Sacred Images and Normativity: Contested Forms in Early Modern Art (The Normativity of Sacred Images in Early Modern Europe, 1)

Description

Early modern objects, images and artworks were often nodes of discussion and contestation. If images were sometimes contested by external and often competing agencies (religious and secular authorities, image theoreticians, various Inquisitions etc.), artists and objects were often just as likely to impose their own rules and standards through the continuation and/or contestation of established visual traditions, styles, iconographies, materialities, reproductions and reframings. While issues such as censorship and iconoclasm have already received much attention from scholars, the actual role and capacity of the image as agent-either in actual legal processes or, more generally, in the creation of new visual standards-has yet to be adequately thematised. At present, no comprehensive study collects the many diverse instances of the multi-layered normative power of images, objects and art. This volume "Contested forms" aims to provide a first exploration of image normativity by means of a series of case studies, which will focus in different ways on the intersections between the limits of the sacred image and the power of art, especially but not exclusively in Europe, between 1450 and 1650. Each essay will approach the question of normativity in sacred images from different perspectives. Dealing with different types of images and materials, authors will discuss the status of images and objects in trials, contested portraits, objects and iconographies, the limits to representations of suffering, the tensions between theology and art, and the significance of copies and adaptations that establish as well as contest visual norms from Europe and beyond. Chiara Franceschini. Introduction. Images as Norms in Europe and Beyond: A Research Program Yoshie Kojima. Fumi-e: Trampled SacredImages in Japan Chiara Franceschini. Too Many Wounds: Innocenzo da Petralia’s Excessive Crucifixes and the Normative Image Cloe Cavero de Carondelet. Wounds on Trial: Forensic Truth, Sanctity, and the Early Modern Visual Culture of Ritual Murder Escardiel González Estévez. The Image and Cultof Sette Arcangeli facing Roman Censorship Mattia Biffis. The Return of Andrea Casali: Legal Evidence, Imposture, and the Portrait in Late Renaissance Italy James Hall. Simulating and Appropriating the Sacred: The Background to a Papal Banon Saintly Portraits of Non-Saints Nina Niedermeier. Ritratti rubati: Portraits of Post-Tridentine Saintsas pia fraus Steffen Zierholz. Ignatius of Loyola as a Normative Image Antonia Putzger. In between Sacred Space and Collection: An Altarpiece from Augsburg and theNorms of Catholic Art around 1600 Erin Giffin. The Tradition of Change in Copiesof the Santa Casa di Loreto: The Case of San Clemente in Venice Piers Baker-Bates. Sebastiano del Piombo: The Normative Sacred Image between Italy and Spain Josephine Neil. The Reception of Divine Gracein Hendrick ter Brugghen’s Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John Livia Stoenescu. Alonso Cano’s The Miracle of the Well: Material Forms, Temporalities, and the Invention of Miraculous Marian Images Todd P. Olson. Middle Natures, Human Stone:Fossils, Ribera, and Fanzago at Certosa di San Martino, Naples