Visual Piety

A History and Theory of Popular Religious Images
1. Auflage 1999
ISBN: 978-0-520-21932-8
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 283 Seiten, Trade Paperback, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 228 mm, Gewicht: 458 g

This fascinating study of devotional images traces their historical links to important strains of American culture. David Morgan demonstrates how popular visual images—from Warner Sallman's "Head of Christ" to velvet renditions of DaVinci's "Last Supper" to illustrations on prayer cards—have assumed central roles in contemporary American lives and communities.

Morgan's history of popular religious images ranges from the late Middle Ages to the present day and analyzes what he calls "visual piety," or the belief that images convey. Rather than isolating popular icons from their social contexts or regarding them as merely illustrative of theological ideas, Morgan situates both Protestant and Catholic art within the domain of devotional practice, ritual, personal narrative, and the sacred space of the home. In addition, he examines how popular icons have been rooted in social concerns ranging from control of human passions to notions of gender, creedal orthodoxy, and friendship. Also discussed is the coupling of images with texts in the attempt to control meanings and to establish markers for one's community and belief. Drawing from the fields of music, sociology, theology, philosophy, psychology, and aesthetics,Visual Piety is the first book to bring to specialist and lay reader alike an understanding of religious imagery's place in the social formation and maintenance of everyday American life.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Morgan, David

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunst, allgemein Kunsttheorie, Kunstphilosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Kirchengeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Ästhetik
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Künstlerische Stoffe, Motive, Themen Künstlerische Stoffe, Motive, Themen: Religiöse Themen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION
CONSTRUCTIVISM AND THE HISTORY OF VISUAL CULTURE
Material Things and the Social Construction of Reality
The Aesthetics of Everyday Life
Images and Their Worlds

CHAPTER ONE  THE PRACTICE OF VISUAL PIETY
High and Low
The Aesthetic of Disinterestedness
Toward an Aesthetic of Popular Religious Art
The Psychology of Recognition
Interactivity in the Reception of Popular Religious Images

CHAPTER TWO  EMPATHY AND SYMPATHY IN THE HISTORY OF VISUAL PIETY
Catholic Visual Piety from the Late Middle Ages to the Modern Period
Jonathan Edwards and the Aesthetic of Piety
Sympathy and Benevolence in Nineteenth-Century American Protestantism
"Home-Sympathy" and Christian Nurture

CHAPTER THREE THE MASCULINITY OF CHRIST
The Image of Male Friendship: Jonathan and David
The Christology of Friendship and Twentieth-Century Visual Piety

CHAPTER FOUR  READING THE FACE OF JESUS
The Head of Christ in Catholic and Lutheran Response
The Discourse of Hidden Images
Avant-Garde and Popular

CHAPTER FIVE DOMESTIC DEVOTION AND RITUAL
The Christian Home: A Domestic Description of the Sacred
Domestic Ritual and Images

CHAPTER SIX MEMORY AND THE SACRED
Space and Time
Memory and the Sacred
Modes of Remembrance: Narrative and Anecdotal Memory

CONCLUSION
RELIGIOUS IMAGES AND THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF EVERYDAY LIFE

APPENDIX
LETTERS AND DEMOGRAPHICS

NOTES
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

Über Autor(innen)

David Morgan is Associate Professor of Art History at Valparaiso University and the editor of Icons of American Protestantism: The Art of Warner Sallman (1996).