Description
Book SynopsisExplores images of torment and martyrdom that appeared in the German-speaking world in the late medieval period, tying them to premodern conceptualizations of individuality and selfhood.
Trade Review“Visual Aggression is a game-changer in the study of violence in medieval art. While violence in itself was a fertile field in medieval studies, this book enables us to rethink the core questions behind the assumptions some medievalists have regarding the meaning and function of acts of violence in medieval art and culture.”
—Ittai Weinryb,author of Agents of Faith: Votive Objects in Time and Place
“A suggestive and richly illustrated study of violence imagery in late medieval German-speaking lands. Pinkus meticulously collates and catalogues the monumental ‘galleries of violence’ that are his focus, contextualising sculptural cycles of martyrdom in the Upper and Middle Rhine regions with reference to local histories and circumstances. Attentive to issues of language, he also shows how the concept of violence came to be located within an ethical system. The result is a significant contribution to our understanding of medieval martyrdom imagery and the responses it elicits.”
—Robert Mills,author of Suspended Animation: Pain, Pleasure and Punishment in Medieval Culture
“This is a valuable lesson in looking, and a model of careful and well-supported visual analysis that moves beyond familiar linkages between violent imagery and the imitation of Christ.”
—H. McCune Bruhn Choice
“Visual Aggression is not only valuable as a new resource engaging with an infrequently studied category of objects, Pinkus’s analysis of monumental and public facing devotional imagery also provides a much-needed counterpoint to the more frequently discussed objects and devotional practices used by medieval mystics and religious communities.”
—Claire Kilgore Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Weep Not for Me . . . But Weep on Yourselves
1 Visual Rhetoric
2 Between Theological and Juridical Positions
3 Bodily Imagination, Imagined Bodies
4 Eroticized and Sexualized Bodies
5 The Body Reincarnated
Epilogue: Effect and Response to Violence Imagery
Notes
Bibliography
Index
