Renaissance Bodies midterm

Michel de Montaigne, Of a monstrous child

- describes a child stuck to another child, joined face to face + a shepherd with no signs of genital parts - says that monsters are god's intention and that nothing happens contrary to nature - First deals w question recurrent in discussion of monsters (Are these accidents or are they rational creations of natural world? Is monster category that is a prophecy of doom or is the monstrous a rational part of nature/not monstrous but wondrous?), then says that anything new seems monstrous and that this is wrong -- the uncategorized is not nec monstrous

Pseudo Lucian, excerpt from the Erotes

- describes visit to Aphrodite of Knidos - people can enter by either front or back door - meant to be viewed in the round - notice defecation of statue, suggesting that the unanimated body can be viewed as if animated

Antonio Beccadelli, The Hermaphrodite

- grotesque poetry - pollaiuolo's patrons likely read these poems - more explicit than visual work in description of sexuality - includes classical figures: patroclus, chiron, etc

Pietro Arentino, Censorship

- includes his defense for helping to publish the I Modi series/writing sonnets for underneath each - says that there is nothing wrong with sex because it is what preserves the race/we all do it and should be proud of it because it made us (even says it made "Michelangelos")

Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, Malleus Maleficarum

- women more impressionable to receive the influence of a disembodied spirit - women have slippery tongues - women are feebler so more subseptible to witchcraft - women is more carnal than men b/c formed from bent rib - women can take away penises and leave them in nests -- generates interest in witchcraft in order to show why its bad

Henry Suso, from the Exemplar

- describes Suso mutilating his flesh by writing IHS over his heart - one of suso's followers sewed the same thing onto red silk cloth which she wore it on her breast after hearing about suso, and made more and sent them around

body in a transitional state, taken to pieces - way of acknowledging what will happen to body // lesson for others // presaging what will happen in Judgment - allow yourself to be broken apart in order to be put back together

transi tomb

front of drawing / back of drawing

recto / verso

represent body parts to show what's inside, which makes authoritative claim

reliquaries

- Official term for formal category - Aphrodite of Knidos introduces - Pose of modesty (like in Birth of Venus)

Venus Pudica

one of the legs is relaxed and someone is about to step into motion (versus Egyptian statues, which were more like columns) - because Aphrodite of Knidos is lifelike, you can imagine her as object of desire

contrapposto

conceptual framework placed on body

diagrammatic image

image that claims to be based on something studied from life ("counterfeit image") - not just image that convinces us (mimesis) but one which makes a claim

imago contrafacta

imitation of nature or natural world - associated w/ painting (whereas phenomenology is mostly sculpture)

mimesis

we experience the world through our physical body, so every artwork we encounter is a physical experience (science explains what we've experienced, but the experience comes first)

phenomenology

creates typifying characteristics of how we read faces, a practice that is about racial distinctions, sanity versus insanity, personality distinction - Category of study that continues consistently through 18th century into beginnings of modern race theory

physiognomy