Jewish and Muslim symbols were deliberately conflated in Renaissance painting

Evidence

Both Jews and Muslims appeared as dog-headed men in a number of medieval texts and paintings that identified them as monsters associated with the devil. The association of dogs with Jews continues to the modern period; and while I do not provide a complete anthropology here, I would like to point to the importance of this particular anti-Semitic hate sign, which contributes to, and is supported by, Muslim dog-headed monsters. The association of dogs with Satan informs this relationship: The dog was interpreted as a manifestation of the Devil, especially in medieval times. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 226 (#expands, via linked claim)

Frederick Quinn makes the following observation concerning the depiction of Muslim women in many French Orientalist paintings: “A turn of an arm or of the head or a bit of curving flesh became sexually suggestive, representing the permissive East, a theme never far below the surface in such works. Languid women with fetching smiles, their nipples covered with see-through gauze, sans pubic hair, and reclining in inviting positions on comfortable divans became staples of the Orientalist artistic repertoire.” Quinn and other scholars today recognize that many Orientalist depictions of Muslim women reveal more about the European male imagination and its particular erotic and sexual desires than about the complex circumstances under which women in the Middle East or North Africa lived. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 199 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Medieval writers represented Jewish and Muslim bodies as jointly diseased and degenerate; Medieval art and text conflated Jews and Muslims into a single Saracen body; Bestiaries transferred Jewish monstrous symbols onto Muslim characters (+5 more)

Related

• Bestiaries transferred Jewish monstrous symbols onto Muslim characters (similarity 0.89)
• Medieval art and text conflated Jews and Muslims into a single Saracen body (similarity 0.87)
• Medieval writers represented Jewish and Muslim bodies as jointly diseased and degenerate (similarity 0.86)
• Fantasy tropes shaped how Orientalism constructed Jewish and Muslim men (similarity 0.84)
• Dog-headed men served medieval art as both Jew and Muslim monsters of evil (similarity 0.84)
• Jews and Muslims shared a canine monstrous identity in medieval literature (similarity 0.83)
• Renaissance art visually conflated Jews and Muslims into one enemy category (similarity 0.83)
• Orientalist paintings of Muslim women reveal European male fantasy more than real conditions. (similarity 0.81)
• Jews and Muslims shared the dog-headed monster linked to the devil in Christendom (similarity 0.80)
• The dark-skinned Muslim monster persisted from medieval iconography into American imaginations (similarity 0.79)
• Renaissance artists represented Jews with Muslim dress to create a shared Jewish-Muslim monster. (similarity 0.79)
• Medieval passion plays made Muhammad the god of Christ’s Jewish and Roman tormentors (similarity 0.79)
• Medieval bestiaries transferred Jewish animal-symbols onto Muslims as dog-headed monsters (similarity 0.79)
• Bestiaries cast both Jews and Muslims as dogs and dog-headed men (similarity 0.79)
• Muslim monsters were depicted as cannibals who ate their enemies. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Dog-headed men served medieval art as both Jew and Muslim monsters of evil #complicates (0.70)
• Jews and Muslims shared a canine monstrous identity in medieval literature #expands (0.60) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 226
• Orientalist paintings of Muslim women reveal European male fantasy more than real conditions. #expands (0.50) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 199