Routledge Art, Piety and Destruction in the Christian West, 1500–1700 (Visual Culture in Early Modernity)

Spanning two centuries and two continents, Art, Piety and Destruction in the Christian West, 1500-1700 addresses the impact of religious tensions on art, design, and architecture in the early modern world. Beyond famous works of art such as Kraft's Eucharistic Tabernacle, the volume examines less-studied objects, including church plate and vestments, stained glass, graffiti, and Mexican images of St. Anne, created throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The collection's contributors present religious artworks from Germany, England, Italy, France, Spain, and Mexico; the media include sculpture, oil painting, fresco, metalwork, dress, and architecture. Questions of art's destruction, preservation, and censorship are discussed against the ever-present backdrop of religious conflict and varying degrees of tolerance. New information and original perspectives demonstrate the ways in which art illuminates history, and the close links between the changing values of a society and the images it displays to represent itself. Review '... this book should be part of any reading list on objects in the early modern period.' Sixteenth Century Journal 'This bold and distinctive volume is a welcome departure from the traditional historiographical preoccupation with Reformation iconoclasm. It contributes to a recent wave of interest in the modification and re-contextualisation of visual art that occurred in response to the processes of reform and counterreform in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but offers something new by shifting the focus to the reception of artefacts and buildings over time. In so doing it engages in ’a global conversation about the nature of art, religion and cultural property’ (p. 17), exploring the indissoluble connections between art, faith and ideology from the early modern period up to the present day.' English Historical Review About the Author Virginia Chieffo Raguin is professor of Art History at the College of the Holy Cross. Her exhibitions and publications include stained glass, architecture, and the social/religious context of art.