Presenting the Law: Text and Imagery on Dutch Ten Commandments Panels

Many Dutch Calvinist churches house a Ten Commandments panel, installed in the late sixteenth or seventeenth century as part of the Reformed adaptation of the medieval Catholic church interior. In this article, the characteristic design of Ten Commandments panels is analyzed as a form of Calvinist v...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Entangled Religions
Main Author: Wubs, Jacolien (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Ruhr-Universität Bochum [2018]
In: Entangled Religions
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Netherlands / Calvinism / Church building / Interior space (motif) / Paneel / Decalog
RelBib Classification:CE Christian art
KBD Benelux countries
KDD Protestant Church
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Description
Summary:Many Dutch Calvinist churches house a Ten Commandments panel, installed in the late sixteenth or seventeenth century as part of the Reformed adaptation of the medieval Catholic church interior. In this article, the characteristic design of Ten Commandments panels is analyzed as a form of Calvinist visual culture. It suggests that these panels were primarilymade to be viewed rather than thoroughly read. The remarkably figurative Moses imagery on panels points at a divergence between the rigid Reformed theological image prohibition and the practice of the adaptation of the church interior. The placement of Ten Commandments panels in the Reformed church interior highlights their symbolic value: It signified the need for self-examination of the participants in the Lord's Supper. The original spatial setting of Ten Commandments panels also shows how the newly Reformed furnishing and use of church space was rooted in its late medieval Catholic past.
ISSN:2363-6696
Contains:Enthalten in: Entangled Religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.13154/er.v7.2018.78-108