ABSTRACT
For many art historians, this imagery has largely existed within the symbolic realm as a kind of backdrop or reenactment of the mass. This very premise is built upon and elaborated supporting the altarpiece as not only a reenactment of the true presence but a live mediatized broadcast of transubstantiation which is then visually relayed as the incarnate or embodiment of the eucharistic celebration. The author argues that Eucharist-centric and corpus-centric imagery were quite common in Northern European and Iberian altarpieces from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries as the rise of sacramental gaze are an example of “altar screens” that mediatize the unseen much like the oversized screens we call jumbotrons that facilitate the live viewing experience at sporting and other live performances.
