Speaking Sculptures in Late Medieval Europe: A Silent Rhetoric (Northern Lights) - Hardcover

Woods, Kim W.

 
9781848226739: Speaking Sculptures in Late Medieval Europe: A Silent Rhetoric (Northern Lights)
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 184822673X ISBN 13: 9781848226739
Publisher: Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd, 2024

Synopsis

Speaking Sculptures in Late Medieval Europe explores medieval sculptors’ motif of the open mouth. The speech mode, as it is called in this book, is more than an illusionistic device or an affective ploy to foster the emotional response of the viewer. Here it is shown to have a deeper significance as an agent of engagement and persuasion. Through the evocation of sound, speaking sculptures fostered imaginatively an aural relationship between the sculpture and the viewer.

Exploring a wide range of geographies, this work demonstrates that the speech mode in sculpture was not an isolated phenomenon but a familiar device in many areas of Late Gothic Europe. By highlighting 14th-, 15th- and early 16th-century examples, as well as key 13th-century precedents, Speaking Sculptures in Late Medieval Europe explores the uses and purposes of this silent rhetoric, and the agency it implies within the period eye and the period ear of pre-Reformation Catholic Europe.

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About the Author

Kim W. Woods is an Honorary Associate at the Open University. Her recent publications include Cut in Alabaster: A Material of Sculpture and its European Traditions 1330–1530 (2018) and Imported Images: Netherlandish Late Gothic Sculpture in England, c.1400–c.1550 (2007).

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd
Publication date
2024
Language
English
ISBN 10 
184822673X
ISBN 13 
9781848226739
Binding
Hardcover
Number of pages
128