Death, Torture and the Broken Body in European Art, 1300-1650 (Hardcover, New Ed)

Bodies mangled, limbs broken, skin flayed, blood spilled: from paintings to prints to small sculptures, the art of the late Middle Ages and early modern period gave rise to disturbing scenes of violence. Many of these torture scenes recall Christ's Passion and its aftermath, but the martyrdoms of saints, stories of justice visited on the wicked, and broadsheet reports of the atrocities of war provided fertile ground for scenes of the body's desecration. Contributors to this volume interpret pain, suffering, and the desecration of the human form not simply as the passing fancies of a cadre of proto-sadists, but also as serving larger social functions within European society. Taking advantage of the frameworks established by scholars such as Samuel Edgerton, Mitchell Merback, and Elaine Scarry (to name but a few), Death, Torture and the Broken Body in European Art, 1300-1650 provides an intriguing set of lenses through which to view such imagery and locate it within its wider social, political, and devotional contexts. Though the art works discussed are centuries old, the topics of the essays resonate today as twenty-first-century Western society is still absorbed in thorny debates about the ethics and consequences of the use of force, coercion (including torture), and execution, and about whether it is ever fully acceptable to write social norms on the bodies of those who will not conform.

General

Imprint:	Routledge
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Series:	Visual Culture in Early Modernity
Release date:	December 2014
First published:	2015
Editors:	John R. Decker
Dimensions:	246 x 174 x 19mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	280
Edition:	New Ed
ISBN-13:	978-1-4724-3367-1
Categories:	Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > 500 CE to 1400 > General Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > 1400 to 1600 > General Books > Arts & Architecture > Art forms, treatments & subjects > Art treatments & subjects > Iconography, subjects depicted in art > Human figures depicted in art > General Promotions
LSN:	1-4724-3367-X
Barcode:	9781472433671

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