Right and Left in Early Christian and Medieval Art

Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-90-04-44825-4
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 16, 300 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 241 mm, Gewicht: 788 g

Reihe: Art and Material Culture in Medieval and Renaissance Europe

Robert Couzin’s Right and Left in Early Christian and Medieval Art is the first in-depth study of handedness, position, and direction in the visual culture of Europe and Byzantium from the fourth to the fourteenth century. Heretofore largely unnoticed or ignored, the pre-eminence of the right and lapses or intentional departures from that norm in medieval imagery are relevant to such major themes as iconography, visuality, reception, narrative, form, gender, production, and patronage. The author’s investigation of right and left in visual culture is informed by modern experimental research on laterality and contextualized within prevailing theological doctrines and socio-cultural practices.

Illustrations in the text are complemented by hundreds more made available on Brill's Arkyves platform here.

See inside the book.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Couzin, Robert

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christentum/Christliche Theologie Allgemein Christliche Kunst und Kultur
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstgeschichte Kunstgeschichte: Byzantinisch
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunststile Christliche Kunst
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstgeschichte Kunstgeschichte: Völkerwanderung und Mittelalter

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations

Abbreviations

Introduction: The Pre-Eminence of the Right

1 On Human Handedness

2 The Sublimation of Right and Left

3 Historiography

4 Plan of the Work

Part 1: The Right Hand

1 Picturing Handedness

2 The Hand of God

1 The Great Right Hand

2 The Other Hand of God

3 God in the Image of Man

3 Fighting and Writing

1 Handedness and Violence

2 Handedness and the Scribe

3 The Pen and the Sword

4 A Digression on Feet

1 Stepping Up to the Altar

2 Figures in Motion

3 Footwashing

4 The Three-Nail Crucifixion

Part 2: The Right Side

5 Picturing Position

6 Peter and Paul in Early Christian Art

1 Double Portraits of the Chief Apostles

2 Peter, Paul, and Jesus

3 The Politics of Apostolic Precedence

7 Spouses: The Place of Gender

1 Early Christian Men on the Left

2 Medieval Men on the Right

3 Transgression: Medieval Women on the Right

4 The Coronation of the Virgin: Sponsa on the Right

Part 3: The Right Way

8 The Pythagorean Y

1 The Two Ways: Pythagoras and Matthew

2 Erlangen Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. 8, fol. 130v

3 The Pilgrim’s Choice

4 A Matter of Mentality

9 Sacred Movement

1 Depicted Motion in Latin- and Greek-Language Cultures

2 The Syriac and Hebrew Evidence

3 Conclusions

10 Narrative Sequence

1 Script Direction and Pictorial Programming

2 Linear Programs and the Puzzle of Bernward’s Column

Epilogue

1 Misapprehension

2 Inattention

3 Disinterest

4 Future Directions

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Robert Couzin, Ph.D. (University of Toronto, 2013), is a second-career scholar of early Christian and medieval art history. He has published on a wide range of topics, from sarcophagi to the historiography of Latin neologisms.