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Images of Miraculous Healing in the Early Modern Netherlands
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Images of Miraculous Healing in the Early Modern Netherlands explores the ways in which paintings and prints of biblical miracles shaped viewers’ approaches to physical and sensory impairments and bolstered their belief in supernatural healing and charitable behavior. Drawing upon a vast range of sources, Barbara Kaminska demonstrates that visual imagery held a central place in premodern disability discourses, and that the exegesis of New Testament miracle stories determined key attitudes toward the sick and the poor. Addressed to middle-class collectors, many of the images analyzed in this study have hitherto been neglected by art historians. Link to book presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79jHEmTOKnU
Barbara Kaminska is Assistant Professor of Art History at Sam Houston State University. She has published extensively on Netherlandish painting and print culture, and is the author of
Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Religious Art for the Urban Community (Brill, 2019).
“Drawing from an impressive range of visual and textual sources, Kaminska’s book provides a stimulating examination of Christ’s healing miracles together with early modern Netherlandish attitudes about infirmity and charity.”
Jeffrey Chipps Smith, University of Texas at Austin. In: Journal of Jesuit Studies, Vol. 9, No. 3 (2022), pp. 472–475.
“ Images of Miraculous Healing presents analyses of works of art that have not been widely studied by historians of Netherlandish art. Just as importantly, it also offers insights into early modern discourses of disability, medicine, and charity. The author has amassed a wide range of visual, religious, medical, and literary sources, which she marshaled effectively to build her arguments. The book is a valuable contribution not only to art history, but also to the study of social, cultural, and religious history of the early modern Netherlands.”
Angela Ho, George Mason University. In: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 76, No. 4 (Winter 2023), pp. 1483–1485.
Jeffrey Chipps Smith, University of Texas at Austin. In: Journal of Jesuit Studies, Vol. 9, No. 3 (2022), pp. 472–475.
“ Images of Miraculous Healing presents analyses of works of art that have not been widely studied by historians of Netherlandish art. Just as importantly, it also offers insights into early modern discourses of disability, medicine, and charity. The author has amassed a wide range of visual, religious, medical, and literary sources, which she marshaled effectively to build her arguments. The book is a valuable contribution not only to art history, but also to the study of social, cultural, and religious history of the early modern Netherlands.”
Angela Ho, George Mason University. In: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 76, No. 4 (Winter 2023), pp. 1483–1485.
Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
1 Introduction: Understanding Miracles, Compassion, and Disability
1.1 Chapter Overview and Organization of the Material
1.2 Early Modern Disability and Terms Used in This Book
1.3 Biblical Healing Miracles and the Understanding of Charity before the Renaissance
2 Christus Medicus and Beyond: The Thaumaturgic Power of Christ and Medical Metaphors in the Premodern Netherlands
2.1 Christus Medicus and Its Origins: An Overview of the Topos
2.2 Christ the Physician and Bodily Health in Hendrick Goltzius’s Miracula Christi
2.3 Regulating the Medical Profession in the Netherlands: Goltzius, Guilds, and the Question of Status
2.4 Physician as Christ or Charlatan? Quacksalvers in Pamphlets, Theatrical Plays, and Visual Arts
2.5 Christ the Physician – Healer of the Netherlands
3 “I was sick and you visited me”: Medical Assistance and the Seven Works of Mercy
3.1 Visiting the Sick as a Spiritual and Corporal Work of Mercy
3.2 Visiting the Sick and the Iconography of the Seven Works of Mercy in the Seventeenth Century
3.3 Charity in Late-Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Sermons
3.4 Display of Images of the Seven Works of Mercy and Decoration of Netherlandish Gasthuizen
4 Healing the Blind: Images of Visual Impairment in the Early Modern Low Countries
4.1 Blindness in the Early Modern Netherlands
4.2 “Thy faith hath made thee whole”: Touch and Word in Healing Miracles
4.3 “That the works of God should be made manifest in him”: Agency in the Images of Healing the Blind
4.4 Landscape, Guides, and Dogs: Iconographic Staffage of Healing Miracles
5 Healing the Lame: Biblical Miracles and Mobility Impairment in the Early Modern Netherlands
5.1 Bethesda, Healing Waters, and the Cessation of Miracles in Early Modern Europe
5.2 Droochsloot’s Sources and Anti-Beggar Sentiments in the Netherlands
5.3 “Sir, I have no man”: Healing of the Paralytic as a Model of Mercy
5.4 Authority and Mercy in the Healings in the Acts of the Apostles
6 Healing the Multitudes: Miraculous Healing beyond Visual and Motor Impairments
6.1 The Healing of the Deaf: Hearing as an Instrument of Faith
6.2 Invisible Miracles and Healing beyond the Jewish Community
6.3 Healing the Lepers and Leprosy in the Premodern Netherlands
Epilogue, or Who Is Worthy of Healing and Why It Matters
Bibliography
Index
List of Illustrations
1 Introduction: Understanding Miracles, Compassion, and Disability
1.1 Chapter Overview and Organization of the Material
1.2 Early Modern Disability and Terms Used in This Book
1.3 Biblical Healing Miracles and the Understanding of Charity before the Renaissance
2 Christus Medicus and Beyond: The Thaumaturgic Power of Christ and Medical Metaphors in the Premodern Netherlands
2.1 Christus Medicus and Its Origins: An Overview of the Topos
2.2 Christ the Physician and Bodily Health in Hendrick Goltzius’s Miracula Christi
2.3 Regulating the Medical Profession in the Netherlands: Goltzius, Guilds, and the Question of Status
2.4 Physician as Christ or Charlatan? Quacksalvers in Pamphlets, Theatrical Plays, and Visual Arts
2.5 Christ the Physician – Healer of the Netherlands
3 “I was sick and you visited me”: Medical Assistance and the Seven Works of Mercy
3.1 Visiting the Sick as a Spiritual and Corporal Work of Mercy
3.2 Visiting the Sick and the Iconography of the Seven Works of Mercy in the Seventeenth Century
3.3 Charity in Late-Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Sermons
3.4 Display of Images of the Seven Works of Mercy and Decoration of Netherlandish Gasthuizen
4 Healing the Blind: Images of Visual Impairment in the Early Modern Low Countries
4.1 Blindness in the Early Modern Netherlands
4.2 “Thy faith hath made thee whole”: Touch and Word in Healing Miracles
4.3 “That the works of God should be made manifest in him”: Agency in the Images of Healing the Blind
4.4 Landscape, Guides, and Dogs: Iconographic Staffage of Healing Miracles
5 Healing the Lame: Biblical Miracles and Mobility Impairment in the Early Modern Netherlands
5.1 Bethesda, Healing Waters, and the Cessation of Miracles in Early Modern Europe
5.2 Droochsloot’s Sources and Anti-Beggar Sentiments in the Netherlands
5.3 “Sir, I have no man”: Healing of the Paralytic as a Model of Mercy
5.4 Authority and Mercy in the Healings in the Acts of the Apostles
6 Healing the Multitudes: Miraculous Healing beyond Visual and Motor Impairments
6.1 The Healing of the Deaf: Hearing as an Instrument of Faith
6.2 Invisible Miracles and Healing beyond the Jewish Community
6.3 Healing the Lepers and Leprosy in the Premodern Netherlands
Epilogue, or Who Is Worthy of Healing and Why It Matters
Bibliography
Index
All interested in art history and religious studies, the development of charitable institutions, and the history of disability, and anyone concerned with the origins of modern approaches to physical and sensory impairments. Keywords: art, disability, charity, works of mercy, Christ the Physician, gasthuis, exegesis, almsgiving, early modern period, history of collecting, poverty.