THE VISUAL IMAGE OF THE OTHER IN MEDIEVAL URBAN SPACE: PATTERNS AND CONSTRUCTION
Gerhard Jaritz (Krems/Budapest)
To recognize and to be recognized may be seen as one of the main criteria of medieval culture and communication. This holds particularly true with regard to the perception and construction of signs of social equality and differences, of oneself and others, with the help of outer appearance. Dress, accessories, gestures, and so on, that is, generally all kinds and aspects of the language of material signs and its dialects made the creation and utilization of identification marks possible.
The pictures of the late Middle Ages especially, which were often produced in and for urban space, allow the recognition and discussion of the representation of such visual signs and means of social identification of the members of diverse groups of medieval society. There, the well-known matters of contrast were used regularly. The difference and opposition of acceptance and rejection, of integration and segregation, of positive and negative, of the good and the bad played an important role.
Material patterns were created that often could be generally applied for such categorization. These were clearly more relevant than any type of individual identification, which one may regularly find in the written text that was used as the basis for the visual representation.
Identification through images meant for general categorization was made possible and done through the representation of specific objects of outer appearance, with color and shape, with the opposition of light and dark, with orientalization or its imagination, with body language and gesture, and so on. In this way, an idealized knowledge about oneself and the other was created and intensified; this made it possible to evaluate, to connote, and to recognize cases that made necessary the identification of others and of the members of one's own group.