Unrepresented: The Suppression of Images in the Middle Ages

Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-90-04-71499-1
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 26, 294 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 684 g

Reihe: Art and Material Culture in Medieval and Renaissance Europe

The study of representational art traditionally focusses on what is represented rather than what is missing. Robert Couzin’s Unrepresented: The Suppression of Images in the Middle Ages is a unique study of figures and attributes left out of the picture. Why avoid depicting the dead body of Christ, Muhammad, the reigning emperor or biblical text? What explains changes in the approach to representing heretics and Jews?

Through a series of case studies, this book shows how omissions could reflect strategic decisions based on political designs, social frameworks, religious practices, evolving mentalities and theological doctrines.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Couzin, Robert

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstgeschichte Kunstgeschichte: Völkerwanderung und Mittelalter
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstgeschichte Kunstgeschichte: Byzantinisch
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Vor- und Frühgeschichte, prähistorische Archäologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures

Introduction

1 The Abrahamic God

1 The “Second Commandment” and Jewish Art

2 Islamic Rigour

3 The Not-So-Invisible God of the Christians

4 Jesus Christ in Jewish and Islamic Imagery

2 The Dead Christ

1 Picturing the Crucifixion

2 The Divine Corpse

3 The Power of the Image

3 Absent Infidels

1 Jews

2 Heretics

3 Muslims

4 Female Enemies of the Faith

1 The Heretical Woman

2 The Jewess

3 The Saracen Princess and Her Evil Sister

4 Conclusion

5 Popes, Kings and Queens

1 Episcopal Self-Representation

2 Kings and Emperors: Present, Past and Future

3 And Queens: Picturing Medieval Power Women

4 An Addendum on Pope Formosus

6 Books without Words

1 Ellipsis in Pictured Scripture

2 Pseudo-Latin

3 Pseudo-Hebrew and Biblical Bilingualism

4 Empty Gospels

Conclusions as Prolegomena

1 Classes and Categories

2 Motives, Purposes, Effects

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Robert Couzin, Ph.D. (2013), University of Toronto, is a second-career medieval art historian. He has published on a broad range of often unorthodox topics, including Right and Left in Early Christian and Medieval Art (Brill, 2021).