Abject Eroticism in Northern Renaissance Art : The Witches and Femmes Fatales of Hans Baldung Grien

Hans Baldung Grien, the most famous apprentice and close friend of German artist Albrecht Dürer, was known for his unique and highly eroticised images of witches. In paintings and woodcut prints, he gave powerful visual expression to late medieval tropes and stereotypes, such as the poison maiden, venomous virgin, the Fall of Man, 'death and the maiden' and other motifs and eschatological themes, which mingled abject and erotic qualities in the female body.

Yvonne Owens reads these images against the humanist intellectual milieu of Renaissance Germany, showing how classical and medieval medicine and natural philosophy interpreted female anatomy as toxic, defective and dangerously beguiling. She reveals how Hans Baldung exploited this radical polarity to create moralising and titillating portrayals of how monstrous female sexuality victimised men and brought them low. Furthermore, these images issued from-and contributed to-the contemporary understanding of witchcraft as a heresy that stemmed from natural 'feminine defect,' a concept derived from Aristotle. Offering new and provocative interpretations of Hans Baldung's iconic witchcraft imagery, this book is essential reading for historians of art, culture and gender relations in the late medieval and early modern periods.

“This is an exceptional study. In the crowded field of witch research it stands out for many reasons; the breadth of material employed, the deep knowledge of primary and secondary sources, and the arrangement of an amazing wealth of scholarship around one artist, Hans Baldung Grien.” —Gerhild Scholz Williams, Washington University in St. Louis, USA

“The images alone would be enough to recommend Yvonne Owens's study of Hans Baldung Grien, famous for his fleshly images of witches ... Yet Owens's patient feminist analysis also shows how Grien exploited medical and philosophical notions of female anatomy as “toxic” and “dangerously beguiling” ... his woodcuts and paintings depicted how “a monstrous female sexuality victimized men and brought them low.”” —The Syllabus