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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
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-aBetween Mary and Christ: Depicting Cross-Dressed Saints in the High Middle Ages, 1200-1600
(Language: English)
Andrea-Bianka Znorovszky, Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest
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)
Andrew Gourlay, School of Humanities (History), University of Glasgow
Index terms: Art History - General, Art History - Painting, Gender Studies
Paper 1603-cImages of the Woman of Revelation 12: Spiritual and Secular Maternity
(Language: English)
Emma Bridget O'Loughlin Bérat, Department of English & Comparative Literature, Columbia University, New York
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.