The Crucifix and the Art Gallery: An Odyssey from Religious Material Culture to Fine Art

This article focuses the epistemological processes through which a thirteenth-century Spanish Crucifix in less than pristine condition transformed from an obscure rural Catholic devotional into an art commodity and celebrated work of medieval art now exhibited at the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester (MAG) in Rochester, New York. By situating the Spanish Crucifix within the nascent art historical epistemology and museum movement in the late eighteenth to early twentieth century, this article offers a case study in how religious material culture becomes embedded in capitalistic systems as products or commodities, yet suggests the ways that critical religious studies approaches might enhance our understanding of religious material culture in fine arts museums.