Monumental Sounds : Art and Listening Before Dante.
- 1st ed.
- 1 online resource (316 pages)
- Brill's Studies on Art, Art History, and Intellectual History Series ; v.55 .
- Brill's Studies on Art, Art History, and Intellectual History Series .
Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Illustrations -- Introduction An Unheard Art -- 1 Knowing Hearing -- 2 Hearing Eclipsed -- 3 Shapers of Ears -- 4 Monumental Sounds -- Chapter 1 Listening Up -- 1 Aural Sensitivities -- 2 Lost Hearing -- 3 Great Listeners -- Chapter 2 The Ear, Estranged -- 1 Seeing Listening -- 2 Ear Blindness -- 3 Stasis and Significance -- Chapter 3 A Feast for the Ears -- 1 Giotto's The Wedding Feast at Cana -- 2 Scale of Listening -- 3 Rebirth through the Ear -- 4 Aural Ambitions -- Chapter 4 Sound Restoration -- 1 Nicola Pisano's Pulpit in Pisa -- 2 Raising Voices -- 3 Silenced Skeptic -- 4 Antique Resonance -- 5 Muted Clergy -- 6 Sculptural Ephpheta! -- Chapter 5 Higher Fidelity -- 1 The Isaac Frescoes in Assisi -- 2 Return of the Repressed Sense -- 3 Aural Ancestry -- 4 Hidden by Sight -- 5 Auditory Interests -- Conclusion Humbling Sight -- Bibliography -- Index of Modern Authors -- Index of Early Sources -- Index of Subjects.
An examination of interactions between sight and hearing in Italian church decoration from 1260-1320. Giotto and other artists used naturalism to activate worshipers' spiritual listening, a source of anxiety for authorities in this "age of vision." This book has received the Weiss-Brown Publication Subvention Award from the Newberry Library, supporting the publication of outstanding works on European civilization before 1700 in the areas of music, theater, French or Italian literature, and cultural studies.