Medieval Mischief: Wit and Humour in the Art of the Middle Ages

Author:   Janetta Rebold Benton
Publisher:   The History Press Ltd
ISBN:  

9780750927734


Pages:   161
Publication Date:   10 March 2004
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Out of stock   Availability explained
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

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Medieval Mischief: Wit and Humour in the Art of the Middle Ages


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Overview

The art and architecture of the Middle Ages teem with humour. From the painting of a poacher roasted over a spit by a rabbit to an image of angels and devils weighing souls and both cheating, the author shows some of the most delightful examples of medieval visual humour.

Full Product Details

Author:   Janetta Rebold Benton
Publisher:   The History Press Ltd
Imprint:   The History Press Ltd
Dimensions:   Width: 21.00cm , Height: 1.00cm , Length: 21.00cm
Weight:   0.660kg
ISBN:  

9780750927734


ISBN 10:   0750927739
Pages:   161
Publication Date:   10 March 2004
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock   Availability explained
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

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Reviews

Buildings, sculpture and pictures, like books, are texts and can therefore be read. In this scholarly but entertaining study, Janetta Rebold Benton shows that although medieval art was religious in subject, it was not necessarily solemn in presentation; there was often little separation between the sacred and the secular. But the modern reader needs to be taught to get the joke. And so Benton teaches us to read the images of churches and cathedrals: those images that amuse, instruct, surprise, amaze or offend. For mostly illiterate congregations, sermons were supposed to be seen as well as heard, and so images could give advice and warnings, and could also satirise the lapses of the clergy: there was a definite alliance between images and ethics. Artists were much more constrained than they are today, but were able to exercise some freedom in inconspicuous places within buildings. Benton is thorough at indicating these: attending church may never be the same again! (Kirkus UK)


Author Information

Janetta Rebold Benton is Professor of Art History at Pace University, New York. She is the author of Arts and ulture, The Medieval Menagerie and Holy Terrors. Gargoyles on Medieval buildings and is a regular lecturer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institute.

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