The Medieval Art of Love: Objects and Subjects of DesireRomantic love as we know it today was invented in the Middle Ages. Many ideas about love and the focus on the female as the object and the male as the subject of desire were developed by the poets and artists of the twelfth century onwards. Using a sumptuous array of well-known and less familiar images from the thirteenth century to the fifteenth, this book shows how images in paintings and on beautiful objects taught men and women about the art of love. The textiles, ivories, illuminations, chests, and jewels help reveal medieval life at its most profound moments. Given as gifts and love tokens, these objects were intimately connected with the bodies of their owners. |
Contents
CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR | 94 |
CHAPTER FIVE | 121 |
EPILOGUE | 157 |
Copyright | |
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Adam and Eve Alexander Romance Andreas Capellanus animal arrow art of love artist beautiful beloved belt Bible Moralisée Bibliothèque Nationale bird Bodleian Library bride British Museum brooch carved casket Cathedral chaplet Christ comb couple courtly courtly love depicting described enamel erotic eyes falcon fantasy female fifteenth century flesh flower Fountain of Youth fourteenth century France French garden gaze gift girdle girl gold Guinevere hair hand heart husband ideal illuminator Isabeau of Bavaria ivory kiss kneeling knight lady lady's Lancelot leather London looking lover male body Manesse Codex manuscript marriage medieval art Middle Ages miniature mirror Narcissus noble object of desire painted pair panel Paris pleasure poem poet position purse Pygmalion represent Robinet Testard Roman Rose scene seen sexual shows Song Song of Songs stands suggest symbolic tapestry tion tree troubadour twelfth-century unicorn Venus viewer Virgin visual woman women young སྙ