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Beschreibung

What role does desire play in the making of art objects? Art historians typically answer this question by referring to historical evidence about an artist's sexual identity or to particular kinds of imagery. But what about anonymous artists? Or works whose subject matter is mainstream?

We know little about the identities and personalities of most premodern artists, but this should not hold us back from thinking about their embodied experience. In this book, Karl Whittington contends that we can "queer" the works of anonymous makers by thinking about their embodied experiences creating art. Considering issues of touch, pressure, and gesture across substances such as wood, stone, ivory, wax, cloth, paint, and metal, Whittington argues for an erotics of artisanal labor, in which the actions of hand, body, and breath interact in intimate ways with materials. Whittington takes seriously the agency of materials and technical processes, arguing that they necessarily placed the bodies of artists and artisans into physical situations and psychological states that can be read through the lens of desire.

Combining historical evidence with speculative description, this evocative set of essays broadens our understanding of the motivations and experiences of premodern artists. It will appeal to scholars and students of art history, medieval studies, gender studies, queer studies, and anthropology.

What role does desire play in the making of art objects? Art historians typically answer this question by referring to historical evidence about an artist's sexual identity or to particular kinds of imagery. But what about anonymous artists? Or works whose subject matter is mainstream?

We know little about the identities and personalities of most premodern artists, but this should not hold us back from thinking about their embodied experience. In this book, Karl Whittington contends that we can "queer" the works of anonymous makers by thinking about their embodied experiences creating art. Considering issues of touch, pressure, and gesture across substances such as wood, stone, ivory, wax, cloth, paint, and metal, Whittington argues for an erotics of artisanal labor, in which the actions of hand, body, and breath interact in intimate ways with materials. Whittington takes seriously the agency of materials and technical processes, arguing that they necessarily placed the bodies of artists and artisans into physical situations and psychological states that can be read through the lens of desire.

Combining historical evidence with speculative description, this evocative set of essays broadens our understanding of the motivations and experiences of premodern artists. It will appeal to scholars and students of art history, medieval studies, gender studies, queer studies, and anthropology.

Über den Autor

Karl Whittington is Professor of History of Art at The Ohio State University. He is the author of Body-Worlds: Opicinus de Canistris and the Medieval Cartographic Imagination and Trecento Pictoriality: Diagrammatic Painting in Late Medieval Italy.

Details
Erscheinungsjahr: 2026
Genre: Importe, Kunst
Rubrik: Kunst & Musik
Thema: Kunstgeschichte
Medium: Taschenbuch
Reihe: ICMA Books | Viewpoints
Inhalt: Einband - flex.(Paperback)
ISBN-13: 9780271100425
ISBN-10: 0271100427
Sprache: Englisch
Einband: Kartoniert / Broschiert
Autor: Whittington, Karl
Hersteller: Pennsylvania State University Press
ICMA Books | Viewpoints
Verantwortliche Person für die EU: Libri GmbH, Europaallee 1, D-36244 Bad Hersfeld, gpsr@libri.de
Maße: 213 x 137 x 15 mm
Von/Mit: Karl Whittington
Erscheinungsdatum: 03.03.2026
Gewicht: 0,284 kg
Artikel-ID: 134336240

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