Framing the Law: Joos de Damhouder and the Legal Iconology of the Grotesque

This paper considers legal aspects of grotesque imagery in Northern Mannerism by examining the illustrations in Joos de Damhouder’s "Praxis Rerum Criminalium" from 1554. The Bruges jurist advocated for the disciplinary control of the community through the exercise of criminal law, which would deter the public from future deviance. The intended fear of punishment is not so much demonstrated but enforced through the accompanying images, which show scenes of crime and criminal procedure framed by haunting grotesque settings. Popularised in Italy, the grotesque in the Low Countries developed distinctly individual forms and connotations. Rather than embodying creativity or aesthetic refinement, ornamental prints reveal intensely phobic qualities. I argue that the ambivalent characteristics of "furore" and "terribilità," attributed to grotesques by art theory, appeal to a general sense of crisis that also permeated political discourse. Seeking to contain the upheavals of the time, theorists envisioned fear as the emotional basis and primary tool of power. Wrapped in grotesque armour, the Sovereign issued law by playing on the same politics of affect. Such images, both printed and on armour, acted on specific aesthetic sensibilities and political strategies laid out by contemporary thought. They transcend the pure logics of legal reasoning and pinpoint the irrational infrastructure of law. The grotesque does not elicit rational judgment, but, on the contrary, imposes on the beholder physically. Framing the law, the iconology of the grotesque thus sheds a different light on the visual culture of law and the constitution of normativity in the sixteenth century.