Visual discourses and religious mentality. The "femme-aux-serpents" and the use of antithetic images in romanesque sculpture

Authors

  • Eukene Martínez de Lagos Universidad del País Vasco

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18172/brocar.2682

Keywords:

Femme-aux-serpents, Romanesque sculpture, The Way of St, James

Abstract

The iconography of the "femme-aux-serpents" as image of the punishment to the lust is one of the most widespread topics in the Romanesque sculpture of the European west. Some of the first representations of this iconographical subject, dated about 1080, are located in churches creators and diffusers of figurative romanesque repertories. Moreover, these churches are linked to the influence of the Gregorian reform and to the expansion of the reformer order of Cluny and they have an out-standing emplacement in the pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela. To explain its extraordinary success as visual round, forceful and striking allegation we can add the monastic mentality concerning woman and sexuality and the fact that lust is one of the basic and more attacked sins of Middle ages.

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Published

2014-12-17

How to Cite

Martínez de Lagos, E. (2014). Visual discourses and religious mentality. The "femme-aux-serpents" and the use of antithetic images in romanesque sculpture. Brocar. Cuadernos De Investigación Histórica, (38), 45–64. https://doi.org/10.18172/brocar.2682