One of the projects that I’m busy with right now is the article my professor Scott Brown and I are writing. I often refer to it but I know most of you don’t know exactly what I’m referring to. I don’t want to give too much away on the dangerous world of the internet of course, considering the thing is in the process of being researched and written, but I thought I might take the time to give a general idea of the players involved.
The main character is Jael. Her story can be found here on wikipedia and in the Book of Judges, chapters 4 and 5. More specifically our article is concerned with the iconography. It turns out that very few people have taken a look at this before, and even those who have only noted it in passing or made generalized studies. One of our main focuses is a sketch of a work by Jan van Eyck. That in itself is something I’m very excited about.
The study will also focus on other Biblical murderess heroines and their artistic representations, though likely only as general references and not for a detailed study like we will do for Jael. Come to think of it, the only one we’re really discussing is Judith. We’ll also discuss Tomyris, but she is non-biblical.
Here is a nice picture of our friend Tomyris from a Speculum Humanae Salvationis.
And another image, with Jael killing Sisera on the left and Tomyris with Cyrus on the right from another Speculum Humanae Salvationis.
There’s a lot more “to it” than that, but really that’s essentially it. There’s a great picture I found the other day about “the true woman” but I don’t want to have to go find it right now. I suppose I’ll post it some other time. It and some other images are going to be useful in demonstrating how the people of the later Middle Ages and early Renaissance viewed women in many different ways. They loved these specific women because they were heroes of the Bible or historic times, but they also feared them because they were powerful killers.
Anyway, I’m having a good time with it.
