2 The Non-Gendered Appeal of Vierge Ouvrante Sculpture: Audience, Patronage, and Purpose in Medieval Iberia

Abstract

According to this chapter, women's agency, whether exercised traditionally or indirectly, via identifiable positions of power or non-compliant evasions of authority, is no longer dismissed or taken for granted, resulting in a more nuanced understanding of the power, patronage, and authority exercised by medieval women and men. It argues through a discussion of Vierge ouvrante sculptures, a genre of devotional art whose appearance, audience, and spirituality seem intended for women viewers, and whose meaning scholars have approached through the lens of female devotional and emotional experience. Using case studies of four thirteenth-century works from the Iberian Peninsula, counterbalanced by a consideration of trans-Pyrenean examples from Maubuisson and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, such attitudes against the historical record and ways in which it is counteracted are weighed. An in-depth study reveals that it appealed not to any particular gender or devotional practice, but rather to both genders and diverse audiences. Keywords:audience; four thirteenth-century works; Iberian Peninsula; patronage; Vierge Ouvrante Sculpture