Page - 8 - in Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, Volume LIX

aSSAF PINKUS8 was happening in the cell, the abbot still needed ocular proof – the sight of the girl – which in turn engendered his carnal desire. His aural voyeur- ism is thus shown to be destructive, eventually diminishing his authority. The ocular voyeurism of the monk, on the other hand, proves far more effective: it is the monk who obtains the power of sight, and therefore gains a privileged position over the abbot and control over the situation. While the eavesdropping abbot gains only a par- tial knowledge of the incident and consequently declines so that he is seen as equal to his novice, it is the monk who ascends in the hierarchal lad- der and manipulates the abbot, thanks to his ocular voyeurism. The monk’s visual advantage is an expression of his superior insight and self- knowledge.3 Voyeurism, in this tale, appears both as a part of the late medieval surveillance system, and as a crucial factor in social and hierarchical transgression/subversion. This article attempts to define the voyeur- istic qualities inherent in Giotto’s painting vis- à-vis voyeuristic constructions in late medieval culture, and to offer a new interpretive frame- work to the verisimilitude representation that characterizes trecento art. The Late Middle Ages was dominated by an ocular desire that set it apart from its predecessors.4 Grand pic- torial spectacles, overflowing with verisimili- tude representations and multi-figured narra- tives mapping every aspect of intimate private spheres,5 provided an effective response to the positive assessment of the role of sight in late medieval theology and rhetoric in revealing divine truth.6 The prominent role of vision in female spirituality and mystic experience, and new forms of Schaufrömmigkeit, legitimized and encouraged the use of images both in monastic and lay milieus.7 New exploration in the field of optics, theatricalized interpretation of the imi- 3 Martinez, Tale of the Monk (cit. n. 1), p. 122. 4 I have paraphrased here Martin Jay’s remarks on the role of sight in the modern era, see M. Jay, Scopic Regimes of Modernity, in: H. Foster (ed.), Vision and Visuality, Seattle 1988, p. 3. On the distinction between early and late medieval visual experience, see C. Hahn, Visio Dei. Changes in Medieval Visuality, in: R. S. Nelson (ed.), Visual- ity Before and Beyond the Renaissance. Seeing as Others Saw, Cambridge 2000, pp. 169–196, esp. 169–170, 176–186; B. Nolan, The Gothic Visionary Perspective, Princeton 1977; J. F. Hamburger, Seeing and Believing: The Suspi- cion of Sight and the Authentication of Vision in Late Medieval Art, in: K. Krüger/A. Nova (eds), Imagination und Wirklichkeit. Zum Verhältnis von mentalen und realen Bildern in der Kunst der frühen Neuzeit, Mainz 2000, pp. 47–69; S. Lewis, Vision and Revision, On ‚Seeing‘ and ‚Not Seeing‘ God in the Dublin Apocalypse, in: Word and Image 10, 1994, pp. 289–311. Extensive work on the subject has been carried out and published by the KultBild group, Münster University, headed by Thomas Lentes, see T. Lentes (ed.), KultBild. Visualität und Religion in der Vormoderne, Berlin 2004–2005, 4 vols. 5 A more correct term here would have been Heimlichkeit, although privacy is often associated with the cultural devel- opments of the Late Middle Ages”, see the fundamental study of B. Moore, Privacy. Studies in Social and Cultural History, New York 1984, p. 15, 40. On the applicability of the term to fourteenth-century art, see W. Kemp, Die Räume der Maler. Zur Bilderzählung seit Giotto, Munich 1996, pp. 16–17, 32, 46–48. 6 See M. Camille, Before the Gaze. The Internal Senses and Late Medieval Practice of Seeing, in: Nelson (cit. n. 4), Visuality Before and Beyond, pp. 197–223, esp. p. 200; S. Biernhoff, Sight and Embodiment in the Middle Ages, New York 2002, p. 66. 7 See the seminal studies of S. Ringbom, Devotional Images and Imaginative Devotions. Notes on the Place of Art in Late Medieval Piety, in: Gazette des Beaux-Arts 73, 1969, pp. 159–70. J. F. Hamburger, The Visual and the Vision- ary: Art and Female Spirituality in the Late Middle Ages, New York 1998; idem, The Use of Images in the Pastoral Care of Nuns: The case of Heinrich Suso and the Dominicans, in: The Art Bulletin 71/1, 1989, pp. 20–46; T. Lentes, Inneres Auge, äußerer Blick und heilige Schau. Ein Diskussionsbeitrag zur visuellen Praxis in Frömmigkeit und Moraldidaxe des späten Mittelalters, in: K. Schreiner/M. Müntz (eds), Gesellschaftliche, körperliche und visuelle Dimensionen mittelalterlicher Frömmigkeit, Munich 2002, pp. 179–220.