Login
Not a CAA member?
Read about the benefits.
August 29, 2003
Madeline H. Caviness Visualizing Women in the Middle Ages: Sight, Spectacle and Scopic Economy Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000. 208 pp.; 80 b/w ills. Cloth $55.00 (0812235991)
Thumbnail

 
CrossRef DOI: 10.3202/caa.reviews.2003.74

Sign In or become a member to see the full review

Why have psychoanalytic approaches to interpreting medieval art long been resisted? For decades many art historians have explored how Sigmund Freud’s ideas can enhance the readings of objects, yet medievalists have considered psychoanalytic theories too remote in time and philosophy from their subject. Psychoanalysis seems too concerned with individual agency to be adapted for use in studying artists and patrons whose identities have largely been lost over time. Madeline H. Caviness claims to be “the...