Art and architectural historians have recently turned their attention to exploring how the subjects of their scholarship were received and used by their audiences. A chief concern within this direction is how human sensory perception was engaged, to which this volume belongs. The Materiality of Devotion is a welcome collection that focuses on the climate of devotion at a time when late-medieval discourse was broadening to include the visionary experience of women, their experience in lay society and as anchorites, and male interest in new modes of affective piety, even new religious orders such as the Brethren of the Common Life. From this perspective, high and low are treated on an equal footing. We see Aristotelian reference to the senses as the means by which ideas are transmitted to the soul: material externals affect immaterial convictions. Multidisciplinary, the volume includes perspectives from philosophy, art criticism, psychology, and history. It is also remarkably comprehensive in its scholarship. It is rare to find such a wealth of reading in English, French, Dutch/Belgian, and German authors dealing with contemporary theory and contextual research with equal enthusiasm. Justifiably, Caroline Walker Bynum's Fragmentation and Redemption (Zone and MIT Press, 1995) and The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christendom (Columbia University Press, 1995) are cited as precedents. The illustrations are well selected and of excellent quality; and the decisions on the color plates support the thrust of the arguments.
Throughout the volume, the authors emphasize the polysemous aspect of vision, images, and memory, specifically addressed in the essay by Henning Laugerud. Perhaps it is the experience of the art historian/critic into the nature of viewing that enables the discipline to empathize so intensely with the act of devotion before the image as well as the physical relationship of the devotee's ceremonial/ritual action to the construction of meaning. Vision is seen as a process, not an occurrence. This volume contains a range of approaches. Rob Faesan contributes a focused analysis of two critical passages of the Eucharistic Vision of Hadewijch, living in the duchy of Brabant, who was one of the first to write mystical texts in the vernacular, here Middle Dutch. Barbara Baert's “The Annunciation and the Senses: Late Medieval Devotion and the Pictorial Gaze” is a taut analysis of paintings of the Annunciation focusing on the senses. More attention might have been given to the space between Gabriel and Mary as an element of the narrative—the words, invisible, frequently reach across physical space. In the Arena Chapel, Padua, the Annunciation spans the left and right sides of the chancel, a disposition also used in the outer wings of Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece (1432), St. Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent. Sculptural groups in northern churches frequently present this call and answer disposition, engaging the visitor to imagine the space between heavy with the word. Two graduate students, Soetkin Vanhauwaert and Georg Geml, develop a fascinating exploration of the liminal position of the Johannesschüssel (head of John the Baptist) functioning as reliquary, ritual object, and sculpture. Many of the essays take a broader, more theoretical view, such as an analysis of the medieval sensorium by Hans Henrick Lohfert Jørgensen, who teaches in the Department of Aesthetic and Communication at Aarhus University. Berndt Hamm's essay explores the “mediation of grace bound up with signs” (12) through images, poetry, gestures, objects, and rituals. Salvador Ryan addresses the concept of Christ as a wounded lover in both medieval Irish as well as Continental piety. Laura Katrine Skinnebach's essay applies the model of Christ's Transfiguration to saintly bodies (e.g., Francis) and objects (e.g., bleeding hosts).
The authors achieve a highly useful focus by frequently citing well-known exemplars of devotional piety, including Veronica's veil venerated in St Peter's, Rome; the Mass of St. Gregory; Bernard's embrace of the Crucified Christ; the New Year's card with seated Christ Child; Christ's five wounds; veneration of St. Nicolas of Bari; and the Hedwig Codex (Ms Ludwig IX 7, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles). We learn of multiple perspectives concerning the great female mystics such as Mechtilde of Magdeburg, Gertrude of Helfta, Julian of Norwich, and Catherine of Siena, as well as Bernard's commentary on the Song of Songs, Henry Suso, Augustine, and Thomas Acquinas.
Among these many pertinent contributions, this art historian still longs for a richer evocation of the actual experience of hearing, seeing, smelling, or touching the “material.” How was the viewer captivated by the glow of polished stones and gleam of metal in the dim light of flickering candles? Different emotions of exhilaration, awe, or intimacy might be experienced when viewing a reliquary carried in broad sunlight set against the landscape of the city, a massive altarpiece dominating a chancel, or a small devotional diptych, such as Albrecht Bouts Christ Crowned with Thorns and Mater Dolorosa (1495–1500, Musée National d'Histoire et d'Art, Luxemburg).
In addition to the superb bibliography, the reader will benefit from the recent publication of Elina Gertsman's Worlds Within: Opening the Medieval Shrine Madonna (Penn State University Press, 2015) and the exhibition, with catalog (Yale University Press, 2016), of A Feast for the Senses: Art and Experience in Medieval Europe at the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Beyond the scope to the volume, readers may find similar ideas expressed in Eastern thought in Bissera V. Pentcheva's The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium (Penn State University Press, 2010).
