contribute to the pleasure effect of the image on his owner and to the image’s ability to be converted into an actual event.
departure for this article. I explore the blurred boundaries between the sacred and the secular in the portrait of the patron and his attendants and the depiction of the Virgin, the Infant, and a choir of angels. I contend that as in other portraits of noble devotees praying to the Virgin and Child, in Laval’s Book of Hours, the two parts of the bifolio were designed to give the owner a sense of familiarity with the sacred figures. Through a series of choices, the artist suggested the shared character of the secular and profane figures, that is, their humanness, and other points of similarity. The
cognitive-emotional experience of kinship might well have encouraged the devotee to aspire toward spiritual union with the Divine.
in the Grandes Heures and Saint Ursula’s Nef reflects a likeness between Anne and the image toward which she directed her piety. I argue that they were commissioned by the queen to help her intensify her initial sense of identification with the saint. Queen Anne, a pious Christian and an educated woman, was familiar with patterns of thinking that enabled comparison and association while reading and contemplating on the vitae of saints. There were three points in Ursula’s vita that might have evoked a sense of kinship with the saint: they were both born in British lands, linked to a royal family, and were faced with marriages to foreign princes. These aspects received significant artistic attention in the portrayals of Ursula under discussion. However, the artists created the images with an interplay between the saint’s likeness to Queen Anne and a slight divergence, an approach that promoted identification with the saint but at the same time could motivate the celebrant to translate the saint’s virtues into her own life. Through an interdisciplinary perspective on the artworks and a survey of the relevant contemporary texts, this study demonstrates that the intimate and internal process of selecting a patron saint and the resulting worship with the aid of images enabled a devotee to negotiate a whole range of aspects linked to his/her self-identity and to promote religiosity and construction of secular aspects of his/her personality.
sculpture that Queen Isabella gave to her husband, King Charles VI, in a French court ceremonial in
1405. The sculpture, which was designed primarily to encourage the king’s private religious
devotion, includes several components that might have had a bearing on the king’s sense of his own
reality. I look at the reasons that account for the work’s unusual combination of secular and
religious elements and try to distinguish between those aspects of the sculpture that were meant to
encourage devotion and those that represent the queen’s personal motivations. I discuss the import
of the secular figures, which add to the traditional meaning of the personal prayer to Mary and
Jesus. I first approach the sculpture using a comparative iconographic method, in order to decipher
the significance of these secular figures. I then analyze historic sources to elucidate the queen’s
uncertain political status within the French court. I also integrate current studies on the king’s
mental illness in order to evaluate his condition and to the way he related his wife. I delineate the
sculpture as a healing object, alongside the queen’s political and personal motivations for
presenting the gift and interpret the layers of significance inherent in the statue’s content and
context.
Prayer books such as books of hours were objects that required what may be called active handling in order to articulate their significance and aid the users in cultivating their devotion. A whole set of acts was practiced by the devotees during daily prayer: flipping the pages, kissing and smoothly touching the images, reciting the prayers and the like. At the same time the two-dimensional presence of the Deity was tangible to the gaze of the spectator, it will be shown that the diptych-like composition of the bifolio was designed in such a way that when Laval turned the pages, he would see his portrayed mouth kissing a point between the Virgin’s lap and baby Jesus’ head. The central claim is that the pleasure of self-observation while gazing, handling, and touching the image at the sacred silent moment of encountering the Deity is a central factor in converting the illusionary and fictive into the real. Moreover, the realistic features of the Duke and his entourage contribute to the pleasure effect of the image on his owner and to the image’s ability to be converted into an actual event.
The contributors to the present collection examine a wide range of cultural artifacts – literary texts, wall paintings, sculptures, jewelry, manuscript illustrations, and various objects as to what they reflect regarding the dominant perceptual system – the network of beliefs, worldviews, presumptions, values, and norms of viewing/reading/hearing different from modern epistemology strongly predicated on the binary nature of things and people. The essays suggest that analyzing pre-modern cultural works of art or literature in light of reception theory can lead to a better understanding of how those cultural products influenced individuals and impacted their thoughts and actions.