Margaret R Miles A Complex Delight sku-6453639 Hardcover

A Complex Delight: The Secularization of the Breast, 1350 to 1750 is a hardcover Christian Books & Bibles title by Margaret R Miles (Edition 1; sku-6453639). Miles examines paintings and sculptures from the fourteenth through the eighteenth centuries to trace the changing symbolism of the female breast in Western Europe.

In 1350, the Virgin's bare breast represented nourishment and God's loving care for Christians. By 1750, artistic depictions were erotic or medical rather than religious. The book examines the social, cultural and religious circumstances of that change, along with power in early modern Western Europe, changes in women's lives, art's role in religious meaning and modern Christianity's attitudes toward bodies.