At Kalamazoo last week we had a speaker discussing the forms of turbans depicted in Flemish 15th c. art. We're continuing discussions on that topic with an eye to publishing that paper, and the question has come up about previously published work on this topic. I've seen at least one article by Charlotte Jirousek and the presenter found another by Charles Cutler, but otherwise sources are elusive. However, it seems to be a truism that artists of this time used the turban as an "historicizing" symbol for various saints and other personages. That understanding had to have come from somewhere, and I can't imagine no one has written on it.
This is complicated by the fact that the presenter is a professor of English, not art history. That's the nature of costume history -- the topics tend to cross disciplinary lines, and it can be hard to find things in another discipline's literature. To make very clear: I'm not looking for images of turbans (the presenter has bucketsful of these!), or comments about turbans, or reconstructions of turbans, or websites on turbans. And we're not looking for information on turban-wearing cultures. We're looking for citations of academic books or articles that address the use of turbans in 15th c. Flemish art, for purposes of citation in another academic article. Related: Does anyone have a copy of Outcasts: Signs of Otherness in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages, by Ruth Mellinkoff? I don't have it, but if I did, that's where I'd start looking both for references to turbans and for footnotes thereon. If anyone has it to hand, can you let me know if there's any turban content and/or related footnotes? I don't need the text; I just want to know whether it's worth referring the presenter to this book. Thanks in advance, Robin _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
