Medieval Art of Fear
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A01=Ravinder S. Binning
Author_Ravinder S. Binning
Category=AGA
Category=NHC
Category=NHDJ
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
forthcoming
Product details
- ISBN 9780226846279
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 29 Sep 2026
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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A bold new approach to medieval art and architecture’s shaping of psychosomatic experience.
In the medieval world, experiences of fear attained a mystical significance: monks, urban publics, and even emperors pursued horror and grief to explore the limits of fantasy, sensation, and catharsis. In this book, Ravinder S. Binning examines an expansive archive ranging from poetry and scientific treatises to artistic works in ivory and crystal to recover an aesthetic tradition centered on optical tension, spatial suspense, and tactile experience.
Moving between early monastic spaces in Egypt and major urban centers like Constantinople from the fourth through the thirteenth centuries, The Medieval Art of Fear shows how the psychosomatic experience of fear became the deliberate object of mystical practices, meditation, and other embodied techniques across the medieval world. The result is a powerful exploration of the aesthetic effects behind some of the medieval world’s most ambitious works, whose influence extends well beyond the Middle Ages.
In the medieval world, experiences of fear attained a mystical significance: monks, urban publics, and even emperors pursued horror and grief to explore the limits of fantasy, sensation, and catharsis. In this book, Ravinder S. Binning examines an expansive archive ranging from poetry and scientific treatises to artistic works in ivory and crystal to recover an aesthetic tradition centered on optical tension, spatial suspense, and tactile experience.
Moving between early monastic spaces in Egypt and major urban centers like Constantinople from the fourth through the thirteenth centuries, The Medieval Art of Fear shows how the psychosomatic experience of fear became the deliberate object of mystical practices, meditation, and other embodied techniques across the medieval world. The result is a powerful exploration of the aesthetic effects behind some of the medieval world’s most ambitious works, whose influence extends well beyond the Middle Ages.
Ravinder S. Binning is assistant professor of medieval art at Southern Methodist University.
