Search

Under examination are two Temptations of Saint Anthony on stone: one painted on ruin marble by Jacob van Swanenburgh, the other on oriental alabaster by an unknown Flemish artist. I explore the optical properties of the pictorial surface, the ontology of representation, and the impact of the stone support on visual perception. The unique surface qualities of the paintings are considered to function as subiconographic elements closely related to the pictorial subject. I argue that the use of stone as support is largely motivated by both the pictorial subject and religious practices related to it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents the first in-depth analysis of the cult of the "Virgines Capitales" in late medieval Germany. Devotion to the four capital virgins—Saints Barbara, Catherine, Margaret, and Dorothy—thrived in the Germanic territories during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The four virgin martyrs' widespread popularity is evidenced by a mass in their honor in the Cologne Missal (the "Missa de sanctis quatuor virginibus capitalibus"), a literary tradition of the saints' passions (the "Passienbüchlein von den vier Hauptjungfrauen"), and a vast number of surviving visual images that range from altarpieces to devotional paintings and prints. This study traces the origins and development of the cult, and will argue that devotion to the "Virgines Capitales" was in response to the four saints' powers of collective intercession, derived not only from their individual powers, but also from their combined sexual purity, which made them Christ's brides, and thus especially effective intercessors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a discussion of the interrelations and tension between art and reform in early cinquecento Italy with a focus oil Correggio's "Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine with St. Sebastian." In particular, examination is made of the ways in which Correggio's picture relates to notions of faith and docta pietas that were central to the world of its first viewer and potential patron, Francesco Grillenzoni from Modena. Special attention is dedicated to the representation of St. Sebastian, whose sensual figure is not distinguishable from that of an alluring Cupid. Consideration is given to how and why Correggio portrayed the saint as a nova creatura, that is, as the vehicle of human transformation and regeneration, thereby creating a new kind of devotional imagery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author suggests an attribution for two largely unknown Baroque sculptures inside the Church of St. Peter and Paul at Potsdam. The crucifixus, which has so far not been attributed to an artist, is shown to exhibit parallels to a 1716 work by Paul Egell. It remains unclear, however, whether the Potsdam crucifixus was also created by Egell himself or by Johann Peter Benckert, who congenially completed it in 1763 with a statue of the kneeling Maria Magdalena. The appealing depiction of the saint as an elegant sinner and penitent offers believers various possibilities for identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Il Capitale Culturale: Studies on the Value of Cultural Heritage is the property of Il Capitale Culturale Studies on the Value of Cultural Heritage and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Circa 1515-1520, Josse van Cleve painted a St Jerome in the Wilderness (Muskegon Museum of Art) in which the saint is shown kneeling before an exemplar of the Aracoeli Madonna. Somewhat later, a follower of Barent van Orley introduced a version of the Madonna del Popolo into a representation of the Procession of Pope Gregory the Great (Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux- Arts). This phenomenon of displaying Byzantine icons in Flemish religious pictures must be investigated in the context of a new pursuit of historical authenticity during the period, something typical of the Italian Renaissance. It also served to legitimize devotion to the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary, a cult recently established in the Netherlands that relied strongly on 'true portraits', believed to have been painted by Saint Luke. Josse van Cleve's Muskegon panel may have been ordered by a member of the Antwerp Confraternity of the Seven Sorrows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I argue that the houses and memorabilia collections associated with venerated personages played an important role in campaigns to elevate popular, unofficial, saintly figures to the level of the blessed or even canonised saints. Two practices converged in these campaigns: the Catholic tradition of sacralising specific sites and endowing material remnants with special meaning, and the ‘museumification’ of memorial houses and collections. The focus here is on the use of material culture in the beatification campaigns for modern stigmatics (who carried the wounds of Christ). Of the hundreds of cases that were reported, only a few were beatified and canonised. The article concentrates primarily on one success story: the evolution of the German stigmatic Anne Catherine Emmerick (1774–1824) from a ‘living saint’ to her being officially blessed (2004) and the role that her houses and possessions played in the promotion of her cult following and image construction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Tiempos Modernos is the property of Tiempos Modernos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin houses a collection of Eastern icons which were acquired by Mr W.E.D. Allen in the early part of the twentieth century. To mark the re-launch of the Dublin branch of the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the ESBVM organised an illustrated lecture on the collection's Hodegetria icon in the Gallery on 11 April 2015. The following is an edited version of the talk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many of the great surviving monuments from the middle ages, the cathedrals, churches and objects made for them or for private devotion, testify to the importance of Christian faith in medieval culture. Devotion to the saints was a facet of that belief, vividly recorded in the surviving relics, reliquaries and images of saints as well as in hagiographic literature. Yet medieval sources also contain references to doubts about the nature and power of saints and their relics. The overcoming of doubt or incredulity was a widely used trope in hagiography. However, if we take medieval doubts seriously, they should prompt us to consider whether the images and objects created to celebrate particular saints might sometimes have been designed to bolster dubious claims or help to authenticate disputed material within a rich discourse about both individual saints and relics and about the nature of holy bodies more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a European emigrant to (and now longtime resident of) Mexico City, contemporary artist Francis Alÿs is deeply sensitive to the ways that cultural systems shape and organize human lives. Over two decades, his work has become deftly efficient at instigating subtle social interferences that highlight and reconsider these organizing systems. Although much has been written about the social and political force of these interferences, the literature on Alÿs's work has generally ignored the significant religious content and allusions recurring throughout his artistic practice. This essay is a critical meditation on the religious implications of his Fabiola project, a collection of more than 370 handmade copies of a lost nineteenth-century painting of a fourth-century Christian saint named Fabiola. By paying special attention to the ways that these "handmade readymades" ennoble the voices of others and revise the possible meanings of visual repetition (particularly in the context of mechanical mass-reproduction), this essay argues that Alÿs's Fabiola is not only a profound study of cultural transmission but one that is particularly resonant with the Christianity that formed St. Fabiola's own life and the forms by which she has been remembered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My paper examines the complex relationship between the visual arts and inquisitorial power in early modern Spain through the analysis of Pedro Berruguete'sSaint Dominic Presiding over an Auto-da-fé(circa 1490). As the first and most emblematic Spanish painting to depict the public ceremony in which the Inquisition announced its sentences, this work has always been interpreted as a propagandistic image aimed at celebrating the Holy Office. The institutional nature of its commission and exhibition – closely connected with the Dominicans – encourages this reading. However, by anchoring my interpretation in the turbulent historical context surrounding the establishment of the Inquisition in Spain, I argue instead that Berruguete produced a multi-layered painting that also echoed the misgivings of many of his contemporaries about the new institution's methods. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Until recently, only little was known about the two versions that Jerome Du Quesnoy the Younger made of the sculptural group of Saint Anne and the Virgin; one in Avesnes stone (Brussels) and the other in marble (Malines). Thanks to the discovery of an archival document, however, we are now informed that both versions of the group were commissioned to him by the Brussels Jesuits when he was working as sculptor and architect for Leopold Wilhelm of Austria. The document furthermore allows to shed light on the process of creation of both sculptures and on the instructions the artist had to comply to. The study of the particular iconography of these sculptural groups leads to several hypotheses that place them in the artistic context of Jerome Du Quesnoy the Elder, Rubens and the De Nole brothers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its autograph status and close iconographic relationship with the Saint Francis cycle at Assisi, Giotto’s large panel of the Stigmatization in the Louvre occupies a marginal place in the literature on the artist. The painting, brought to Paris by Napoleon, has a secure provenance from San Francesco, Pisa, and has conventionally been identified as an altarpiece for a side chapel in that church. This article, based on extensive new archival research, establishes that the Stigmatization was not an altarpiece. Instead, there are strong arguments for it having been elevated above a choir screen or beam in the nave of San Francesco. As well as transforming our understanding of Giotto’s panel and its intended function, these findings have significant implications for the broader study of early Italian panel painting, challenging the traditional bias towards the altarpiece as the most dynamic genre of ecclesiastical image in the decades around 1300. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the patronage of the fresco cycle representing the Legend of Our Lady of the Snows by the Sienese artist Francesco di Giorgio, in Campagnatico (southern Tuscany). Contrary to current scholarship, the mariegola of the confraternity of the Madonna delle Nevi and the cycle itself, dated 1476, provide evidence that the patronage of the chapel pertained to a lay confraternity. The frescoes include the depiction of saints whose relics, later dispersed, were held in the church and formed the basis for local devotional practices. This study reframes the commission of the chapel within the context of local lay devotion and its relationship with the religious and civic realms, and provides new insights on the role of confraternities as patrons of art in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the practice of wealthy families to endow private chapels and altars at the Camaldolese monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence, Italy. Focusing on the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in particular, the author provides an extensive description of various chapels and the religious themes and figures to whom they were dedicated. These decorations included christological motifs, the cult of the Virgin Mary, and the veneration of early Christian and medieval saints.

Copyright of Revista Croma is the property of Revista Croma and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article explores the only known painting – the Saint Veronica Altarpiece – by Ugo da Carpi, a prominent woodcutter in Renaissance Italy. Not only did Ugo sign this altarpiece, as an ‘intaiatore’, that is, as a ‘woodcut engraver’, he also claimed to have painted it ‘senza penello’, or ‘without the brush’. This inscription prompted Giorgio Vasari to conclude in his 1568 edition of Le Vite that Ugo had used his fingers and other strange instruments. For decades modern scholars have universally rehearsed Vasari’s interpretation, without carefully examining the altarpiece itself. This study – the first to closely examine the painting – proposes that the Saint Veronica Altarpiece was made not primarily with the fingers, but within the context of Ugo’s renowned skill as a woodcut engraver. This mode of production served both to promote the authority of his craft and to sanctify the reproduction of a contact relic ‘made without human hands’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The martyrs' cycle in the archivolts of the north choir portal of the Holy Cross Minster at Schwabisch Gmünd (1351-70s) reveals a strikingly brutal parade of violence—decapitation, split skulls, mutilated organs, nails and teeth being torn out. Each of the martyrdom scenes is expropriated from the narrative sequence of the saints' vitae, epitomizing the moment of immediate violent action. Although such representations ostensibly allude to each saint's imitatio Christi, their visual semiotics suggest otherwise; the unusual iconography of these martyrs depicts them in effeminate, submissive postures, screaming and weeping, in contrast to their usual impassibility. While earlier studies have interpreted medieval violence imagery as either allegorical or reflecting interior thoughts, or have focused on its connection to the liturgy of punishment in early modern times, this article approaches the tortures depicted at Gmünd as concerned with violence as a moral problem. The visual aggression constituted by this monumental public art of extreme violence confronts the viewer somatically with intense brutality unsanctified by pictorial tradition or memory. The viewers' initial encounter with this series of deformed figures therefore must have been experienced as something new and violently shocking that postponed the moment of devotional immersion. Tracing the contemporary discourse on violence and cruelty, I contend that violence per se is what appears here as a subject of artistic speculation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the authors identify Canon Victor van Zwavenarde as the donor depicted in a 15th-century Netherlandish painting housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The painting, attributed to the painter known as the Master of the Saint Ursula Legend, depicts the donor kneeling next to the standing figure of Saint Victor.

Copyright of Historical Studies is the property of Canadian Catholic Historical Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article examines four paintings created by Italian artist Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, also known as Il Guercino, which he kept in his own private residence. The author notes similarities in the paintings, which all depict Christian saints alone in the wilderness. The saints depicted are Mary Magdalene, St. Jerome, St. John the Baptist, and St. Paul the Hermit. The author emphasizes Guercino's decision to portray these saints in solitude with identical scenery. The influence of the artist's old age on his decision to execute the paintings is explained.

The article describes the restoration of a statue, the Pieta, originally done for the St. Paul's Church in Munich, Germany, by the artist Balthasar Schmitt in 1904. The history of the fire damaged sculpture is given and the restoration process is described by the author of the article, who received the damaged sculpture from the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, Germany. A detailed description of the 21st century restored Pieta is given with an interpretation of its gold coloration and effect for the worshiper. Also mentioned is the traveling exhibit of the Pieta and its present position in the Retreat House of the Bishopric of Trier, Germany.

Abstract: The article is dedicated to the two ways of transfer of text into icons. In the first case, the icon incorporates text which, with time, occupies more and more place in the icon and in some instances becomes contradictory with the image. In the article, the phases and characteristics of this explicit transfer of text into icons are being examined, referring to this type of transfer as imposition. In the second case, the text or words are considered as the implicit verbal foundation of the icon. At this stage, the author proposes a classification of types of transfer of text into an ecclesiastical visual representation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Opinion remains divided about the meaning and original function of Simone Martini’s early fourteenth century Saint Louis of Toulouse altarpiece, some maintaining that it was primarily a cult image, designed to celebrate the recent canonization of a Franciscan saint, others that it was a dynastic image, justifying Robert of Anjou’s succession to the Neapolitan throne. One way of resolving such an issue would be to establish the painting’s original location. This article explores three possible sites in Naples in terms of different kinds of historical evidence linking these locations with the altarpiece and with the Angevin royal family. It concludes that one of these constitutes the most plausible setting for the Saint Louis of Toulouse altarpiece and that such a location clarifies the relative priorities of politics and piety for this highly prestigious commission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the symbolic role of the Biblical character Mary Magdalen in the dynastic politics of the Burgundian Hapsburgs in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. According to the author, Margaret of Austria and others in her dynasty appropriated Magdalen's story and image as part of the founding mythology which justified their power and holdings. It is suggested that Margaret was a highly skilled diplomat and that she used the art she commissioned as political propaganda to lay claim to the contested duchy of Burgundy in France. Topics discussed include the relics of Mary Magdalen supposedly held at the church of Vézelay in Burgundy, portraits of Margaret linking her with Magdalen, and her involvement in the construction of a church in Brou, France.