Buch, Englisch, Band 8, 264 Seiten, Format (B × H): 165 mm x 246 mm, Gewicht: 739 g
Reihe: Visualising the Middle Ages
{Essay on a Man's Head}
Buch, Englisch, Band 8, 264 Seiten, Format (B × H): 165 mm x 246 mm, Gewicht: 739 g
Reihe: Visualising the Middle Ages
ISBN: 978-90-04-22411-7
Verlag: Brill
During the middle ages, the head of St John the Baptist was widely venerated. According to the biblical text, John was beheaded at the order of Herod’s stepdaughter, who is traditionally given the name Salome. His head was later found in Jerusalem. Legends concerning the discovery of this relic form the basis of an iconographic type in which the head of St John the Baptist is represented as an “object.” The phenomenon of the Johannesschüssel is the subject of this essay. Little is known about how exactly these objects functioned. How are we to understand this fascination with horror, death and decapitation? What phantasms does the artifact channel?
Barbara Baert contextualizes the Johannesschüssel as a cultural phenomenon against the background of relic cults and the diverse artistic production that encompasses both high and low registers of medieval material culture. The Johannesschüssel puts the reader on the trail of archetypes regarding blood, sacrifice and genealogy. In this sense, the present essay also involves important anthropological points of departure. This publication offers the unique key to the Johannesschüssel as artifact, phenomenon, phantasm and medium.
Zielgruppe
All interested in sacred topography, visual anthropology, relics and devotion and art theory regarding iconology and cultural anthropology with main interest in the Middle Ages and Early Modernity.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Fachgebiete
- Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte
- Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Vor- und Frühgeschichte, prähistorische Archäologie
- Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
- Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein