Death, Disease and Mystical Experience in Early Modern Art
Regular price
€179.80
14 days return policy
Shipping & Delivery
Category=AGA
death
disease
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
mystical eroticism
plague
religious art
Product details
- ISBN 9789463729185
- Dimensions: 170 x 240mm
- Publication Date: 08 Jul 2025
- Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
- Publication City/Country: NL
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
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.
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), Fragonard’s 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).
