Visual Representations of Violence
Seminar Questions
- How far did the representation of early modern violence vary in different visual genres?
- To what extent did the visual representation of violence vary across Europe and over time?
- How were visual representations of violence perceived in the early modern period?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of visual sources for the understanding of violence in early modern Europe?
Required Reading
- All students should select and research one image depicting violence which was produced in Europe between c. 1500 and c. 1750. You can find images using these databases:
- British Museum Collection OnlineLink opens in a new window [Searchable by subject and date. Try searching for terms such as battle, crucifixion, murder, rape, execution, etc.]
- The Web Gallery of ArtLink opens in a new window [Searchable by subject and date. Try searching for terms such as battle, crucifixion, murder, rape, execution, etc.]
- All students should read two of the following items:
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- Hornstein, Katie, 'Just Violence: Jacques Callot’s Grandes Misères et Malheurs de la GuerreLink opens in a new window', Bulletin of the University of Michigan Museums of Art and Archaeology 16 (2005)
- Gallonio, Antonio, Trattato degli instrumenti di martirio e delle varie maniere di martirizzareLink opens in a new window (Rome, 1591) [Look at the images]
- Merback, Mitchell B., The Thief, the Cross and the Wheel: Pain and the Spectacle of Punishment in Medieval and Renaissance Europe (London, 2001), IntroductionLink opens in a new window
- Zika, Charles, 'Visualising Violence in Reformation Europe', in Robert J. Antony, Stuart Carroll, and Caroline Dodds Pennock, eds, The Cambridge World History of Violence: 1500-1800 CELink opens in a new window (Cambridge, 2020), pp. 634-59.
E-Resources
- Jacques Callot and the Miseries of the Thirty Years' WarLink opens in a new window
- Early English Books OnlineLink opens in a new window
- Eighteenth Century Collections OnlineLink opens in a new window
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Broadside Ballads OnlineLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window
- See also the e-resources for the other seminars.
Further Reading
Bale, Anthony, Feeling Persecuted: Christians, Jews and Images of Violence in the Middle Ages (London, 2010)
Battistini, Matilde, Symbols and Allegories in Art, trans. Stephen Sartarelli (Los Angeles, 2005)
Baxandall, Michael, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style, 2nd. ed. (Oxford, 1988) [Especially the chapter on 'The Period Eye']
Burke, Peter, Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence (London, 2001)
Cuneo, Pia, ed., Artful Armies, Beautiful Battles: Art and Warfare in Early Modern EuropeLink opens in a new window (Leiden, 2002)
Daiman, Marina, 'Peter Paul Rubens: Broker of Peace, Painter of Violence', in Jonathan Davies (ed.), Aspects of Violence in Renaissance EuropeLink opens in a new window (Farnham, 2013), pp. 151-181.
Decker, John R., and Mitzi Kirkland-Ives (eds), Death, Torture and the Broken Body in European Art, 1300-1650 (Farnham, 2014)
Egmond, Florike, and Robert Zwijnenberg, eds, Bodily Extremities: Preoccupations with the Human Body in Early Modern European CultureLink opens in a new window (Aldershot, 2003)
Graham, Heather, and Lauren G. Kilroy-Ewbank, eds, Visualizing Sensuous Suffering and Affective Pain in Early Modern Europe and the Spanish Americas (Leiden, 2018)
Groebner, Valentin, Defaced: The Visual Culture of Violence in the Late Middle Ages, trans. Pamela Selwyn (New York. 2004)
Hale, J.R., Artists and Warfare in the RenaissanceLink opens in a new window (New Haven, 1990)
Härter, Karl, 'Political Crime in Early Modern Europe: Assassination, Legal Responses and Popular Print MediaLink opens in a new window', European Journal of Criminology 11/2 (2013), 142-68
Jordanova, Ludmilla, 'Approaching Visual Materials', in Simon Gunn and Lucy Faire (eds), Research Methods for History (Edinburgh, 2011), pp. 30-47
Kirch, Miriam Hall, 'Death on the Danube', in Jonathan Davies (ed.), Aspects of Violence in Renaissance Europe Link opens in a new window(Farnham, 2013), pp. 61-81.
Kunzle, David, The Early Comic Strip: Narrative Strips and Picture Stories in the European Broadsheet from c.1450 to 1825Link opens in a new window (Berkeley, 1973)
Kunzle, David, From Criminal to Courtier: The Soldier in Netherlandish Art 1550-1672 (Leiden, 2002)
Mills, Robert, Suspended Animation: Pain, Pleasure and Punishment in Medieval Culture (London, 2005)
Puttfarken, Thomas, Titian and Tragic Painting: Aristotle's Poetics and the Rise of the Modern ArtistLink opens in a new window (New Haven, 2005)
Roeck, Bernd, ‘The Atrocities of War in Early Modern Art’, in Joseph Canning, Hartmut Lehmann and Jay Winter (eds), Power, Violence and Mass Death in Pre-Modern and Modern Times (Farnham, 2004), pp. 129-40.
Terry-Fritsch, Allie, and Erin Felicia Labbie, eds, Beholding Violence in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Farnham, 2012)
Wade, Mara R. (ed.), Gender Matters: Discourses of Violence in Early Modern Literature and the ArtsLink opens in a new window (Amsterdam, 2013)
Wolfthal, Diane, 'Jacques Callot's Miseries of WarLink opens in a new window', The Art Bulletin 59/2 (1977), 222-33.
