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- Title
‘Theatricality’ in Tapestries and Mystery Plays and its Afterlife in Painting.
- Authors
Weigert, Laura
- Abstract
This paper focuses on the performance of a mystery play, known as the 'Vengeance of our Lord', which enacted the destruction of Jerusalem, and on tapestries depicting the same theme. I demonstrate that the two media engaged a similar mode of representation, relied on their spectators' participation, and called attention to the artifice of the events they depicted or enacted, characteristics traditionally associated negatively with the term 'theatricality'. These tapestries recall the experience of watching a mystery play and offer an alternative to a classical model of imitation. In contrast, a group of paintings on the 'Vengeance' theme limits the scope of the action and the viewers' participation. The production of the paintings parallels the regulation of mystery play performances and points to the role of images in the 'modern' play-going experience.
- Subjects
FRANCE; JERUSALEM; FRENCH mysteries &; miracle-plays; TAPESTRY; RENAISSANCE art; JUDGMENT of God; THEATER; SIEGE of Jerusalem, 70 A.D.
- Publication
Art History, 2010, Vol 33, Issue 2, p224
- ISSN
0141-6790
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1467-8365.2010.00739.x