Staging the Ruler's Body in Medieval Cultures: A Comparative Perspective

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bacci, Michele, Editor.

Contributor:

Grigoryan, Gohar, Editor.

Studer-Karlen, Manuela, Editor.

Bacci, Michele

Grigoryan, Gohar

Studer-Karlen, Manuela

Series:

Studies in Medieval and Early Renaissance Art History

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Other Title:

Staging the Ruler’s Body in Medieval Cultures

Place of Publication:

Turnhout Brepols 2023

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This book explores the viewing and sensorial contexts in which the bodies of kings and queens were involved in the premodern societies of Europe, Asia, and Africa, relying on a methodology that aims to overcoming the traditional boundaries between material studies, art history, political theory, and Repräsentationsgeschichte. More specifically, it investigates the multiple ways in which the ruler's physical appearance was apprehended and invested with visual, metaphorical, and emotional associations, as well as the dynamics whereby such mise-en-scène devices either were inspired by or worked as sources of inspiration for textual and pictorial representations of royalty. The outcome is a multifaced analysis of the multiple, imaginative, and terribly ambiguous ways in which, in past societies, the notion of a God-driven, eternal, and transpersonal royal power came to be associated with the material bodies of kings and queens, and of the impressive efforts made, in different cultures, to elude the conundrum of the latter's weakness, transitoriness, and individual distinctiveness.

ISBN:

9781915487162

1915487161