Sight and Spirituality in Early Netherlandish Painting examines the importance of vision as a narrative and thematic concern in works by different artists. Depicting religious visual experience, these works alluded to the imperceptibility of the divine and implicated the viewer's own experience as part of a larger spiritual and intellectual process.
Sight and Spirituality in Early Netherlandish Painting examines the importance of vision as a narrative and thematic concern in works by artists such as Jan van Eyck, Petrus Christus, and Roger van der Weyden. Bret Rothstein argues that their paintings invited the viewer to demonstrate a variety of mental skills. Depicting religious visual experience, these works alluded to the imperceptibility of the divine and implicated the viewer's own experience as part of a larger spiritual and intellectual process. Rothstein demonstrates how and why the act of seeing became a highly valued skill, one to be refined and displayed, as well as a source of competition among both artists and patrons.
Introduction: forms of interest in early Netherlandish painting. 1. Picturing vision; 2. The imagination of imagelessness; 3. The devotional image as social ornament; 4. Reflexivity and senses of painterly strength; Epilogue: notes on the rise of visual skill.
"Sight and Spirituality in Early Netherlandish Painting is erudite and provocative in ways that will make it a vital resource for much discussion to come[...]As it compels reexamination of how we interpret early Netherlandish paintings, Rothstein's intelligent meditation also demonstrates ways in which we can and should look ever more closely at the elemental kinship between representation and belief." -- CAA Reviews
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Introduction: forms of interest in early Netherlandish painting. 1. Picturing vision; 2. The imagination of imagelessness; 3. The devotional image as social ornament; 4. Reflexivity and senses of painterly strength; Epilogue: notes on the rise of visual skill.
Klappentext
Sight and Spirituality in Early Netherlandish Painting examines the importance of vision as a narrative and thematic concern in works by artists such as Jan van Eyck, Petrus Christus, and Roger van der Weyden. Bret Rothstein argues that their paintings invited the viewer to demonstrate a variety of mental skills. Depicting religious visual experience, these works alluded to the imperceptibility of the divine and implicated the viewer's own experience as part of a larger spiritual and intellectual process. Rothstein demonstrates how and why the act of seeing became a highly valued skill, one to be refined and displayed, as well as a source of competition among both artists and patrons.
