Jak sugeruje tytuł, przedmiotem rozważań autorki stał się tutaj stosunek wiernych do przedmiotów kultu w średniowiecznej Europie. W analizowanym przez Bynum okresie od 1150 do 1550 roku nie jest on jednoznaczny. Z jednej strony bowiem mamy do czynienia z dynamicznie i na ogromną skalę rozwijającym się ruchem pielgrzymkowym, gdzie rzesze wiernych pragną wejść w jak najbliższy i jak najczęstszy kontakt z przedmiotem kultu, któremu to zjawisku towarzyszy rozwój sztuki religijnej i jej swoista animacja - cudowne figury poruszają się, płaczą, krwawią, z drugiej zaś strony pojawiają się prądy religijne kładące nacisk na wewnętrzny i bezpośredni kontakt wiernego z Bogiem niechętne materialnym obiektom kultu. Wyjaśnienie tego paradoksu, według autorki tkwi w sposobie pojmowania materialności przedmiotów, który w wypadku obiektów kultu może wyjaśnić zarówno próby ich animacji jak i niechęć wobec nich. Proponowane przez Caroline Bynum spojrzenie na ten aspekt kultury europejskiej tamtych czasów rzuca także nowe światło na genezę prądów reformatorskich szesnastego wieku i jak zauważył nasz kolega sprawia, że każda wizyta w muzeum sztuki średniowiecznej nie będzie już, po lekturze tej książki taka sama.
Caroline Walker Bynum. Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe, Zone Books, New York: 2011, 410 pp., $ 32,95
Caroline Walker Bynum. Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe, Zone Books, New York: 2011, 410 pp., $ 32,95
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A colleague recently mentioned: "after reading Bynum's new book, avisit to the Cloisters will never be the same". The book is Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe by the eminent medievalist Caroline Walker Bynum. As the title suggests, Bynum's essay focuses on the presence of material objects in social history, the importance of which is perhaps
diminished in art historical research by the sheer intensity of its reiteration. Hence Bynum's publication should be all the more important to the art historian.
The Christian relationship to objects, here considered in the period between 1150 and 1550, could be defined by the paradox in which pilgrims to places with seemingly life-endowed objects on the one hand desired "ever more frequent encounters with miraculous matter and, on the other hand, they turned toward an inward piety that rejected material objects of devotion." It is from this crux of the problem that Bynum's essay evolves. As though inevitable, her argument includes a thorough examination of the religious art from this period, which "called attention to its own materiality in sophisticated ways that explain both the animation of images and the hostility toward
them on the part of iconoclasts." As the publisher further notes: "understanding the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries' Christian culture as a paradoxical affirmation of the glory and the threat of the natural world, Bynum's study suggests a new understanding of the background to sixteenth-century reformations, both Protestant and Catholic."
Then it goes without saying that a visit to any collection of medieval
art would be well illuminated by Bynum's new book.
Caroline Walker Bynum. Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe, Zone Books, New York: 2011, 410 pp., $ 32,95
diminished in art historical research by the sheer intensity of its reiteration. Hence Bynum's publication should be all the more important to the art historian.
The Christian relationship to objects, here considered in the period between 1150 and 1550, could be defined by the paradox in which pilgrims to places with seemingly life-endowed objects on the one hand desired "ever more frequent encounters with miraculous matter and, on the other hand, they turned toward an inward piety that rejected material objects of devotion." It is from this crux of the problem that Bynum's essay evolves. As though inevitable, her argument includes a thorough examination of the religious art from this period, which "called attention to its own materiality in sophisticated ways that explain both the animation of images and the hostility toward
them on the part of iconoclasts." As the publisher further notes: "understanding the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries' Christian culture as a paradoxical affirmation of the glory and the threat of the natural world, Bynum's study suggests a new understanding of the background to sixteenth-century reformations, both Protestant and Catholic."
Then it goes without saying that a visit to any collection of medieval
art would be well illuminated by Bynum's new book.
Caroline Walker Bynum. Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe, Zone Books, New York: 2011, 410 pp., $ 32,95
