Nordera, Marina. "Working or dancing: the iconography of the wise and foolish virgins (Low Countries, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries)."

Nordera, Marina. "Working or dancing: the iconography of the wise and foolish virgins (Low Countries, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries)." Clio. Women, Gender, History 46 (2017): 198-218.

URL (Open Access): https://www.cairn-int.info/journal-clio-women-gender-history-2017-2.htm
URL article in spanish (Open Access): https://www.cairn-mundo.info/revista-clio-femmes-genre-histoire-2017-2.htm
URL article in french (Open Access): https://www.cairn.info/revue-clio-femmes-genre-histoire-2017-2.htm


Abstract:
This article analyses some examples of the iconographic theme of the parable of the wise and foolish virgins in engravings produced between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the Low Countries. These cultural artefacts are the result of a complex cultural process of production and reception, and constitute a significant example of the implementation of a confessional moralizing discourse aiming for the transformation of the value system of an urban population characterized by significant changes in the economic and social structures of modernity, in which men and women were constantly negotiating their social relations and roles. The symbolic opposition between the positive image of working women and the negative image of dancing women that emerges from the analysis helps to clarify the complexity of the articulation between the social representations of dance and gender that this opposition implies and produces.