Figuring Faith and Female Power in the Art of Rubens

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Vanessa Lyon
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Attitudes Toward Women ◽  
Court Culture ◽  
Peter Paul Rubens ◽  
Catholic Theology ◽  
Historical Scholarship ◽  
Cultural Attitudes ◽  
Female Power

Figuring Faith and Female Power in the Art of Rubens argues that the Baroque painter, propagandist, and diplomat, Peter Paul Rubens, was not only aware of rapidly shifting religious and cultural attitudes toward women, but actively engaged in shaping them. Today, Rubens’s paintings continue to be used -- and abused -- to prescribe and proscribe certain forms of femininity. Repositioning some of the artist’s best-known works within seventeenth-century Catholic theology and female court culture, this book provides a feminist corrective to a body of art historical scholarship in which studies of gender and religion are often mutually exclusive. Moving chronologically through Rubens’s lengthy career, the author shows that, in relation to the powerful women in his life, Rubens figured the female form as a transhistorical carrier of meaning whose devotional and rhetorical efficacy was heightened rather than diminished by notions of female difference and particularity.

Military Service and Material Gain on the Ottoman–Hapsburg Frontier

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK STEIN
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Economic Opportunity ◽  
Historical Scholarship ◽  
Economic Opportunities ◽  
Frederick Jackson Turner ◽  
Material Gain ◽  
Economic Advancement

Just over a century ago, Frederick Jackson Turner presented his famous Frontier Thesis, which continues to be one of the most debated and controversial theories in historical scholarship and has affected all discussions of frontier history worldwide. This chapter explores one aspect of Turner's work that may be applicable to other frontiers — that of the frontier as a zone of economic opportunity. It discusses how military service on the seventeenth-century Ottoman-Hapsburg frontier presented a number of chances for economic advancement to men who were willing to take the risks of living and working along the border. Moving to the frontier offered economic opportunities not found in the interior. In North America, a large part of the opportunity was the potential to acquire land. It is possible that in some cases there was similar opportunity along the seventeenth-century Ottoman-Hapsburg frontier.

Court Culture in Seventeenth-Century Friesland

1994 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-83
Author(s):  
Philippus H. Breuker
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Court Culture

scholarly journals Rubens’sLife of Maria de’ Medici:Dissimulation and the Politics of Art in Early Seventeenth-Century France*

2014 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 878-916 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Galletti
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Peter Paul Rubens ◽  
Spatial Control ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Large Size ◽  
Baroque Art ◽  
Physical Access ◽  
Queen Mother

AbstractTheLife of Maria de’ Medici,the biographical series of twenty-four large-size paintings executed for the Queen Mother of France by Peter Paul Rubens in 1622–25, is traditionally regarded by historians as both a masterpiece of Baroque art and a monument of political naïveté. According to this view, the series was a disrespectful visual bravado that exposed both patron and painter to scandal by publicly advertising the queen’s political ideas and ambitions, which were not only audacious, but often in opposition to those of her son King Louis XIII. This article challenges this assessment by reading theLifewithin the context of seventeenth-century uses of dissimulation and spatial control as strategies to limit both intellectual and physical access to information. It argues that the series was imbued with multiple layers of meaning, intended for different audiences, and that access to these was strictly controlled by the queen and her circle.

scholarly journals A ‘Chief Error’ of Protestant Soteriology: Sin in the Justified and Early Modern Catholic Theology

Perichoresis ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 41-72
Author(s):  
Matthew T. Gaetano
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
Catholic Theology ◽  
Good Works ◽  
The World ◽  
The Catholic Church

AbstractCatholic theologians after Trent saw the Protestant teaching about the remnants of original sin in the justified as one of the ‘chief ’ errors of Protestant soteriology. Martin Luther, John Calvin, Martin Chemnitz, and many Protestant theologians believed that a view of concupiscence as sinful, strictly speaking, did away with any reliance on good works. This conviction also clarified the Christian’s dependence on the imputed righteousness of Christ. Catholic theologians condemned this position as detracting from the work of Christ who takes away the sins of the world. The rejection of this teaching—and the affirmation of Trent’s statement that original sin is taken away and that the justified at baptism is without stain or ‘immaculate’ before God—is essential for understanding Catholic opposition to Protestant soteriology. Two Spanish Dominican Thomists, Domingo de Soto and Bartolomé de Medina, rejected the Protestant teaching on imputation in part because of its connection with the view on the remnants of original sin in the justified. Adrian and Peter van Walenburch, brothers who served as auxiliary bishops of Cologne in the second half of the seventeenth century, argued that the Protestants of their time now agreed with the Catholic Church on a number of soteriological points. They also drew upon some of their post–Tridentine predecessors to offer a Catholic account of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Nonetheless, the issue of sin in the justified remained a point of serious controversy.

The Presbyterian Story

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew R. Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Central Component ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
Historical Scholarship ◽  
High Church ◽  
The Catholic Church

Chapter 2 explores the interplay between historical scholarship, church government, and Unionist identity politics. The chapter begins with the appropriation by evangelicals of the seventeenth-century origins of Presbyterianism in Ireland and how this was used to respond to theological and ecclesiological moderatism as well as the challenge of High Church Anglicanism. The second section examines how the High Church threat produced scholarship on the early church and the Celtic church, including St Patrick. Presbyterian writers remained concerned about Catholic claims and the final section considers their attitude to the Catholic Church in principle, the growing influence of Ultramontanism, and the threat of ‘Rome Rule’ in Ireland. The prospect of Home Rule introduced the Presbyterian story to a much broader audience and became a central component of Unionist identity politics, especially during ‘the Ulster Crisis’ of 1912 to 1914.

Factions, seditions and schismatical principles: Puritans and Dissenters

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert G. Ingram
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Wars Of Religion ◽  
English History ◽  
Historical Scholarship ◽  
Scholarly Edition ◽  
Political Value

This chapter anatomizes the dispute between Zachary Grey and Dissenting historians like Daniel Neal who together mined the recent English past for ammunition in eighteenth-century religious and political fights. It locates these historical debates within efforts during the 1730s to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts. It then charts the development of Grey’s take on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English history. It shows that while the seventeenth-century wars of religion were over, their causes and lessons remained contested. Precisely because the causes and lessons of those wars were not settled, polemical divinity retained practical political value. The chapter also uses Zachary Grey’s anti-Dissenting historical scholarship further to consider the economic realities of polemical divinity. While religious works continued to dominate booksellers’ catalogues, they had to be pitched and packaged in ways that were marketable. Grey’s anti-Neal tracts were hardly profitable. The chapter concludes by examining a work of English historical scholarship that was financially successful: Zachary Grey’s scholarly edition of Samuel Butler’s Hudibras.

scholarly journals ultima opera di Malvasia: 'Il Claustro di S. Michele in Bosco' e la decorazione carraccesca tra finzione e verità

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (18 N.S.) ◽  
pp. 29-58
Author(s):  
Maria Gabriella Matarazzo
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Comprehensive Assessment ◽  
Historical Scholarship ◽  
Marble Sculptures ◽  
Century Literature

The Carracci's decorative vocabulary (from the early Bolognese friezes to the cycles of the Farnese Gallery in Rome and of the Cloister of San Michele in Bosco in Bologna) made extensive use of anthropomorphic supports, especially telamons and terms. Painted with a monochromatic technique, they deceived the beholder for their effective imitation of marble sculptures that illusively jut from the surface of the wall. While art historical scholarship mainly discussed them in regard to their chronology, attribution, iconography and their relationship with the Cinquecento decoration systems, their early reception still lacks a comprehensive assessment. This essay aims to undertake it through the case study of Il Claustro di S. Michele in Bosco, the last art-historical work by Malvasia. A section of this booklet is dedicated to the chiaroscuro"Termini" flanking the episodes of the life of St. Benedict painted by Ludovico Carracci and his pupils in the cloister of the Bolognese Olivetan monastery. Giacomo Giovannini, the engraver to whom Malvasia commissioned the illustrations included in the volume, also reproduced these painted sculptures in four etchings. By referring to a central couplet from the famous sonnet by Agostino Carracci "in lode di Nicolò Bolognese", he characterized Ludovico's (and Reni's) telamons as Michelangiolesque in their contour and Tizianesque in their naturalezza, as opposed to Annibale's terms frescoed in the Farnese Gallery, whose style Malvasia considered too harsh and dry ("statuino"). In this essay, Malvasia's notes on the cloister's telamons will be compared to his previous critical works and will be contextualized within the seventeenth-century Literature of Art and the coeval reproductive printmaking. As I will demonstrate, Malvasia aimed to restore the central role played by Agostino and Ludovico in the renovation of this decorative style, a role that was obscured by Annibale's growing fame in this genre of painting, particularly driven by the prints after his frescoes in the Farnese Palace published in the second half of the seventeenth century.   On cover:ANNIBALE CARRACCI (BOLOGNA 1560 - ROME 1609), An Allegory of Truth and Time c. 1584-1585.Oil on canvas | 130,0 x 169,6 cm. (support, canvas/panel/str external) | RCIN 404770Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.

scholarly journals ‘ “Dannsair air ùrlar-déile thu”: Gaelic evidence about dance from the mid-17th to late-18th century Highlands’

2013 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Steven Newton
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
English Language ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Court Culture ◽  
Scottish Gaelic ◽  
Scottish Highlands ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
French Court ◽  
History Of

From the 1950s to the 1970s, two sets of scholars – Tom and Joan Flett, and George Emmerson – gleaned many English-language sources to recover aspects of the history of dance in Scotland. They correctly pointed out the pervasive influence of French court culture and the French-trained dancing masters on Scottish forms of dance, including in the Highlands, but did not examine the majority of potential Gaelic sources in their work. This article examines Scottish Gaelic sources referring to dance practices in the Scottish Highlands from the late-seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth century, placing them within the context of wider European developments in music and dance and confirming that they demonstrate a consciousness of the strong connections with France and corresponding effects on Gaelic dance traditions.

Milton and Radicalism

Making Milton ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 198-215
Author(s):  
Nigel Smith
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Historical Scholarship ◽  
Half Century ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
Political Thinker ◽  
Domestic Reform ◽  
Historical Nature

In the half-century before the quatercentenary of Milton’s birth in 2008, the dominant attention to his poetry and prose was of a historical nature and focused on exploring in detail his career as an apologist for aspects of the English Revolution: versions of radical Puritanism; republicanism; and domestic reform in the shape of the divorce argument. Yet the recent resurgence of formalist approaches, with particular focus on the poetry, has obscured or banished the politics, and work on Milton and philosophical/scientific reform has produced a picture not of the seventeenth-century Voltaire or Jefferson but of a republican Newton. This chapter insists on Milton’s identity as a radical religious and political thinker, writer, and actor, over and against some recent contrary arguments, taking account of a more recent return to historical scholarship, where some of that work has been inspired by changing definitions of radicalism in our own time.

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