The art of healing : painting for the sick and the sinner in a medieval town / Marcia Kupfer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kupfer, Marcia A. (Marcia Ann)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Aegidius, Saint, Abbot--Art.

Aegidius.

Aegidius, Saint, Abbot.

Collégiale de St. Aignan (Saint-Aignan, Loir-et-Cher, France).

Medicine and art--France--St. Aignan.

Medicine and art.

Healing in art.

Miracles in art.

Mural painting and decoration, Romanesque--France--St. Aignan.

Mural painting and decoration, Romanesque.

Mural painting and decoration, French--France--St. Aignan.

Mural painting and decoration, French.

Christian art and symbolism--France--St. Aignan--Medieval, 500-1500.

Christian art and symbolism.

Medicine, Medieval--France--St. Aignan.

Medicine, Medieval.

Saint-Aignan (Loir-et-Cher, France)--Social life and customs.

Saint-Aignan (Loir-et-Cher, France).

Genre:

Art.

Physical Description:

xvii, 202 pages, 80 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 27 cm

Place of Publication:

University Park, Pa. : Pennsylvania State University Press, [2003]

Summary:

Many historians of medieval art now look beyond Gothic cathedrals to study the relationship of architecture and image-making to the hard realities of life in early medieval society. In The Art of Healing, Marcia Kupfer breaks new ground by uncovering the lost relationship between church decoration and ritual practice in caring for the sick. Her inquiry bridges cultural anthropology and the social history of medicine even as it also expands our understanding of the ways in which the clergy employed mural painting to cure body and soul. Looking closely at the parish church of Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher in central France, Kupfer traces the roles played by its elaborate painted decoration to burial practices, to the veneration of saints, and to the care of the sick in nearby hospitals. Through analysis of the surrounding agrarian landscape, dotted with cults for specific afflictions, especially ergotism, then known as St. Silvan's fire, Kupfer sheds new light on the role of wall painting in an ecclesiastical economy of healing and redemption. Sickness and death, she argues, hold the key to understanding the dynamics of Christian community in the Middle Ages. The Art of Healing will be important reading for cultural anthropologists and historians of both medicine and religion as well as to medievalists and art historians.

Contents:

Introduction: "Confess Your Sins" 1

Part I The Medieval Site

1 From Castle to Town 11

Inside the Painted Crypt

Oppidum and Parish

Lord and Borough

2 Chapels, Hospitals, and Healing Cults 27

The Leprosery

The Maison-Dieu

The Porticus of Noyers

3 From Spatialized Body to Painted Crypt 47

Saint Silvanus's Fire

Local Cults: An Epidemiological Basis?

Local Cults: A System of Representation

Images and the Recapture of Therapeutic Powers

Part II The Collegiate Church

4 The Architectural Framework: Spatial Disjunction, Social Displacement 67

Architectural Design and Building Chronology

The Crypt Redefined

Pilgrimage as Penance

5 The Paintings: The Saints in the Crypt 85

The Apsidal Theophany and the Altar of Saint James

The South Chapel: The Life of Saint Giles

The Axial Chapel: Lazarus, Mary Magdalen, and Martha

From Micro- to Macrocosm

Pictorial Resonance, Programmatic Texture

6 Image and Audience: Infirmity, Charity, and Penance in the Community 113

Exchange and Mediation

Gender Roles, Body Politics

Infirmity as Social Boundary

Conclusion: The Art of Healing 149

Epilogue: The Late Medieval Paintings 153.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 183-196) and index.

ISBN:

0271023031

OCLC:

52127451