VIOLENCE THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH RELIGION

GLORIFYING BRUTALITY
 PRECEDES THOSE WARS

Duels and the glorification of valor
appear decades before they break out 

• Twelve hundred young noblemen fight for fun,
with dead and wounded.

( in 1521)

-- Francis I by R. Knecht, 1994 (in French)

• Sadistic art appears then too:

Medieval painting can be violent...

Martyrdom of Saint Denis by Henri Bellechose, toward 1400, Louvre

...but it does not linger
over details like this  

 Ceramic (detail),  Renaissance Museum  / Claude Abron

Until about the year 1000 European economies are stable. The first mass movements are the Crusades, which coincide with the loss of land, social ties and ancestral beliefs that come with growth.

-- The pursuit of the millenium by Norman Cohn, 1957,

a classic

• But by the 16th century violence fascinates:
At the Renaissance Museum the theme is constant

-- Though it is not present in the choice of works presented on the web.

Claude Abron

•  A massacre of Protestants is this painting's title,
but the real subject is horror 

The massacres of the triumvirs by Antoine Caron, 1566, Louvre

Glorifying the killers by Roman dress makes the glacial scene still more nightmarish.  

The wars result from a violence
that religion justifies and worsens,
but does not cause.  

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Why hate Protestants?