Author(s): Kunstmuseum Bern

Photography

Pride, greed, jealousy, anger, lust, gluttony, sloth: ever since the sixth century A.D., when Pope Gregory designated these vices the seven deadly sins, they have served as a kind of moral index for the Christian world. Many people have attempted to avoid sullying themselves with the sins, while others have indulged to the fullest. Artists, too, from the Middle Ages to the present day, have engaged with this most-wanted list of wrongdoing in a variety of ways, and "Lust and Vice" brings together, in 288 color reproductions, some of the most outstanding and memorable treatments this litany of offenses has ever elicited. Contributions include the allegories of Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Breughel the Elder, the genre paintings of the Netherlandish artists, and twentieth-century artists such as James Ensor, Alfred Kubin, Marc Chagall and Otto Dix, up through the contemporary imaginings of Bruce Nauman, Cindy Sherman and Jeff Koons. The volume also features texts by Fabienne Eggelhofer, Christine Gottler, Claudine Metzger, Monique Meyer and Barbara Muller, which recount the allure of the taboo, the longing for boundaries and our ambivalent attitude toward the very idea of sin.