Sight and Spirituality in Early Netherlandish Painting

Examines the importance of vision as a narrative and thematic concern in works by different artists.

Bret L. Rothstein (Author)

9780521832786, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 June 2005

274 pages, 46 b/w illus.
25.3 x 19.8 x 2.4 cm, 0.855 kg

"There is no doubt that Rothstein offers nuanced and illuminating new readings of consequential paintings. Sight and Spirituality in Early Netherlandish Painting contributes to a growing literature that demonstrates how much operant theories about vision inflect the visual culture of a given time and place. It is a significant book not least of all because it asks art historians to reconsider the meanings and values we ascribe to reflexivity in both scholarly and artistic traditions." - Sherry C. M. Lindquist, Northwestern University

Sight and Spirituality in Early Netherlandish Painting examines the importance of vision as a narrative and thematic concern in works by artists such as Jan van Eyck, Petrus Christus, and Roger van der Weyden. Bret Rothstein argues that their paintings invited the viewer to demonstrate a variety of mental skills. Depicting religious visual experience, these works alluded to the imperceptibility of the divine and implicated the viewer's own experience as part of a larger spiritual and intellectual process. Rothstein demonstrates how and why the act of seeing became a highly valued skill, one to be refined and displayed, as well as a source of competition among both artists and patrons.

Introduction: forms of interest in early Netherlandish painting. 1. Picturing vision
2. The imagination of imagelessness
3. The devotional image as social ornament
4. Reflexivity and senses of painterly strength
Epilogue: notes on the rise of visual skill.

Subject Areas: History of art & design styles: c 1400 to c 1600 [ACN]