1) Takes a history of ideas approach to images of death, disease, and mysticism 2) Sets that history within a context of plague art that developed most fully during the Italian Renaissance 3) Deploys the idea of mystic eroticism as a means to understand the sensual experience of saints. 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.
Introduction: Manipulating the Sacred - Jennifer Milam and Michael Hill
1. Mary as Model for Trecento Mourning - Judith Steinhoff, University of
Houston
2. Pacem meam do vobis: Earthly Suffering and Celestial Redemption in the
Trecento Fresco Program by Vitale da Bologna at Pomposa Abbey - Catherine
Blake, independent scholar
3. Dying to be Born Again: Death in the Florentine Sacre Rappresentazioni -
Nerida Newbigin, University of Sydney
4. The Visual Transformations of St Anthony the Abbot: From Protector of the
Sick to Victor over Sexual Desire - Charles Zika, University of Melbourne
5. Giovanni Carianis Woman Reclining in a Landscape: The Erotic Subverted
- Carolyn Smyth, John Cabot University, Rome
6. Touching Visions: Female Mystics Interacting with the Christ Child and
with Mary - Patricia Simons, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
7. Queering Mysticism and the Lactating Virgin: The Madonna delle Grazie
with Souls in Purgatory and its Audience of Nuns - Christina Neilson,
Oberlin College
8. Securing Heavenly Protection in Apocalyptic Times: A Series of Fresco
Votives in the Oratory of San Giovanni Battista in Urbino. - Di Haskell,
independent scholar
9. The Long Goodbye: Resurrecting Romes Apostolic Past in The Final Embrace
of Saints Peter and Paul - Barbara Wisch, State University of New York,
College at Cortland
10. The Beautiful Death of the Count of Orgaz: Andrés Núñez, El Greco, and
the Making of a Counter Reformation Saint - Karen McCluskey, University of
Notre Dame, Sydney
11. A Vessel to be Filled: Caravaggios Conversion of St. Paul in Santa
Maria del Popolo - Michael Hill, National Art School, Sydney
12. Lo Strascinos Lamento and the Visual Culture of the French Pox around
1500 - John Gagne, University of Sydney
13. Whiz King: Urination as Divination in Prints for Louis XIV - Mark de
Vitis, University of Sydney
14. Davids Saint Roch: Plague Painting in the Age of Enlightenment -
Jennifer Milam, University of Newcastle
15. Blakes Petworth House Last Judgment and Female Anatomy - Anthony
Apesos, Lesley University
16. Cocteaus London Elegy: Re-purposed Renaissance Imagery in a
Twentieth-Century Crucifixion - Stephen Holford, independent scholar
Index
Michael Hill is Head of Art History and Theory at the National Art School in Sydney. His research focuses on the art and architecture of the Italian Baroque, Australian sculpture, and art historiography. Michael has also written with Peter Kohane a number of articles of the idea of decorum in architectural theory. Jennifer Milam is Professor of Art History and Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. Her research focuses on art, architecture, and garden design during the eighteenth century. Her publications include A Cultural History of Plants in the Age of Enlightenment (Bloomsbury, 2022), Making Ideas Visible in the Eighteenth Century (University of Delaware Press, 2022), Beyond Chinoiserie: Artistic Exchanges Between China and the West during the Late Qing Dynasty (Brill, 2018), Historical Dictionary of Rococo Art (Scarecrow Press, 2011), Fragonards Playful Paintings. Visual Games in Rococo Art (University of Manchester Press, 2007), and Women, Art and The Politics of Identity in Eighteenth-Century Europe (Ashgate Press, 2003).
