Pygmalion's Power : Romanesque Sculpture, the Senses, and Religious Experience / Thomas E. A. Dale.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dale, Thomas E. A., 1961- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sculpture, Romanesque.

Human body--Religious aspects--Christianity--History--To 1500.

Human body.

Senses and sensation--Religious aspects--Christianity--History--To 1500.

Senses and sensation.

Christianity and art.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (304 p.) : 21 color/113 b&w illustrations

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania State University Press, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Pushed to the height of its illusionistic powers during the first centuries of the Roman Empire, sculpture was largely abandoned with the ascendancy of Christianity, as the apparent animation of the material image and practices associated with sculpture were considered both superstitious and idolatrous. In Pygmalion's Power, Thomas E. A. Dale argues that the reintroduction of architectural sculpture after a hiatus of some seven hundred years arose with the particular goal of engaging the senses in a Christian religious experience. Since the term "Romanesque" was coined in the nineteenth century, the reintroduction of stone sculpture around the mid-eleventh century has been explained as a revivalist phenomenon, one predicated on the desire to claim the authority of ancient Rome. In this study, Dale proposes an alternative theory. Covering a broad range of sculpture types--including autonomous cult statuary in wood and metal, funerary sculpture, architectural sculpture, and portraiture--Dale shows how the revitalized art form was part of a broader shift in emphasis toward spiritual embodiment and affective piety during the late eleventh and twelfth centuries.Adding fresh insight to scholarship on the Romanesque, Pygmalion's Power borrows from trends in cultural anthropology to demonstrate the power and potential of these sculptures to produce emotional effects that made them an important sensory part of the religious culture of the era.

Contents:

Living statues : the crucifix and Throne of wisdom

The naked and the nude : from theological ideal to sexual fantasy

Sculpted portraits : convention and real presence

Beautiful deformity and deformed beauty : the monstrous and deformed

Renewing the temple : living stones and embodied theophanies.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Jul 2021)

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780271085203

0271085207

OCLC:

1309040026