Probably no other subject from the early years of emerging "secular" art in the Low Countries recurs as frequently as folly in all its guises. And, of course, no text of the early sixteenth century [...] Read More
Book Reviews
In the Footsteps of Christ: Hans Memling’s Passion Narratives and the Devotional Imagination in the Early Modern Netherlands (Proteus: Studies in Early Modern Identity Formation 5)
Mitzi Kirkland-Ives's book focuses on three works by Hans Memling: Scenes from the Passion of Christ in Turin, the so-called Seven Joys of Mary in Munich and the Greverade Altarpiece in Lübeck – all [...] Read More
Renaissance Invention and the Haunted Infancy
The beauty of Alfred Acres's book is that it takes themes, or better, ideas that are so familiar – those intimations of the Passion or of evil in scenes of Christ's Infancy – and shows how dense with [...] Read More
Picturing the “Pregnant” Magdalene in Northern Art, 1430-1550: Addressing and Undressing the Sinner-Saint (Women and Gender in the Early Modern World)
Scholarship has often explained Mary Magdalene’s great popularity in the Renaissance in terms of her flexible iconography and her ability to address diverse audiences. One of the many strengths of [...] Read More
Mary Magdalene: Iconographic Studies from the Middle Ages to the Baroque (Studies in Religion and the Arts 7)
Mary Magdalene is hot – in current scholarship, that is. Although studies of the cult and iconography of the Magdalene were surprisingly limited until relatively recently, books by Susan Haskins [...] Read More
Illuminated Crusader Histories for Philip the Good of Burgundy (Ars Nova. Studies in Late Medieval and Renaissance Northern Painting and Illumination XII)
Elizabeth Moodey has written an elegant book with a clear and didactic structure. While starting out with the goal to “consider Philip [the Good] as a patron of history writing and of illuminated [...] Read More