Drawing Distinctions. Bernard Picart’s “Tableau des principales religions du monde” (1727)
Paola von Wyss-Giacosa
Gotha Research Centre
26 May 2025, 11.00-13.30
University of Florence, SAGAS Department, Via San Gallo 10, Aula Parva
Mediterranean Emotions – A Global Research Hotspot
Seminar Series “Emotional Grammars of Globalization”
GMeet Link: https://meet.google.com/kgu-twby-vyn
Abstract
This seminar will focus on the Tableau des principales religions du monde, a large engraving designed and executed by the renowned French illustrator Bernard Picart and introduced to the public in 1727 as frontispiece for the Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde (Amsterdam, 1723-1737). Picart was responsible for the pictorial conception and execution of the seven in-folio volumes. He was personally involved in and knowledgeable about religious debates of his time. His frontispiece, as I argue, was not merely a visual prelude, nor was it just a gripping synthesis of the Cérémonies volumes’ argument. The elaborate sheet, featuring “the main religions of the world,” was quite deliberately composed in the manner of a tableau vivant and is a noteworthy visual source for the study of emotions history: Its conception was theatrical, and no doubt meant to be affectively engaging, with personifications of religious views and historical figures seemingly taking the stage to defend their position, displaying a wide range of emotional reactions, facial expressions and gestures as well as intriguing iconological references. We will discuss how Picart intended to challenge his viewers, both intellectually and emotionally, through this highly sophisticated composition. What he created was a crucial discursive pendant to his pictorial scholarship on ceremonial action, a dense image offering a visual space for public reflection and dialogue on religion(s).
Speaker’s Bio
Paola von Wyss-Giacosa is member of the Gotha Research Centre and of the international research group Media and Religion. She is one of the editors of the Brepols series Histories in Motion and of the journal Cromohs. Her research interests include the early modern discourse on religion and idolatry, antiquarianism and visual culture. She is author of Religionsbilder der frühen Aufklärung: Bernard Picarts Bildtafeln für die ‘Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde’ (2006). Among her edited volumes are Understanding Jesus in the Early Modern Period and Beyond. Across Text and Other Media (2019, with C. Facchini), Through Your Eyes: Religious Alterity and the Early Modern Western Imagination (2021, with G. Tarantino) and Visual Reflections across the Mediterranean Sea (2023, with N. Fritz).
Bernard Picart, frontispiece for the Dutch edition of Cérémonies, engraving (details), in Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples d monde, Amsterdam, 1727. Zentralbibliothek, Zürich, Q 35. © Courtesy Zentralbibliothek.
This seminar is supported by PRIN 2020 ETFH3Y (EURIMPER, University of Florence node), financed by the Ministry of University and Research, Italy
Ultimo aggiornamento
19.12.2025