Fabian Jonietz - Böcker

The life-like depiction of the body became a central interest and defining characteristic of the European Early Modern period that coincided with the establishment of which images of the body were to be considered ‘decent’ and representable, and which disapproved, censored, or prohibited. Simultaneously, artists and the public became increasingly interested in the depiction of specific body parts or excretions. This book explores the concept of indecency and its relation to the human body across drawings, prints, paintings, sculptures, and texts. The ten essays investigate questions raised by such objects about practices and social norms regarding the body, and they look at the particular function of those artworks within this discourse. The heterogeneous media, genres, and historical contexts north and south of the Alps studied by the authors demonstrate how the alleged indecency clashed with artistic intentions and challenges traditional paradigms of the historiography of Early Modern visual culture.

This book opens up new perspectives on the relationship between art, medicine, and science in late-medieval and early modern Europe. Looking beyond the traditional nexus of art, anatomy, and optics, the volume sheds light on a broader array of connections between artists and physicians: collaborations between painters and doctors on colour charts, handwork skills common to sculptors and surgeons, the transmission of art theory through medical texts long before the emergence of art writing itself as an independent genre, and the kinship of medical diagnosis with early modes of connoisseurship. Reconfiguring the histories of art, medicine, and science, the book also traverses conventional boundaries between physical and mental health, religious and medical modes of healing, menial and exalted forms of knowledge and labour, as well as vernacular and scientific understandings of human difference, including gender, race, and neurodiversity.

Based on the key concepts of ‛pluralization’ and ‛authority’, the series presents studies on early modern literature and culture from the 15th to the 17th century. The early modern period is increasingly recognized in cultural studies as an age whose cultural paradigms still largely depended on medieval norms and traditions but at the same time also created a set of conditions that facilitated Europe’s transition to modernity. As opposed to established historical grand narratives such as modernization or secularization, the volumes in this series attempt to describe the dynamics of the period as a complex interaction of mutually competing world views, knowledge structures and behaviour patterns. The series explores these dynamics from an interdisciplinary perspective, including studies on literature, linguistics, history, philosophy, art, music and legal history.