Troublemaker. Sinner. Rebel. Pagan. Jew. Heretic. Infidel. These were among the most common terms early Christian writers used to characterize Abraham's slave and concubine Hagar. Mentioned only briefly in the Old Testament, the lowly maidservant was conventionally cast as a villainess, reflecting the patriarchal biases and prejudices of the bible and its interpreters. Paul's allegorical reading of Hagar in Galatians 4-Hagar as a kind of enemy of the Christian Church-assured her ignominy. Hagar's tale is among the more disturbing, complex accounts of a female figure in the Old Testament, a tragic tale of servitude and heir-making surrogacy, followed by expulsion and exile. Sellin looks at Dutch painting to recover Hagar's reputation. Hagar was a major preoccupation in the seventeenth-century Dutch Golden Age, as the many versions of her story in literature and art demonstrate. She is treated with an unprecedented degree of sympathy, mercy, and dignity. The Dutch transformed the outcast into a symbol of redemption and a model of maternity. Hagar's story was interpreted as a didactic domestic drama, touching on topics such as family break-ups, extramarital sex, rivalry between women over men, sibling rivalry, and struggles between husbands and wives and masters and servants. Hagar's story fired the imagination because it offered Dutch artists the equivalent of a modern soap opera. But it also revealed what mattered most to the Dutch and perhaps lay at the heart of the fledgling Republic's success and survival. This included the primacy of the family, an emphasis on domestic well being, and the maintenance of ideal civic order. The paintings reflect that the Dutch developed a tenderness, understanding, and compassion for Hagar that the world had never seen before. Exile in scripture, cast off by Paul, Hagar found refuge among the burghers of the Dutch Republic and given pride of place on the walls of their homes.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Christine Sellin has had the privilege to delve into the question of Hagar to give us a rich picture of the manifold interpretations and the freedoms of the artists. This expands our knowledge of exegetical history greatly. We need more such studies on other biblical themes." --Christian Tümpel, emeritus Radboud University of Nijmegen, author of Rembrandt. All paintings in colour (Christian Trumpel )
"Christine Sellin's insightful study of Hagar's unexpectedly extensive career in seventeenth-century Dutch paintings and engravings reveals detailed interactions between biblical interpretation, preaching, pastoral care, household relations, political identity -- and art. Whether depicted as villainess or victim, Hagar was a surprisingly powerful magnet for the attention of Dutch culture for a time, becoming not only an academic subject for scholars and artists but a living (and marketable) symbol in the popular Christian imagination. Sellin's readable and interdisciplinary introduction to this little-known episode in the history of art ratifies and deepens the revival of interest in Hagar and other biblical women in our own day, even as Hagar emerges from the past as a sympathetic if ambiguous figure in whom men and women of a century long gone found their own lives illumined and reflected." --John L. Thompson
Professor of Historical Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, and author of Writing the Wrongs:
Women of the Old Testament among Biblical Commentators from Philo through the Reformation (John L. Thompson )
"At last a book that takes seriously one of the best represented themes from the Old Testament to be found in Dutch art. Sellin shows in meticulous detail just why the Dutch were fascinated by the story of Hagar and disentangles the rich strands of meaning entering the story. This is social art history at its best." --David Kunzle, Distinguished Professor of Art History, UCLA (David Kunzle )
"Christine Sellin has had the privilege to delve into the question of Hagar to give us a rich picture of the manifold interpretations and the freedoms of the artists. This expands our knowledge of exegetical history greatly. We need more such studies on other biblical themes." --Christian Tümpel, emeritus Radboud University of Nijmegen, author of Rembrandt. All paintings in colour (, )
"Christine Sellin's insightful study of Hagar’s unexpectedly extensive career in seventeenth-century Dutch paintings and engravings reveals detailed interactions between biblical interpretation, preaching, pastoral care, household relations, political identity -- and art. Whether depicted as villainess or victim, Hagar was a surprisingly powerful magnet for the attention of Dutch culture for a time, becoming not only an academic subject for scholars and artists but a living (and marketable) symbol in the popular Christian imagination. Sellin’s readable and interdisciplinary introduction to this little-known episode in the history of art ratifies and deepens the revival of interest in Hagar and other biblical women in our own day, even as Hagar emerges from the past as a sympathetic if ambiguous figure in whom men and women of a century long gone found their own lives illumined and reflected." --John L. Thompson
Professor of Historical Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, and author of Writing the Wrongs:
Women of the Old Testament among Biblical Commentators from Philo through the Reformation (, )
"At last a book that takes seriously one of the best represented themes from the Old Testament to be found in Dutch art. Sellin shows in meticulous detail just why the Dutch were fascinated by the story of Hagar and disentangles the rich strands of meaning entering the story. This is social art history at its best." –David Kunzle, Distinguished Professor of Art History, UCLA (, ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
"Christine Sellin's insightful study of Hagar's unexpectedly extensive career in seventeenth-century Dutch paintings and engravings reveals detailed interactions between biblical interpretation, preaching, pastoral care, household relations, political identity -- and art. Whether depicted as villainess or victim, Hagar was a surprisingly powerful magnet for the attention of Dutch culture for a time, becoming not only an academic subject for scholars and artists but a living (and marketable) symbol in the popular Christian imagination. Sellin's readable and interdisciplinary introduction to this little-known episode in the history of art ratifies and deepens the revival of interest in Hagar and other biblical women in our own day, even as Hagar emerges from the past as a sympathetic if ambiguous figure in whom men and women of a century long gone found their own lives illumined and reflected." --John L. Thompson
Professor of Historical Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, and author of Writing the Wrongs:
Women of the Old Testament among Biblical Commentators from Philo through the Reformation (John L. Thompson )
"At last a book that takes seriously one of the best represented themes from the Old Testament to be found in Dutch art. Sellin shows in meticulous detail just why the Dutch were fascinated by the story of Hagar and disentangles the rich strands of meaning entering the story. This is social art history at its best." --David Kunzle, Distinguished Professor of Art History, UCLA (David Kunzle )
"Christine Sellin has had the privilege to delve into the question of Hagar to give us a rich picture of the manifold interpretations and the freedoms of the artists. This expands our knowledge of exegetical history greatly. We need more such studies on other biblical themes." --Christian Tümpel, emeritus Radboud University of Nijmegen, author of Rembrandt. All paintings in colour (, )
"Christine Sellin's insightful study of Hagar’s unexpectedly extensive career in seventeenth-century Dutch paintings and engravings reveals detailed interactions between biblical interpretation, preaching, pastoral care, household relations, political identity -- and art. Whether depicted as villainess or victim, Hagar was a surprisingly powerful magnet for the attention of Dutch culture for a time, becoming not only an academic subject for scholars and artists but a living (and marketable) symbol in the popular Christian imagination. Sellin’s readable and interdisciplinary introduction to this little-known episode in the history of art ratifies and deepens the revival of interest in Hagar and other biblical women in our own day, even as Hagar emerges from the past as a sympathetic if ambiguous figure in whom men and women of a century long gone found their own lives illumined and reflected." --John L. Thompson
Professor of Historical Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, and author of Writing the Wrongs:
Women of the Old Testament among Biblical Commentators from Philo through the Reformation (, )
"At last a book that takes seriously one of the best represented themes from the Old Testament to be found in Dutch art. Sellin shows in meticulous detail just why the Dutch were fascinated by the story of Hagar and disentangles the rich strands of meaning entering the story. This is social art history at its best." –David Kunzle, Distinguished Professor of Art History, UCLA (, ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
About the Author
Christine Sellin is Assistant Professor of Art History and Director of the Art History Program, Woodbury University, Burbank, California.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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