Neither god nor man

Focusing on a widely-circulated medieval distich, Neither God nor Man demonstrates the importance of picture captions as a „Quelle der Kunst“. The book examines the historical circumstances that engendered the couplet, the theological issues the verses attempted to resolve, and processes of transmission and reformulation; and it concludes that reciprocity between words and images was itself integral to the conception and reception of diverse works of medieval art. Indeed, by subverting any pretence that material images are representations of the Divine, the complex interplay set in motion between the words and the depictions they accompany not only reflected a persistent anxiety about art during the Middle Ages but also worked to deflect it.