I would like to follow up on a comment made by Nell Gifford Martin about
the "language game" at work in the association between the Tree of Jesse
and the Coronation. Would you be willing to expand on the examples you
cited of this being not just a religious matter, but one involving other
issues as well? I think I may have some similar things at work in these
types of representations in late-15th and early-16th century Spain and
would like to hear more of your thoughts on this. Isabel of Castile was a
big patron of devotion to the Immaculate Conception and a case has been
made for fifteenth-century representations of the Tree of Jesse as a very
early working out of an Immaculist program in Spanish art. Beyond that,
Isabel was a monarch very concerned with consolidating her power amidst
civil war and an open hostility to female rule. I've argued elsewhere that
the concept of the Immaculate Conception is a part of how she consolidates
her power, but the Tree of Jesse/Coronation association could add an
additional nuance.
Also, if it's not too little too late, Suzanne Stratton's _The Immaculate
Conception in Spanish Art_ mentions several instances of the convergence of
these images from the twelfth century onward and attributes the one at
Silos to French prototypes (p. 13).
Liz Lehfeldt
History Department, Cleveland State University
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|