The Art of the Poor: The Aesthetic Material Culture of the Lower Classes in Europe, 1300–1600

Description

The history of art in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance has generally been written as a story of elites: bankers, noblemen, kings, cardinals, and popes and their artistic interests and commissions. Recent decades have seen attempts to recast the story in terms of material culture, but the focus seems to remain on the upper strata of society. In his inclusive analysis of art from 1300 to 1600, Rembrandt Duits rectifies this. Bringing together thought-provoking ideas from art historians, historians, anthropologists and museum curators, The Art of the Poor examines the role of art in lower social classes of Europe and explores how this influences our understanding of medieval and early modern society. Introducing new themes and raising innovative research questions through a series of thematically grouped short case studies, this book gives impetus to a new field on the cusp of art history, social history, urban archaeology, and historical anthropology. In doing so, this important study helps us re-assess the very concept of ‘art’ and its function in society Cover Half title Title Copyright Dedication Contents List of illustrations Notes on contributors Preface Introduction: Did the poor have art? 1 Material culture without objects: Artisan artistic commissions in early Renaissance Italy 2 Poverty in the paintings of Jacopo Bassano: The crisis poor and the structural poor 3 The ‘slipshod’ nature of Carpaccio’s St Tryphon Tames the Basilisk: A painting for a poor confraternity 4 ‘. . . κέ παντός του λαου τοῡ χορίου τ(ης) Μάζας…’: Communal patronage of church decoration in rural Venetian Crete 5 Next to Chur we are still poor: Art and the relationality of poverty in the Rhaetian Alps 6 Miracles in the margins: The miraculous image of Santa Maria delle Carceri in Prato 7 The art of popular piety: Pilgrim souvenirs from the Museum of London collection 8 Artisans and dress in Denmark, 1550–1650: A preliminary exploration 9 The art of artisan fashions: Moroni’s tailor and the changing culture of clothing in sixteenth-century Italy 10 Identifying popular musical practice: Instruments and performance in the iconography and archaeology of the medieval and Renaissance period in Europe 11 An art for everyman: The aspirations of the medieval potter 12 Italian tin-glazed ceramics: Silverware for poor people? 13 Ordinary objects for priceless lighting: Copper-alloy candlesticks in medieval and early modern England 14 Burning issues: Political iconography on Dutch fi rebacks 15 Visual pedagogy: The use of woodcuts in early modern Lutheran and Catholic catechisms 16 Shakespeare’s picture of ‘We Three’: An image for illiterates? Notes Bibliography Index