Parody and Festivity in Early Modern Art

Dwelling on the interconnections between parody and festivity as forms of inversion, the essays in this volume delve into the nature and the meanings of festive laughter as depicted in early modern art. Chapters deal most often with Northern Renaissance and Baroque art; themes include grobianism and the grotesque, scatology, popular proverbs with ironic twists, and a wide range of comic reversals, many hinging on ideas of the world upside down.