Questions on Visuality and Devotion and Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ
- What do the medieval theories of vision have in common? What connection does sight have to the acquisition of knowledge?
- Consider the quasi-sacramental character of images in the Middle Ages and the origins of this quality.
- How does the hierarchy of vision endow late medieval andachsbild with even greater devotional power?
- Herbert Kessler discusses the challenge of medieval art as it claims “to show the invisible by means of the visible.” Discuss!
- Why was the Resurrection marginalized in Passion plays?
- Michael Camille claims medieval images were “so much more powerful, moving, and instrumental, as well as disturbing and dangerous than later works of art.” Do you agree?
- Do you agree that the act of looking constitutes a powerful practice of belief, that it is tied to one’s religious identity?
- Does Gibson’s film share the same aesthetic goals as say, the Isenheim altarpiece? Is it kosher to compare the Cyclorama, the Gibson film, and medieval art?