Presenting the Law: Text and Imagery on Dutch Ten Commandments Panels

Many Dutch Calvinist churches house a Ten Commandments panel, installed in the late sixteenth or seventeenth century as part of the Reformed adaptation of the medievalCatholic church interior. In this article, the characteristic design of Ten Commandments panelsis analyzed as a form of Calvinist visual culture. It suggests that these panels were primarilymade to be viewed rather than thoroughly read. The remarkably figurative Moses imagery onpanels points at a divergence between the rigid Reformed theological image prohibition andthe practice of the adaptation of the church interior. The place... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Wubs, Jacolien
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
Verlag/Hrsg.: Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Schlagwörter: Ten Commandments panels / Reformed visual culture / church interior
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-26663457
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
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Link(s) : https://er.ceres.rub.de/index.php/ER/article/view/7263

Many Dutch Calvinist churches house a Ten Commandments panel, installed in the late sixteenth or seventeenth century as part of the Reformed adaptation of the medievalCatholic church interior. In this article, the characteristic design of Ten Commandments panelsis analyzed as a form of Calvinist visual culture. It suggests that these panels were primarilymade to be viewed rather than thoroughly read. The remarkably figurative Moses imagery onpanels points at a divergence between the rigid Reformed theological image prohibition andthe practice of the adaptation of the church interior. The placement of Ten Commandmentspanels in the Reformed church interior highlights their symbolic value: It signified the needfor self-examination of the participants in the Lord’s Supper. The original spatial setting of Ten Commandments panels also shows how the newly Reformed furnishing and use of church spacewas rooted in its late medieval Catholic past.