IMC 2016: Sessions

Session 1730: Serpents, Biting, and Death: The Uncanny Aesthetics of Insular Art

Sponsor:	Centre for Nordic Studies, University of the Highlands & Islands
Organiser:	Victoria Whitworth, Centre for Nordic Studies, University of the Highlands & Islands, Orkney
Moderator/Chair:	Meg Boulton, Independent Scholar
Paper 1730-a	Where Snakes Lead, I Will Follow: Insular Perception of Stone Sculpture (Language: English) Tasha Gefreh, School of Art, Culture & Environment, University of Edinburgh Index terms: Art History - Sculpture, Biblical Studies, Mentalities, Religious Life
Paper 1730-b	Death, the Picts, and Sigmund Freud (Language: English) Victoria Whitworth, Centre for Nordic Studies, University of the Highlands & Islands, Orkney Index terms: Anthropology, Art History - Sculpture, Mentalities, Theology
Abstract	This session explores the unnerving qualities of much insular art, considering the intellectual and emotional impact of the juxtaposition of beauty and horror, encoded in exquisite craftsmanship. Gefreh addresses the liminal and transformative imagery associated with serpents in stone crosses from Iona; and Whitworth looks at the visual cycles of death and dismemberment on Pictish sculpture from Meigle in the light of the Freudian concept of 'the uncanny'.