Pre/Early Modern Forum presents Adam Jasienski (SMU)

Professor Adam Jasienski will present a lecture titled, “Satins and Dolls: The Material Lives of Sacred Images in Early Modern Spain.” Imagine the following scenario: in 1709 in a small town in Spain a figurine is danced across a table, provoking mirth. It is given food and drink, and spoken to. And finally, perhaps handled too roughly, it breaks. Although the figurine was treated like an object for play, like a doll, it was, in actuality, a religious statuette. And its breaking, though likely accidental, thus became an act of iconoclasm, falling under the purview of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. The Inquisition’s archives are replete with cases where iconoclasm and play — saints and dolls — overlap. Thinking through such moments, when damage reveals the materials, techniques of making, and internal structures of images, allows for a reflection on the boundaries of religious imagery in the early modern Hispanic world, on when it becomes or ceases to be sacred, and, indeed, on what it even is.