THE ‘‘EXT RAORDINARY FORTUNE’’ OF CENTAURS

Johann Joachim Winckelmann eloquently described ancient sculptures, especially male nudes, in terms of what he considered to be Greek ideals. In the wake of this foundational argument, it has became something of a commonplace to identify in the heroic male nudes of Donatello, Michelangelo, and other early modern sculptors who were inspired by antique prototypes evidence for a humanistic turn in European civilization. Within the economy of this historical model the art of the Middle Ages typically serves as a way station between the cultural heights of antiquity and the Renaissance. In his magisterial study on the nude in Western art, Kenneth Clark argued that that medieval Christian asceticism “eradicated” the image of bodily beauty, with nudes typically associated with humiliation and torture. Accordingly, far from visualizing the best of human aspirations, the unclothed body in medieval art manifested the shame that was a consequence of the Fall of Man.

Recent research on the nude in art has reconsidered the assumptions underpinning this historical model. Creighton Gilbert, for one, questions the longstanding identification of the “Hercules” figure on Nicola Pisano's thirteenth-century pulpit in the Pisa baptistery, persuasively arguing that this figure is more appropriately identified as Judah. Whereas Vasari's model of cultural rebirth largely informed previous interpretations of this nude figure to be an antique hero, Gilbert argues that theological concerns largely informed Nicola Pisano's design of this figure, perhaps even superseding a desire for the revival of Classical sensibilities or the advancement of a proto-humanist agenda. Nor were all medieval nudes necessarily read through a strict moralizing lens. Sherry Lindquist points out that nudes in medieval art serviced a complex and nuanced set of needs. Representations of unclothed bodies could function as much more than vehicles for negative moralizing, for they could likewise serve to highlight various ideals, among others, sanctity and the beauty of creation.

In this chapter, I aim to expand upon the emergent discourse on medieval nudes by considering the case of monstrous bodies. In addition to typically being represented without clothing, images of monsters often relied upon the authority of antique models, whether directly or indirectly, in the articulation of their forms.