Speaking Sculptures in Late Medieval Europe: A Silent Rhetoric

Speaking Sculptures in Late Medieval Europe explores medieval sculptors’ motif of the open mouth. The speech mode, as it is called in this book, is more than an illusionistic device or an affective ploy to foster the emotional response of the viewer. Here it is shown to have a deeper significance as an agent of engagement and persuasion. Through the evocation of sound, speaking sculptures fostered imaginatively an aural relationship between the sculpture and the viewer. Exploring a wide range of geographies, this work demonstrates that the speech mode in sculpture was not an isolated phenomenon but a familiar device in many areas of Late Gothic Europe. By highlighting 14th-, 15th- and early 16th-century examples, as well as key 13th-century precedents, Speaking Sculptures in Late Medieval Europe explores the uses and purposes of this silent rhetoric, and the agency it implies within the period eye and the period ear of pre-Reformation Catholic Europe.