Caput Johannis in Disco

{Essay on a Man's Head}
Erscheinungsjahr 2012
ISBN: 978-90-04-22411-7
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 8, 264 Seiten, Format (B × H): 165 mm x 246 mm, Gewicht: 739 g

Reihe: Visualising the Middle Ages

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.

Baert, Barbara

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Vor- und Frühgeschichte, prähistorische Archäologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte

Über Autor(innen)

Baert, Barbara
Barbara Baert is Professor in Medieval Art at the University of Leuven. In 2006 she founded the Iconology Research Group, an international and interdisciplinary platform for the study of the interpretation of images. Her disciplines concern Sacred Topography, Visual Anthropology, Relics and Devotion and Art Theory. Recent books are Fluid Flesh. The Body, Religion and the Visual Arts ((Ed.) 2009) and Interspaces between Word, Gaze and Touch: The Bible and the Visual Medium in the Middle Ages (2011) and New Perspectives in Iconology: Visual Studies and Anthropology ((Eds.) 2012).

Barbara Baert is Professor in Medieval Art at the University of Leuven. In 2006 she founded the Iconology Research Group, an international and interdisciplinary platform for the study of the interpretation of images. Her disciplines concern Sacred Topography, Visual Anthropology, Relics and Devotion and Art Theory. Recent books are Fluid Flesh. The Body, Religion and the Visual Arts ((Ed.) 2009) and Interspaces between Word, Gaze and Touch: The Bible and the Visual Medium in the Middle Ages (2011) and New Perspectives in Iconology: Visual Studies and Anthropology ((Eds.) 2012).