Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the later Middle Ages through the Renaissance, with objects dating from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. It explores the manner in which objects, in this case reliquaries, manuscripts, and cloth, function as abstract references to the absent corporal form. The book examines the abject as a way to recall the human form and demonstrates opposing views of the abject in the medieval and modern eras. It shows that during the Middle Ages abject bodily fluids were often desired and sought after, provided that they were associated with a holy person. The book examines artworks that approximate the body without actually representing a figure. It also deals with Cartesian dualism but from the other side as he has identified an attempt to refer to the consciousness within the body in Rothko's paintings.