Hierarchical cosmos and social structures result in hierarchical (superior/inferior) sense of self.

soul (spiritual) -- superior

body (sensual) -- inferior

 

man -- superior

woman-- inferior

This tendency to see everything in terms of superior/inferior relationships intensifies the inequality between man and wife. Anti-feminist sentiment is at its highest during the Middle Ages.

The idea that the body is inferior is reflected in sculpture and painting. The denial of the flesh in painting persists in the Middle Ages until the work of Giotto.

The Metropolitan Museum of New York, Medieval Collection

• France, Chartres
• France, Chartres, c. 1150
• France, Moissac, c. 1120
• France, Autun, 1120-1132
• Example of Byzantine painting
• Cione
• Cimabue, c. 1280
• Giotto, c. 1295-1300 "St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata"
• Daddi, Madonna
• Daddi, Annunciation, c. 1335
• Fra Angelico, "The Martyr of the Saints Cosme and Damien," 1438 and 1443
• St. John the Baptist
• Duccio de Buoninsegna, Opera del Duomo, Sienna
• Duccio de Buoninsegna,Triptych: The Virgin and Child . . .
• Follower of Duccio, The Virgin and Child . . .
• Detail of Annunciation of Two Saints, 1333, Simone Marini and Lippo Memmi
• Giusto de' Menabuoi, Triptych: The Coronation of the Virgin
• Giotto, Madonna Enthroned, Uffizi, Florence, c. 1311
• Detail of Lamentation, Giotto, Scrogni Chapel, Padua, c. 1306
• Ascribed to Giotto, Pentecost
• Ugolino de Nerio, The Ascent to Calvary
• Ugolino de Nerio, The Deposition

   Images from the Cluny museum in Paris; the cluny was a medieval monastery.

• Lady and the Unicorn tapestry, the lady with the mirror
• Lady and the Unicorn, the lady with a jewel box
• Lady and the Unicorn, the lady with a bird
  

Compare Medieval painting to Renaissance painting. In the Renaissance (14th century in Italy) the body was celebrated, not denied.