Katharina Bauer

• B4: Acting personifications as figures of aesthetic reflection in medieval literature and art

As personifications rely on a human body for their visual mediation, in medieval art they adopt a set of gender roles and human behaviors. The research project sets out to collect acting personifications from the 12th to the 14th century which were intentionally used in their human ability of acting and feeling to create new visual statements. Thereby however they cling – such is the premise – to an inner artistic logic situated between anthropological and abstract content and thus hold the potential for aesthetic reflection. Based on this assumption, it will be explored by means of selected examples and with the help of reception theory how and when a particular aesthetic conception is conveyed through the personification’s capacity for action.

• Bildende Kunst des Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit
• Textile Bildwerke als Ausdrucksträger weiblicher Kultur und Bildung
• Personifikationen