Death, disease and mystical experience in early modern art

Abstract

"Fear of death and disease preoccupied the European consciousness throughout the early modern era, becoming most acute at times of plague and epidemics. In these times of heightened anxieties, images of saints and protectors served to reassure the faithful of their religious protection against infection. Modes of visual engagement and devotional subject matter were coupled in new ways to reinforce the emotive impact of art works and to reaffirm the perceived reality of the afterlife. In this context, a visual language of mystical devotion, which overcame the limits of the body and even eroticised its suffering, could serve the needs of the desolate and the pained. In this series of essays focused on spiritual sensibilities in Renaissance art and its legacies, authors present original ideas about the themes of death, disease, and mystical experience, based primarily on the study of objects and their documented historical contexts. Methodologically wide-ranging in approach, the resulting volume provides novel insights into the interplay between suffering and art making in the Western world." -- Provided by publisher.

Contents

Introduction: Manipulating the Sacred / Jennifer Milam and Michael Hill -- 1. Mary as Model for Trecento Mourning / Judith Steinhoff -- 2. Pacem meam do vobis: Earthly Suffering and Celestial Redemption in the Trecento Fresco Program by Vitale da Bologna at Pomposa Abbey / Catherine Blake -- 3. Dying to be Born Again: Death in the Florentine Sacre Rappresentazioni / Nerida Newbigin -- 4. The Visual Transformations of St Anthony the Abbot: From Protector of the Sick to Victor over Sexual Desire / Charles Zika -- 5. Giovanni Cariani's Woman Reclining in a Landscape: The Erotic Subverted / Carolyn Smyth -- 6. Touching Visions: Female Mystics Interacting with the Christ Child and with Mary / Patricia Simons -- 7. Queering Mysticism and the Lactating Virgin: The Madonna delle Grazie with Souls in Purgatory and its Audience of Nuns / Christina Neilson -- 8. Securing Heavenly Protection in Apocalyptic Times: A Series of Fresco Votives in the Oratory of San Giovanni Battista in Urbino / Di Haskell -- 9. The Long Goodbye: Resurrecting Rome's Apostolic Past in The Final Embrace of Saints Peter and Paul / Barbara Wisch -- 10. The Beautiful Death of the Count of Orgaz: Andrés Núñez, El Greco, and the Making of a Counter Reformation Saint / Karen McCluskey -- 11. A Vessel to be Filled: Caravaggio's Conversion of St. Paul in Santa Maria del Popolo / Michael Hill -- 12. Lo Strascino's Lamento and the Visual Culture of the French Pox around 1500 / John Gagne -- 13. Whiz King: Urination as Divination in Prints for Louis XIV / Mark de Vitis -- 14. David's Saint Roch: Plague Painting in the Age of Enlightenment / Jennifer Milam -- 15. Blake's Petworth House Last Judgment and Female Anatomy / Anthony Apesos -- 16. Cocteau's London Elegy: Re-purposed Renaissance Imagery in a Twentieth-Century Crucifixion / Stephen Holford.