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DOI Artikel:Kusters, Liesbet; Sidgwick, Emma: A motif and its basal layer: the Haemorrhoissa (Mark 5.24-34) and the interplay of iconological and anthropological research
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31179#0149
for instance, a historical-anthropological concept
of the body as medium and the medium in which
the image is incarnated. This shift of emphasis also
déniés the viewer any illusion of mastery; s/he is
ky images^ Developing this line of thought
further: the triadic relationship within which images
are situated, is performative, "rcality-constituting";
it is, after ail, as performadve acts that observations
contribute to a In brief, these cor-
rections relate to the image as an anthropological
given. More specihcally, to the question: in what way
is an image a And, given this
question, also to the locus where the image arises,
and continues to arise (Wf ytyzA: the human body
as "Or/ <f<?r BÀkA", as the place where the interior
images are stored and in which the external image
is incarnated again.
Porous Boundaries between Iconology
and Anthropology
What can (historical) anthropology in its turn
receive from "images"? Even though we read and
expérience images in a performative manner (draw-
ing on our own store of interior images), we should
not understand this as a reductionist impasse: we can
still approach and understand images as
reality-ro^r//A/b?g within a given cultural-historical
contextd What is certain is that images, precisely
through their constituting character, cannot be divid-
ed without remainder: they add themselves, so that
in their "imageness" ("B/AkbMi'Â") they always retain
something impénétrable. We are constantly thrown
back upon their "imageness". If we might, in light
of the aforesaid, nevertheless still risk a Statement
'' See too DIDI-HUBERMAN, G.: AAygř. Paris 1990;
DIDI-HUBERMAN, G.: (b ryyorr, y%7 rcwr ngwÆ
Paris 1992.
WULF, C. — Z1RFAS, J.: Bild, Wahrnehmung und Phantasie.
Performative Zusammenhänge, ln: WULF, C. - ZIREAS, J.
(eds.): LOro/cgb ArPřybrwď/Ařr. München 2005, p. 15.
s See for instance WULF - ZIRFAS 2005 (see in note 7), p.
15; VANDENBROECK, P. (ed.):
DřwAor M MřrPřbr. Tielt 2009.
WULF, C.: Zur Performativität von Bild und Imagination. In:
WULF — ZIRFAS 2005 (see note 7), p. 37 (after René Char).
with ontological implications: they operáte as an
osmotic membrane between this world and another,
between what we can "read" ("grasp") and a gwňA
(that "grasps" us). They extend the boundary of this
"world". But this "extension" is not arbitrary: "DP?
BÁkA 77TP/ What
images articulate can therefore also be fruitful for
an anthropological reading, and so again charge an
iconological study.
Whenever we deal with images, iconology and
anthropology can inform one another in a sériés
of cross-overs and cross-fertilisations. Perhaps the
dynamic is one of hopping back and forth between
these two disciplines, which were once so rigidly de-
marcated and now condnually ftow into one another.
In this essay, we will make no attempt to généralisé
about how "anthropology" and "iconology" can or
should inform one another - we hâve no desire to
give hxed form to something we expérience as only
delimited by porous boundaries.
What we will do in this essay is to give a concrète
example of how this synergy can be harnessed in
relation to the motif of the Haemorrhoissa, the
Woman with an Issue of Blood, which is to be found
in texts and images from the early Christian period
onwards. What fruits can this methodological cross-
fertilisation come to bear? We will hrst — keeping in
mind the porous boundaries — put forward an icono-
logical reading and an anthropological reading, and
then trace their interconnections and exchanges.
Text-Image Transposition
The curing of the Haemorrhoissa has a special
place among the biblical miracles and curesA Mark
The Haemorrhoissa is discussed in the following exegetic
and bible historical studies: D'ANGELO, M. R.: Gender and
Power in the Gospel of Mark. The Daughter of jairus and the
Woman with the Flow of Blood. In: CAVADINI, J. C. (ed.):
MmAv A AAA CZAiAá%H/2Ay%ýy. Zwygbhpg Twk (—Notre
Dame Studies in Theology, 3). Notre Dame 1999, pp. 83-109;
FONROBERT, C.: The Woman with a Blood-Flow (Mark
5.24-34) Revisited. Menstrual Laws and jewish Culture in
Christian Feminist Flermeneuhcs. In: EVANS, C. A. - SAND-
ERS, J. A. (eds.): of /A 3byp7%7*&f
cf Lv^Z Propor^A (—JSNTS, 148 - Studies
in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity, 5). Sheffield
1997, pp. 121-140; HABER, S.: A Woman's Touch. Feminist
Encounters with the Hemorrhaging Woman in Mark 5.24-34.
145
of the body as medium and the medium in which
the image is incarnated. This shift of emphasis also
déniés the viewer any illusion of mastery; s/he is
ky images^ Developing this line of thought
further: the triadic relationship within which images
are situated, is performative, "rcality-constituting";
it is, after ail, as performadve acts that observations
contribute to a In brief, these cor-
rections relate to the image as an anthropological
given. More specihcally, to the question: in what way
is an image a And, given this
question, also to the locus where the image arises,
and continues to arise (Wf ytyzA: the human body
as "Or/ <f<?r BÀkA", as the place where the interior
images are stored and in which the external image
is incarnated again.
Porous Boundaries between Iconology
and Anthropology
What can (historical) anthropology in its turn
receive from "images"? Even though we read and
expérience images in a performative manner (draw-
ing on our own store of interior images), we should
not understand this as a reductionist impasse: we can
still approach and understand images as
reality-ro^r//A/b?g within a given cultural-historical
contextd What is certain is that images, precisely
through their constituting character, cannot be divid-
ed without remainder: they add themselves, so that
in their "imageness" ("B/AkbMi'Â") they always retain
something impénétrable. We are constantly thrown
back upon their "imageness". If we might, in light
of the aforesaid, nevertheless still risk a Statement
'' See too DIDI-HUBERMAN, G.: AAygř. Paris 1990;
DIDI-HUBERMAN, G.: (b ryyorr, y%7 rcwr ngwÆ
Paris 1992.
WULF, C. — Z1RFAS, J.: Bild, Wahrnehmung und Phantasie.
Performative Zusammenhänge, ln: WULF, C. - ZIREAS, J.
(eds.): LOro/cgb ArPřybrwď/Ařr. München 2005, p. 15.
s See for instance WULF - ZIRFAS 2005 (see in note 7), p.
15; VANDENBROECK, P. (ed.):
DřwAor M MřrPřbr. Tielt 2009.
WULF, C.: Zur Performativität von Bild und Imagination. In:
WULF — ZIRFAS 2005 (see note 7), p. 37 (after René Char).
with ontological implications: they operáte as an
osmotic membrane between this world and another,
between what we can "read" ("grasp") and a gwňA
(that "grasps" us). They extend the boundary of this
"world". But this "extension" is not arbitrary: "DP?
BÁkA 77TP/ What
images articulate can therefore also be fruitful for
an anthropological reading, and so again charge an
iconological study.
Whenever we deal with images, iconology and
anthropology can inform one another in a sériés
of cross-overs and cross-fertilisations. Perhaps the
dynamic is one of hopping back and forth between
these two disciplines, which were once so rigidly de-
marcated and now condnually ftow into one another.
In this essay, we will make no attempt to généralisé
about how "anthropology" and "iconology" can or
should inform one another - we hâve no desire to
give hxed form to something we expérience as only
delimited by porous boundaries.
What we will do in this essay is to give a concrète
example of how this synergy can be harnessed in
relation to the motif of the Haemorrhoissa, the
Woman with an Issue of Blood, which is to be found
in texts and images from the early Christian period
onwards. What fruits can this methodological cross-
fertilisation come to bear? We will hrst — keeping in
mind the porous boundaries — put forward an icono-
logical reading and an anthropological reading, and
then trace their interconnections and exchanges.
Text-Image Transposition
The curing of the Haemorrhoissa has a special
place among the biblical miracles and curesA Mark
The Haemorrhoissa is discussed in the following exegetic
and bible historical studies: D'ANGELO, M. R.: Gender and
Power in the Gospel of Mark. The Daughter of jairus and the
Woman with the Flow of Blood. In: CAVADINI, J. C. (ed.):
MmAv A AAA CZAiAá%H/2Ay%ýy. Zwygbhpg Twk (—Notre
Dame Studies in Theology, 3). Notre Dame 1999, pp. 83-109;
FONROBERT, C.: The Woman with a Blood-Flow (Mark
5.24-34) Revisited. Menstrual Laws and jewish Culture in
Christian Feminist Flermeneuhcs. In: EVANS, C. A. - SAND-
ERS, J. A. (eds.): of /A 3byp7%7*&f
cf Lv^Z Propor^A (—JSNTS, 148 - Studies
in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity, 5). Sheffield
1997, pp. 121-140; HABER, S.: A Woman's Touch. Feminist
Encounters with the Hemorrhaging Woman in Mark 5.24-34.
145