Push Me, Pull You - 9789004205734

Editors Sarah Blick (art history, Kenyon College) and Laura G. Gelfand (art history, U. of Akron) chose the title in reference to a creature called a Pushmi-pullyu described in Hugh Lofting's Dr. Doolittle books. They felt that the antelope with a head at each end of its body--the heads had to confer before the animal could do anything at all--accurately represents the interaction that is the core theme of this collection of essays. The set comprises two volumes subtitled as follows: Imaginative and Emotional Interaction in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art (volume 1), and Physical and Spatial Interaction in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art (volume 2). The first volume contains 17 contributions arranged in sections on shifting perspectives (text, image, and interaction); imagined pilgrimage and spiritual tourism; indulgences and interactivity; performativity and empathetic devotional practice; and reflections in mirrors, walls, and interstices. Volume 2 contains 17 contributions grouped under the themes of manipulating objects, manipulative objects; insistent images and spaces; revealing and concealing; painting, spectacle, and performativity; and liminality, reception, and the meaning of movement. A sampling of the wide range of specific topics within these broad themes: female devotions and early Netherlandish Jésueax; medieval installation art, architecture and devotional response; the grand procession at Tournai; the interactive indulgence print in the later middle ages; imagery and Eucharistic contact; 14th-century mirrors; and early Dutch painting and the dynamics of faith. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)