Indexers select an article or essay at the beginning of each month that is outstanding in its line of argument, wealth of significances, and writing style. We particularly look for pieces that would be useful as course readings.

April 2008

Pinkus, Assaf. The Patron Hidden in the Narrative: Eve and Johanna at St. Theobald in Thann. Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 70, 1 (2007): 23-54.

The tyranny of the patristic Eve-Mary antithetical exegesis has dictated our understanding of medieval pictorial cycles to such a degree that we inevitably assume misogyny and female inferiority as an exclusive tenor. Eve’s mental and moral inadequacy, compounded by her condemnation for Adam’s fall, formed the meta-narrative of the apocryphal texts dedicated to the life of the protoplasts after the expulsion. An exceptional narration, however, can be found in the Creation cycle installed on the west façade of the collegiate St. Theobald in Thann, Alsace, 1324-1400. Based on the fourteenth-century mittelhochdeutsch text Eva und Adam, by a certain Lutwin, this cycle is shown here to offer an alternative exemplum of feminine conduct for the contemporary woman within the conventional doctrine. Lutwin’s poem presents neither Eve as a seductive and temptress, nor Adam as the victim of her seductions. Rather, he is depicted as an equally ardent party to sin. Standing before God, the strong and moral character of Eve offers a stark contrast to the weak character of Adam, who does not hesitate to throw all the responsibility on her. Fully aware of her misdeed, in this source Eve becomes a model of the virtues. Finally, the author exonerates Eve from any guilt of sin.

This article investigates the multiple voices integrated in the sculptural programs of Thann. I argue that that the choice of a particular biblical narrative for the cycle may reveal the particular patrons who commissioned this sculptural program. Thus, the unprecedented imagery and its literary source, as well as the differences between Lutwin’s narrative and the sculptured rendition, suggest two distinct yet complementary sets of intentions of the dual patronage of the church, which had to be delicately integrated. Whereas the local clergy may have perceived the sculptural cycle as either a conventional Marian theology or a counterpart expression of the comfort literature that emerged in response to the Black Death, the local nobility may have conceived it as an imprint of their own identity. This one-off move in Western art, narrating a non-misogynist sacred history, subverting thereby the existing patriarchal structures, is interpreted here as the choice and ideological stance of the local heiress and donor – Johanna von Pfirt. [[Abstract submitted to Feminae by the author.]

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