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Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface.
We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface.
We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
793 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 16, 2012
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About the author
Émile Mâle
131 books7 followersÉmile Mâle was a French art historian, one of the first to study medieval, mostly sacral French art and the influence of Eastern European iconography thereon. He was a member of the Académie française, and a director of the Académie de France à Rome.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 1, 2020
Un clásico sobre la Historia del Arte Medieval. Algunas de las ideas que propone están ya superadas del todo, pero aún así es una buena lectura, amena e interesante.
August 31, 2018
In this classic volume Emile Male presents a dazzling overview of the lifeworld of the High Middle Ages that gave rise to one of the principle artistic and spiritual expressions of medieval Christendom - the great Gothic cathedrals. It is easy to see why this masterpiece still forms a cornerstone of the scholarship more than a century after it was written - it is a truly great work, as electrifying and edifying. I have read a number of outstanding works on the Gothic cathedral, but none more illuminating than this, and if you were to read only a single book on the subject, this is certainly the one I would recommend.
Male views the High Middle Ages in France as a period of systematization in which most areas of learning were epitomized in a handful of encyclopedic works. The lives of saints were known to most everyone through the Golden Legend, the Bible understood through Strabo's Glossa Ordinaria, and so forth. To understand the thought of the Middle Ages, he argues, one could read ten works and known the bulk of what was known and talked about by the literate.
In an ingenious device, Male adopts an analogous approach to systematically exploring sets of symbols and ideas that formed the imagistic vocabulary for the cathedral builders and their armies of artisans in stone and glass. So we have chapters on the lives of saints, a chapter on the natural world, a chapter on the Old Testament, and so forth. Each chapter analyzes the underlying ideas that gave rise to standard motifs of artistic expression during the period of cathedral building.
The effect of this is to help tame the gigantic universe of images one encounters in the Gothic cathedral and to help give meaning and structure to their experience. Instead of encountering, say, the Chartres Royal Portal as a gigantic wall of anonymous statues, one begins to recognize figures and understand what they convey. When you see, for example, a series of zodiacal signs, you know to immediately look for - and you indeed will find - sculptures of workers performing labors appropriate to the corresponding time of year, and you understand it illustrates the dignity of work in the light of Adam's burden.
This is a fine and excellent work. I would also recommend Otto von Simson's "The Gothic Cathedral" to go deeper into aspects of the period that remain unexplored by Male.
Male views the High Middle Ages in France as a period of systematization in which most areas of learning were epitomized in a handful of encyclopedic works. The lives of saints were known to most everyone through the Golden Legend, the Bible understood through Strabo's Glossa Ordinaria, and so forth. To understand the thought of the Middle Ages, he argues, one could read ten works and known the bulk of what was known and talked about by the literate.
In an ingenious device, Male adopts an analogous approach to systematically exploring sets of symbols and ideas that formed the imagistic vocabulary for the cathedral builders and their armies of artisans in stone and glass. So we have chapters on the lives of saints, a chapter on the natural world, a chapter on the Old Testament, and so forth. Each chapter analyzes the underlying ideas that gave rise to standard motifs of artistic expression during the period of cathedral building.
The effect of this is to help tame the gigantic universe of images one encounters in the Gothic cathedral and to help give meaning and structure to their experience. Instead of encountering, say, the Chartres Royal Portal as a gigantic wall of anonymous statues, one begins to recognize figures and understand what they convey. When you see, for example, a series of zodiacal signs, you know to immediately look for - and you indeed will find - sculptures of workers performing labors appropriate to the corresponding time of year, and you understand it illustrates the dignity of work in the light of Adam's burden.
This is a fine and excellent work. I would also recommend Otto von Simson's "The Gothic Cathedral" to go deeper into aspects of the period that remain unexplored by Male.
December 23, 2017
Fantastic
This is so much more than art history. It includes a lot of medieval literature and explains medieval conceptions of religion and history
This is so much more than art history. It includes a lot of medieval literature and explains medieval conceptions of religion and history
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews