Votive painting as a narrative about a miracle

Abstract

The article deals with votive paintings of the Alpine region. These attractive works of folk art (and the religious culture of the Catholic South of Europe as well) are observed from the point of view of their functional aims as testimonies of a miracle that happened in human life. Votive paintings are interesting first of all as visualized stories, therefore it’s worthy of representing the perspective of the comparison between their narrative strategies and the narrative strategy of folklore legends. The author notes that the inclusion of a special inscription in the first person is optional for the picture. Moreover, Italian masters often use only formal inscriptions; they try to translate their customer’s stories into a drawing completely. However, the examination of some examples which show a parallel transmission of the event via words and images demonstrates remarkable differences in narrative strategies. It is significant that the visualization of a miracle as a divine intervention into the circumstances of a person’s life is mostly a result of the traditional iconography scheme followed by the painter; while the words of the person participating in the event are primarily focused on the reality and tiny details of what happened.