Fragmented devotion
Subtitle: medieval objects from the Schnütgen Museum, Cologne
By: edited by Nancy Netzer, Virginia Reinburg.
Contributors: Netzer, Nancy.; Reinburg, Virginia.; Schnütgen-Museum.; McMullen Museum of Art.
Publisher: McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College; Distributed by the University of Chicago Press
Published: 2000
Place of publication: Chestnut Hill, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 168
Subjects: Schnütgen, Alexander, 1843-1914 -- Art collections -- Exhibitions; Catholic Church -- Liturgical objects -- Exhibitions; Schnütgen-Museum -- Exhibitions; Christian art and symbolism -- Medieval, 500-1500 -- Exhibitions; Christian art and symbolism -- Medieval, 500-1500 -- Collectors and collecting -- Exhibitions; Art -- Private collections -- Germany -- Cologne -- Exhibitions; Art -- Germany -- Cologne -- Exhibitions
Genres: Exhibitions.
Description: Medieval art survives today as fragments of larger works, usually displayed by historical period, geographic location, artistic medium, or iconographic theme. Fragmented Devotion is the first exhibition to explore the meanings these fragments have in our understanding of medieval art and religious life from the Middle Ages to the present. Most of these objects have never been shown before in North America, and many have not been published since the beginning of the twentieth century. The catalog includes essays by historians, art historians, philosophers, and theologians. The writings discuss the meanings these objects had in medieval religious practice. The essays then go on to trace how those original meanings changed when the objects were collected and installed by Alexander Schnutgen within the larger context of Catholicism and nationalism in nineteenth century Germany. Finally, the contributors look at the 1920s and 1930s when the objects were installed in a museum-like setting and consider this installation in light of the developments in medieval art history and the policies of national socialism.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Essays and catalog issued in conjunction with an exhibition held at the McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, from February 7 to May 22, 2000.
Table of contents: title: Collecting, re/collecting, contextualizing and recontextualizing : devotion to fragments of the Middle Ages / Nancy Netzer; title: Fragments of ritual : the liturgical use of objects in the collection of Alexander Schnütgen / Patricia DeLeeuw; title: Religious life and material culture in Medieval and Reformation Cologne / Virginia Reinburg; title: Alexander Schnütgen's devotion to the Middle Ages / Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen; title: Father Schnütgen's Catholic Germany / Donald Dietrich; title: Where was Mary? : a post-Holocaust inquiry / James Bernauer; title: Catalogue of objects in the exhibition / Ulrike Mathies.