IMC 2015: Sessions
Session 1603: Ambiguous Women in Medieval Art, II
Thursday 9 July 2015, 11.15-12.45
Sponsor: | Medieval & Renaissance Research Group, University of Louisville, Kentucky |
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Organiser: | Mónica Ann Walker Vadillo, Hite Art Institute, University of Louisville, Kentucky |
Moderator/Chair: | Mónica Ann Walker Vadillo, Hite Art Institute, University of Louisville, Kentucky |
Paper 1603-a | Between Mary and Christ: Depicting Cross-Dressed Saints in the High Middle Ages, 1200-1600 (Language: English) Index terms: Art History - General, Gender Studies |
Paper 1603-b | 'This is a Man's World': The Marginalisation of Women in a 12th-Century Pictorial Miracle Cycle (Language: English) Index terms: Art History - General, Art History - Painting, Gender Studies |
Paper 1603-c | Images of the Woman of Revelation 12: Spiritual and Secular Maternity (Language: English) Index terms: Lay Piety, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Women's Studies |
Abstract | Women appear quite frequently in medieval art from the Early Christian period all the way to the Late Middle Ages. Some of these images present in some cases a positive image of woman, but in other cases, women can embody very negative connotations. Yet in the highly symbolic world of the Middle Ages some women could embody a type of ambiguity that could be reflected in and through art. These women defied the logic of the dichotomy of good/evil, and their existence or visual representation could become a vehicle for multiple interpretations. These sessions will explore the sites of ambiguity connected not only to women as subjects of medieval art, but also the idea of women as patrons and makers of art and how their agency could place them between what was acceptable and what was frown upon. |