Martyrdom and the Visual Production of Otherness in Europe, 1450-1650

KWIATKOWSKI, NICOLÁS

Ikon. Journal of Iconographic Studies

Brepols

Año: 2022 vol. 15 p. 101 - 114

1846-8551

In Christian thought and imagination, martyrdom is a fundamental expression of religious belief. During the Early Modern wars of religion and in an age of conflictive relationships between Europeans and their Eastern neighbors, biblical martyrdom, and in particular infant martyrdom, was used as a metaphor to represent contemporary killings and massacres. This article studies representations of real massacres as scenes of martyrdom in early modern Europe during two centuries that go from the fall of Constantinople to the Thirty Years’ War. The text starts with a brief description of the iconography of martyrdom that emerged at the end of the Middle Ages and soon after became topical. Next it discusses the use of this iconography to represent massacres in realistic, propagandistic, and artistic imagery. It also discusses the construction of identities based on the display of innocence and victimhood, and the emergence of a religious Other (Muslim, Catholic, and Protestant in each respective case) imagined as cruel and barbaric.