In Images of Miraculous Healing in the Early Modern Netherlands, Barbara Kaminska situates visual representations of biblical healings at the intersection of several social, cultural, and religious developments. This study argues that, while these works have received little attention in previous scholarship, they played a vital role in shaping early modern Netherlandish views on disability and charity. The author advances this argument by considering not only the iconography of these prints and paintings, but also their ownership and viewing context.
The first chapter introduces the major themes of the book—Netherlandish viewers’ understanding of images of miraculous healing in the time of doctrinal debate about the validity of miracles; the ambivalent and sometimes conflicting views of impairments and charity in contemporary society; and the changing public regard for medical practitioners. Kaminska explains her approach, which weaves together methods and sources from art history, biblical and Church history, and the cultural and medical history of disability. A discussion of the contemporary terminology of diseases and impairments provides an informative guide for the reader.
The next two chapters examine how early modern Netherlandish images present Christ as a model for caring for the sick and disabled. Chapter 2 looks at the topos of Christus Medicus, which portrays Christ as a doctor but also invites the viewer to compare physicians’ healing abilities with God's. Kaminska explains that prints such as Goltzius's Physician as God, Angel, and Devil (1587) were created during a period of increasing regulation of the medical profession in Netherlandish towns. She considers the dialogue between visual images and vernacular literature and theater in relation to these developments. Chapter 3 focuses on depictions of “Visiting the Sick,” which visualize Christ's compassionate treatment of the ill. Part of the Seven Works of Mercy discussed in the Gospels, this pictorial theme emphasizes Christ's mercy rather than his miraculous powers. The author also presents evidence that paintings depicting the Seven Works of Mercy were not destined for churches (in either the North or the South), but rather for private homes and meeting rooms of Gasthuizen (hospices that provided short-term care for the sick). She argues that, given the subject matter and display setting, works like Pieter Aertsen's Seven Works of Mercy (1575) encouraged viewers to imitate Christ's compassion by performing charitable acts. The later chapters would further explore the implications of the viewing context of images of healing or compassionate care.
Chapters 4 to 6 analyze depictions of Christ's healings of blindness, motor impairment, and other chronic diseases (including leprosy). Drawing on contemporary vernacular literature, religious writings, and genre imagery, Kaminska situates the depictions of Christ's healing miracles in the cultural milieu of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Netherlands. She discusses negative views about disabled mendicants, who were no longer seen as the deserving poor in this period. There were widespread beliefs that beggars either feigned their impairments to deceive almoners or deserved their suffering as punishment for their sins. For example, biblical exegesis at the time regards physical blindness as a sign of spiritual blindness, and images based on the parable of the blind leading the blind often show the visually impaired as objects of scorn. At the same time, however, some paintings portray the disabled and ill seeking Christ's healing as models of faith who deserve mercy. Kaminska suggest that the paintings displayed in meeting rooms of Gasthuizen urged the viewers to imitate Christ's compassion, whereas works in private collections were more likely to disparage disabled beggars as spiritually corrupt. Carefully analyzing textual and visual sources, she argues that the diverse prints and paintings, while eliciting differing responses, ultimately asked well-off viewers to contemplate how they should show compassion towards those who were deemed worthy of charity in contemporary society.
Images of Miraculous Healing presents analyses of works of art that have not been widely studied by historians of Netherlandish art. Just as importantly, it also offers insights into early modern discourses of disability, medicine, and charity. The author has amassed a wide range of visual, religious, medical, and literary sources, which she marshaled effectively to build her arguments. The book is a valuable contribution not only to art history, but also to the study of social, cultural, and religious history of the early modern Netherlands.
