The Medieval Art of Slash
Jun. 16th, 2003 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mayhapA while back I picked up a copy of Michael Camille's The Medieval Art of Love at Bloomsday Books (and happy Bloomsday, all!) because it had such beautiful, beautiful illustrations. I mean, I also really liked the text of his we used in Gothic Art last semester, but it's really all about the pretty pictures. In this case, pictures of lovers of all types in all sorts of...positions.
Naturally as I was flipping through it, this bit with the word "homoerotic" in it caught my eye, along with its accompanying illustration:
*snerk*
Right, I can't imagine a group of cloistered women imagining homoerotic desire between these two male figures...although I was always more of a Jesus/Judas girl myself....
Such is my dubious insight for the day.
Naturally as I was flipping through it, this bit with the word "homoerotic" in it caught my eye, along with its accompanying illustration:
"Just as the lady lets her beloved lie in her lap in the Gothic game, so does Christ let his beloved disciple St. John the Evangelist lie in his in a type of carved wooden devotional image popular in German convents in the later Middle Ages (fig. 113). The "beloved disciple" asleep in the Lord's bosom, based on the Gospel test of the Last Supper, shows that the same gestures and intimate touches can mean entirely different things in different contexts. It would be anachronistic to project homoerotic desires on to the makers and users of this image, who were for the most part nuns." (129)
*snerk*
Right, I can't imagine a group of cloistered women imagining homoerotic desire between these two male figures...although I was always more of a Jesus/Judas girl myself....
Such is my dubious insight for the day.
