Dark mirror
Subtitle: the medieval origins of anti-Jewish iconography
By: Sara Lipton
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 390
ISBN-13: 9780805079104
Subjects: Antisemitism in art; Art and society; Jews in art; Medieval Art; History
Description: "In Dark Mirror, Sara Lipton offers a fascinating examination of the emergence of anti-Semitic iconography in the Middle AgesThe straggly beard, the hooked nose, the bag of coins, and gaudy apparel--the religious artists of medieval Christendom had no shortage of virulent symbols for identifying Jews. Yet, hateful as these depictions were, the story they tell is not as simple as it first appears. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources, Lipton argues that these visual stereotypes were neither an inevitable outgrowth of Christian theology nor a simple reflection of medieval prejudices. Instead, she maps out the complex relationship between medieval Christians' religious ideas, social experience, and developing artistic practices that drove their depiction of Jews from benign, if exoticized, figures connoting ancient wisdom to increasingly vicious portrayals inspired by (and designed to provoke) fear and hostility. At the heart of this lushly illustrated and meticulously researched work are questions that have occupied scholars for ages--why did Jews becomes such powerful and poisonous symbols in medieval art? Why were Jews associated with certain objects, symbols, actions, and deficiencies? And what were the effects of such portrayals--not only in medieval society, but throughout Western history? What we find is that the image of the Jew in medieval art was not a portrait of actual neighbors or even imagined others, but a cloudy glass into which Christendom gazed to find a distorted, phantasmagoric rendering of itself"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: In a mirror, darkly; title: Mirror of the fathers: the birth of a Jewish iconography, ca. 1015-1100; title: Blinding light and blinkered witness, ca. 1100-1160; title: Jewish eyes: loveless looking and the unlovely Christ, ca. 1160-1220; title: All the world a picture: Jews and the mirror of society, ca. 1220-1300; title: The Jew's face: flesh, sight, and sovereignty, ca. 1230-1350; title: Where are the Jewish women?; title: The Jew in the crowd: surveillance and civic vision, ca. 1350-1500; title: Conclusion.