IMC 2011: Sessions

Session 513: Something for Nothing: Pictorial and Material Austerity in the Visual Arts of the Middle Ages, I - Communicating with Austerity

Tuesday 12 July 2011, 09.00-10.30

Sponsor:	Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
Organiser:	Kathryn Gerry, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
Moderator/Chair:	Kathryn Gerry, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
Paper 513-a	Austerity in the Visual Field: Ornament and Its Absence in Some Early Quadrivial Manuscripts (Language: English) Megan McNamee, Department of the History of Art, University of Michigan Index terms: Art History - Painting, Manuscripts and Palaeography
Paper 513-b	Chastity Stripped Bare: Female Nudity in the Sacra Parallela (Paris, BnF, gr. 923) (Language: English) Mati Meyer, Department of Literature, Language & Arts, Open University of Israel, Raanana Index terms: Art History - Painting, Byzantine Studies, Manuscripts and Palaeography
Paper 513-c	The Fattest Will be Putrefied First: The Image of Poverty in Late Medieval Dances of Death (Language: English) Rolf Dreier, Erasmus University Rotterdam Index terms: Art History - Painting, Lay Piety
Abstract	The use of lavish materials to manifest invisible spiritual truths has long been a prominent theme in discussions of medieval art, but medieval artists and patrons also turned to visual austerity and representations of poverty in order to convey their spiritual ideals, and an emphasis on forsaking worldly goods for the greater riches of salvation played a significant role in defining the subject matter and shaping the pictorial strategies of the visual arts. Objects, paintings and other visual arts were skillfully used to promote ideals of poverty, to mediate tensions between earthly and spiritual wealth, or to manipulate the perception of wealth. The papers in this session will offer new perspectives on how artists, patrons and viewers understood and used austerity as a tool in visual communication.