Great Black Goats and Evil Little Women: The Image of the Witch in Sixteenth-Century German Aart

Authors

Jane P. Davidson, University of Nevado-Reno

Publication Date

1985

Keywords

witch imagery, German Renaissance art, humanism

Abstract

Witch imagery in German Renaissance art may strike the modern observer as something incongruous in an age noted for interest in humanism, reformation, science, appreciation of beauty and the like. Nonetheless, it existed. Further, we find a number of prominent German artists who depicted witches. The operative point here is probably an interest in realism. Renaissance artists, north and south, were preoccupied with reality. Too this end, their art stressed optical accuracy, factual anatomy, convincing natural details and so on.

Recommended Citation

Davidson, Jane P. (1985) "Great Black Goats and Evil Little Women: The Image of the Witch in Sixteenth-Century German Aart," Quidditas: Vol. 6, Article 11.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/rmmra/vol6/iss1/11