Academic Sessions: Glasgow 2010
AAH Annual Conference 2010
15 - 17 April, University of Glasgow
Images of Corporal Mortification and Corruption, Martyrdom and Mercy: 1250-1550
Session Convenors:
Emily Jane Anderson, University of Glasgow, E.Anderson.1@research.gla.ac.uk
Robert Gibbs, University of Glasgow, R.Gibbs@arthist.arts.gla.ac.uk
‘The psychological implications of the new religiosity with which the devotional image was in accord are just as complex as the social conditions from which the religious individual developed his self-awareness. What took place in the 13th century was one of the most comprehensive transformations European society ever underwent. While the symptoms were often only visible in images at a later date, the impulses to modify images reach back to the 13th century.’
Hans Belting (trans. M. Bartusis and R. Meyer), The Image and Its Public in the Middle Ages: Form and Function of Early Paintings of the Passion (New Rochelle, New York: 1990), 7.
This session will explore images which illustrate the mortification of the flesh, bodily corruption, disfigurement, disease, decay, physical degradation and death. Such images have been used to convey messages of strength, the triumph of faith over fear and pain, the incorruptibility of the spirit, salvation, celebration and optimism. Images of suffering are often coupled with those of compassion and protection. Issues surrounding the role of gender within images of martyrdom and mercy will be investigated. Papers are invited which engage with related imagery (e.g. depictions of justice, punishment, vengeance, restraint and clemency) from both religious and secular contexts and which explore the relationship between text and image. We encourage submissions illustrating examples from a wide range of media (panel and wall painting, manuscript illumination, sculpture, architectural structures and contexts, decorated household, religious and civic objects and textiles) and originating from a variety of geographical locations.
Speakers:
Constantin Canavas (Hamburg University of Applied Sciences)
Illustrating the martyrdom of a Sufi
Michael Carter (Courtauld)
A vestment of Abbot Robert Thornton (1510-1533): Death and remembrance in an English Cistercian abbey at the end of the Middle Ages
Gary Dickson (University of Edinburgh)
Living Images of Mortification & Mercy (Perugia 1260, 1464)
Jim Harris (Courtauld)
From Holy Wounds to a Good Kicking: Vasari, Donatello and the Varieties of Violence
Jack Hartnell (Courtauld)
Spiritual Batteries: The Price of Reanimation and the Death of the Relic
Laura Hollengreen (Georgia Institute of Technology)
A Speechless Supplicant at King Solomon's Court: Corporeal Signs of Maternal Love and Terror at Chartres Cathedral
Ermioni Karachaliou (University of Manchester)
Western Influences on Eastern Representations of Martyrdom
Jacek Kowzan (Podlaska Academy, Siedlce, Poland)
Human vs. Divine. Christ’s tormented body in Rozmyslania dominikanskie (Dominican Meditations)
Silke Kurth (Kunsthistorisches Institut Florenz, Max-Planck-Institut)
‘Behold what I from Gods endure!’ Personalisation of the myth and transformation of the discourse on violence and body in early modern Italy.
Suzanne Scanlan (Brown University)
In the Face of Death: Temptation and Mortality in the Tor de’Specchi Frescoes
Yvonne Owens (University College London)
‘Corruption, Mortality, and Feminine Decay: Women as Witches in the Art of Hans Baldung Grien’
Martin Schwarz (Getty)
A book of blood. Studying Christ’s wounded skin in Ms Egerton 1821
Galina Tirnanic (University of Chicago/Getty Research Institute)
Martyrdom and Punishment at the Hippodrome
Tom Tolley (University of Edinburgh)
The Body of Christ in the Villeneuve-lès-Avignon Pietà and the Fall of Constantinople