Barbarians within and without: The visual construction of alterity in early modern Europe

The dissertation studies the visual construction of outsider and socially marginalized groups in early modern European art, with an emphasis on prints and book illustrations. It shows that a similar iconography and strategy of representation were used for groups of Others as diverse as Native Americans, Jews, and suspected witches, as well as copiously in religious and political propaganda. This iconography sometimes simply represented Otherness in general, rather than being strictly related to a particular group. Typical themes and motifs (including cannibalism, scatology, impiety, lechery, and gender inversion) used for marginalized groups are studied in terms of their ability to signify Otherness. Various artists' strategies for conveying outsider status are considered, and the image of the Native Americans and its rapid evolution after contact is used as a case study in the use of alterity to construct a negative identity. Sections are also devoted to the hostile portrayals of suspected witches, Jews, religious Others, the peasantry, and Ottoman Turks. The dissertation also considers potentially positive constructions of outsider groups; dubbed the "other" Other, these served as a means of escapist fantasy and social critique. The image of the American Indians in Dutch art especially from the 1590s through 1620s is reconsidered in this context, and sympathetic portrayals of the natives as victims of Spanish oppression are studied. The image of native suffering was appropriated as a form of anti-Spanish propaganda, paralleling and reinforcing the Black Legend of Spanish atrocities in the Low Countries. The image of Spain disseminated by rivals especially in the Netherlands and England is reveals that the same tactics, themes, and motifs were used to visually construct a negative identity for the Spanish.