French Gothic Research Articles

The roofing structures of the Gothic age in France

The structural solution called chevrons formant ferme is a typical invention of the French Gothic age. In this paper, the structural functioning of such kind of structures is considered and analyzed, referring to the two original different structures of the roof of Notre-Dame of Paris, destroyed by the fire of 2019. The results show the incredible skill of the builders of the Middle Ages in designing very effective timber structures and how these structures were conceived to respond to criteria of different nature.

The iconography of Saint Denis in early French Gothic architecture

Of the many sculptures on the facades of cathedrals and churches all over France, the curious Head-carriers, also known as Cephalophores, are arguably some of the most thought-provoking sculptural pieces one will come across. This study is concerned mainly with the iconography of St Denis, the first Bishop of France, as articulated on the portals of the Basilica of St-Denis. The events that followed immediately after Denis’ martyrdom by decapitation is mostly regarded as mere fable. Consequently, the symbolic meaning of the unusual movement has evaded scholarship. This work will discuss the symbolism of the Head-carriers and the meaning it gives to the architectural space of the Basilica of St Denis. This study argues that the emblematic ideology behind the sublime interaction between the living and the dead in the Basilica of St Denis, epitomised by the statue of the martyr, is a visual representation of a central message in Christianity which presents death, not as the end, but as a transitory and glorious beginning of oneness with Christ. Through critical visual analysis and metaphysical discussions, the study places Gothic art and architecture in the centre of the enunciation of 16th century Christian doctrine.

Framing the Church: The Social and Artistic Power of Buttresses in French Gothic Architecture. Maile S. Hutterer. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2020. xiv + 208 pp. $99.95.

Framing the Church: The Social and Artistic Power of Buttresses in French Gothic Architecture. Maile S. Hutterer. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2020. xiv + 208 pp. $99.95. - Volume 75 Issue 4

New Books across the Disciplines

New Books across the Disciplines

Review: Framing the Church: The Social and Artistic Power of Buttresses in French Gothic Architecture

Review: <i>Framing the Church: The Social and Artistic Power of Buttresses in French Gothic Architecture</i>

Framing the Church: The Social and Artistic Power of Buttresses in French Gothic Architecture by Maile S. Hutterer

Framing the Church: The Social and Artistic Power of Buttresses in French Gothic Architecture by Maile S. Hutterer

Nancy Wu. Review of "Framing the Church: The Social and Artistic Power of Buttresses in French Gothic Architecture" by Maile S. Hutterer.

Nancy Wu. Review of "Framing the Church: The Social and Artistic Power of Buttresses in French Gothic Architecture" by Maile S. Hutterer.

Boguslavo Radvilos autografas XVII a. lotyniškojo kursyvo kontekste

THE AUTOGRAPH OF BOGUSLAVAS RADVILA IN THE CONTEXT OF THE 17TH-CENTURY ROMAN CURSIVE The article dwells on the autograph of Boguslavas Radvila (Bogusław Radziwiłł) (1620–1669). The earliest autograph of the duke in the analysed material is detected in two letters in the Polish language dating back to 1622, and one letter in the same language dating back to 1623, written in his name by an adult to Kristupas II Radvila (Krzysztof Radziwiłł). The assumption is that the validation ręką swą in the letters of 1622 and the subscription, signature and validation in the letter of 1623 were made by the young duke while his hand was being held by an adult. The slightly different ductus of Boguslavas’ ‘autograph’, as observed in the letters, suggests that this might have been two different adults. It still remains unclear whether Boguslavas, who grew up in his mother’s German household and only spoke German, was taught to write in the German Gothic Cursive. While in the custody of his uncle Kristupas II Radvila, from 1629 to 1633, Boguslavas Radvila was taught to write, and used four different version of Italian Humanist Bastard. Based on the chronology, these versions are conditionally referred to as the first, the second, the third and the fourth. Letters in Polish to his uncle dating from 1629 and 1630 were written in the first and second versions. Letters to his uncle in Latin dating from 1630–1633 were written or signed (if they were written by somebody else) in the third and fourth versions. For a child’s hand, most letters are written calligraphically. The abundance of decorative elements suggests that Boguslavas was increasingly in control of the quill, and that he had talent. In addition, it points to the fact that when teaching a nobleman to write, the focus was on calligraphy. It still remains unclear why the letters in Latin were written in different versions of Humanist Bastard to those in Polish. The cautious assumption can be made that this was due to the preference of the duke’s teachers for those particular versions of testeggiata cursive. Consistent changes in Radvila’s autograph from a child’s to an adult’s hand could not be traced. Undoubtedly, the autograph was influenced by his studies between 1637 and 1648, and his visits to countries (Germany, the Netherlands, France and England) where the national script was Gothic Cursive, though Italian Humanist Bastard and French Humanist Bastard were also used. By 1641, the duke’s hand had already changed. The autograph was half-cursive, and included Gothic forms of d and z which had not been used in childhood. By 1645, Boguslavas Radvila’s hand had been fully trained, and the autograph had fully formed in the shape of cursive ductus. The choice of cursive was subject to the language of the text. Accuracy when writing was also an important factor. Based on the nature of the cursive used, four versions of the nobleman’s autograph can be distinguished: a Humanistic, a Mixed one, and two Gothic, one German Gothic and the other French Gothic. Texts in Polish and Latin (insertions in the text) were written either in Humanistic or in Mixed Cursive. Italian Humanistic Bastard served as the basis for the Humanistic autograph. However, quite a few of its characteristic features had paled, had been modified, or substituted with elements of French Humanistic Bastard, Gothic or Gothicised characters. The more accurate the duke was, the more elements of Italian Humanistic Bastard could be detected in his autograph. Occasionally, some features of French Humanistic Bastard can be identified (a letter or two). When writing in a fast and casual manner, the number of Gothic and Gothicised elements increased, which made the cursive Mixed. Texts in French were written in Gothic French Cursive. When the duke was not accurate enough, the number of Humanistic elements in his French Gothic autograph increased. This was Mixed Cursive with elements of French Gothic Cursive. Texts in German were written in German Gothic Cursive, under the influence of Humanistic Cursive. This is obvious in the ductus and occasional Humanistic form of the letters. Boguslavas Radvila’s autograph was subject to change: it either became neater or more casual. The calligraphic, or close to calligraphy, and casual, at times almost illegible, version of his cursive can be distinguished. Differences in the autograph can be explained by the duke’s attitude when writing, and by his physical well-being. Boguslavas Radvila’s autograph is evidence of the two types of Roman Cursive that were used at that time. At the same time, the duke joins the ranks of those who mastered two different cursives.

‘The golden stain of time’: remembering the colours of Amiens Cathedral

This article explores the key role played by the faded polychromy of Notre-Dame d’Amiens, and notably of its liminal Vierge Dorée, in Victorian literary constructions of Early French Gothic, from William Morris’s pre-Guenevere prose writings in the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine (1856) to John Ruskin’s Bible of Amiens (1884), Walter Pater’s ‘Notre-Dame d’Amiens’ (1894), and Arthur Symons’s ‘Our Lady of Amiens’ (1903). Although Amiens Cathedral was the preferred Gothic edifice of none of these authors, it became a place of aesthetic pilgrimage in the second half of the nineteenth century for many Victorian artists and writers who longed to capture a glimpse of the vanishing colours of the medieval past in a rapidly changing industrial world. The Vierge Dorée presiding over the south transept thus came to encode, both metonymically and metaphorically, the ‘golden stain of time’, which Ruskin celebrated as ‘the real light, and colour, and preciousness of architecture’ and which Marcel Proust later interpreted as the creative union of ‘the nuance of the hour’ and ‘the colour of the ages’ in his own reading of these Victorian literary encounters with Amiens.

Maile S. Hutterer, Framing the Church: The Social and Artistic Power of Buttresses in French Gothic Architecture. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019, 207 p., 105 b/w ill.

Maile S. Hutterer, <i>Framing the Church: The Social and Artistic Power of Buttresses in French Gothic Architecture</i>. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019, 207 p., 105 b/w ill.

The Bar Books: Manuscripts Illuminated for Renaud de Bar, Bishop of Metz (1303–1316) by Kay Davenport

Reviewed by: The Bar Books: Manuscripts Illuminated for Renaud de Bar, Bishop of Metz (1303–1316) by Kay Davenport Richard A. Leson KEY WORDS Manuscript studies, Renaud de Bar, heraldry, private devotion, devotional practice Kay Davenport. The Bar Books: Manuscripts Illuminated for Renaud de Bar, Bishop of Metz (1303–1316). Manuscripta Illuminata 2. Turnhout: Brepols, 2017. 728 pp., 254 black and white illustrations + 45 color illustrations. €100. ISBN: 978-2-503-57467-7. Kay Davenport's The Bar Books: Manuscripts Illuminated for Renaud de Bar, Bishop of Metz (1303–1316) is the second volume to appear in the new series Manuscripta Illuminata published under the auspices of Brepols. The study derives from the author's 1984 doctoral thesis, which up until now remained an essential reference for the exquisite group of illuminated liturgical books commissioned by Renaud de Bar, Bishop of Metz (d. 1316). The group includes a breviary divided between two volumes, the winter portion now London, BL MS Yates Thompson 8, the summer portion Verdun, BM MS 107; a summer missal now Verdun, BM MS 98; a ritual, formerly Metz, BM MS 43, destroyed in 1944; and a pontifical, also in two volumes, now Cambridge, Fitzwilliam MS 298, and Prague, NL MS XXIII.c.20. The Bar Books represents a significant refinement of Davenport's thesis, one that more than accomplishes the rather humbly stated objective to gather all information about the group in one place for convenience and "as a first step in consolidating related books." The revised study comprises a chronology of production vis-à-vis the life of Renaud, an analysis of textual contents and codicology, a look at each artist's contribution, and a comprehensive account of the spectacular heraldic decoration in the breviary. This is followed by a series of [End Page 169] appendices detailing the heraldry of the breviary (with prosopographical information), the contents of the manuscripts' calendars, and an index and study of every marginal vignette, accompanied by line drawings. Chapter III, "The Artists," makes up the better part of the book. Here, Davenport's opinions on style and the division of labor between the group's illuminators mostly align with those of Alison Stones, who recently discussed the Bar group manuscripts in her monumental corpus of French Gothic manuscripts of 2013 and a subsequent article of 2015. Davenport's most important and provocative claim where style is concerned is that the superb illuminator called by Stones the "master of the Metz faces" (Davenport's "artist 3") was also the carver of the splendid ivory crozier still clutched by the bishop when his tomb was opened in 1521. The crozier remains in the treasury of Metz Cathedral. The Bar Books is a solid art-historical work, but there is much here that will appeal to historians of ecclesiastical politics, liturgy, and manuscript culture at the turn of the fourteenth century. As Davenport shows, the Bar manuscripts were a "working library" designed for an aristocrat during his meteoric ascent through the ecclesiastical ranks. The survival of an integral group of manuscripts, each of which furnishes indisputable ties to a single, identifiable patron, is unparalleled in the record of this time and place and therefore particularly worthy of the close analysis Davenport brings to bear. Drawing on idiosyncracies of text and image, she aligns production of the manuscripts' components with Renaud's career path, from his promotion from subdeacon to deacon (between February and September 1302), his preparation for the priesthood, and finally to his assumption of the episcopal throne of Metz (January 1303). To take but one example, the Missal (ca. 1298), which was likely created prior to Renaud's entering major orders, was later adapted for the parallel use of Verdun and Metz when its owner, as subdeacon, was granted canonries at both locations; subsequent adjustments to the manuscript's sanctoral (namely, the elimination of Verdun feasts in favor of Metz), however, probably signal Renaud's preparation for the priesthood. The great strength of Davenport's work lies in her linkage of such textual clues to the rich iconographic and heraldic content of the group. Her meticulous interpretations of painted ecclesiastical vestments [End Page 170] and "portraits" of...

From Villa Diodati to Villa Gabrielli: A Manuscript Appendix to Fantasmagoriana

The role played by Fantasmagoriana in the genesis of Frankenstein and The Vampyre has largely prevented the full critical appreciation of this work in its original context of production, i.e. the French market of supernatural anthologies in the early nineteenth century, paving the way to the so-called frenetique vogue. By analysing a manuscript appendix to Fantasmagoriana, drafted between the mid-1820s and the mid-1830s and bound within a copy formerly belonging to the Roman family Gabrielli-Bonaparte, this article reinstates Fantasmagoriana within the environment of Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic culture and its renewed interest in the supernatural. Whereas English-speaking criticism has normally approached Fantasmagoriana through Tales of the Dead, i.e. Sarah Utterson’s Gothicizing and partial translation of 1813, an analysis of Fantasmagoriana from the point of view of its original readership will enable us to rethink the specificities of the French Gothic beyond Anglo-centric perspectives.

Nondestructive Redox Quantification Reveals Glassmaking of Rare French Gothic Stained Glasses

The sophisticated colors of medieval glasses arise from their transition metal (TM) impurities and capture information about ancient glassmaking techniques. Beyond the glass chemical composition, the TM redox is also a key factor in the glass color, but its quantification without any sampling is a challenge. We report a combination of nondestructive and noninvasive quantitative analyses of the chemical composition by particle-induced X-ray emission–particle-induced γ-ray emission mappings and of the color and TM element speciation by optical absorption spectroscopy performed on a red-blue-purple striped glass from the stained glass windows of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, France, during its restoration. These particular glass pieces must have been produced as a single shot, which guarantees that the chemical variations reflect the recipe in use in a specific medieval workshop. The quantitative elemental mappings demonstrate that the colored glass parts are derived from the same base glass, to which TMs were deliberately added. Optical absorption spectra reveal the origin of the colors: blue from CoII, red from copper nanoparticles, and purple from MnIII. Furthermore, the derivation of the quantitative redox state of each TM in each color shows that the contents of Fe, Cu, and Mn were adjusted to ensure a reducing glass matrix in the red stripe or a metastable overoxidized glass in the purple stripe. We infer that the agility of the medieval glassmaker allowed him to master the redox kinetics in the glass by rapid shaping and cooling to obtain a snapshot of the thermodynamically unstable glass colors.

Reaching to Heaven: Similarities between Early French Gothic Cathedrals and Medieval Bagan Temples

Reaching to Heaven: Similarities between Early French Gothic Cathedrals and Medieval Bagan Temples

The tomb of Queen Gertrude

The burial site and fragments of the tomb of Queen Gertrude of Andechs-Meran, first wife of King Andrew II (1205–1235) and a victim of assassination in 1213, were discovered during the excavations carried out in the Cistercian church of Pilis between 1967 and 1982. Her tomb was found along the central axis of the church, in the crossing. The present study, which includes the complete catalogue of the known fragments, attempts to establish the typology, iconography, and stylistic context of the artwork. New reconstructions are proposed for the two short sides of the sarcophagus-shaped tomb, which each bore distinct forms: one contained a wide, shallow niche, while the other depicted two standing figures under a double arcade. The figural ornaments on the sides of the tomb and the gisant with angels on the lid occupy an important place in the history of funerary art. In fact, the tomb displays one of the first examples of this type of decoration. The seated figures on the side relief probably represent the choir of saints in heaven, who provided companionship for the soul of the deceased queen. Gertrude herself is represented not only on top of the tomb, but also appears as a donor in one of the reliefs. Stylistic analysis of the figures proves that their master came from the workshop responsible for the Last Judgment and Callixtus portals of the cathedral of Reims. He must have left the workshop around 1220, before the portals were completed and installed in the façade of the northern transept. At about this time, Villard de Honnecourt also embarked on his travels that took him from Reims to Hungary. The style of Gertrude’s tomb bears similarities to the Villard’s drawings, even if we do not wish to attribute the sculptures to him. A team of masons from Reims also arrived in Pannonhalma during this time frame and worked on the abbey church there. Their most important work in Pannonhalma is the southern portal of the new church, the Porta Speciosa. The complicated nature of these construction histories reminds us of the need for caution when attributing one work of art to one person. Both Gertrude’s tomb and the Porta Speciosa are prime examples of the cultural and artistic period that began in the late 12th century, when the Kingdom of Hungary was a leader in the region in the reception of French Gothic.

Origin and development of Neo-Gothic in the Catholic churches of the city and province of Buenos Aires

The rise of the Gothic Revival in Argentina took place under very particular political, economic and religious circumstances. Soon after Argentine independence in 1810, the country’s authorities promoted immigration. By the late 1820s, English-speaking residents numbered around 7000. Most, as well as a small group of Germans, belonged to various Protestant denominations. In 1834 the Scottish architect Richard Adams designed a funeral chapel for the Protestant cemetery in Buenos Aires. It was Argentina’s first Neo-Gothic edifice. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Gothic style became popular among all Protestant groups. And, by the 1880s, Roman Catholics were beginning to adopt the Gothic mode as well, not only for parish churches, but also for cathedrals and pilgrimage basilicas. Catholics generally looked to Tuscan and French Gothic as sources of inspiration for their Gothic Revival churches.

Proust et le paysage: des écrits de jeunesse à la ‘Recherche du temps perdu’

Proust's 1908 musing as to whether his work in progress was to be a novel or a philosophical essay is well known. Perhaps less so is the writer's 1913 description of the novel to Robert de Flers as ‘un roman à la fois plein de passion et de méditation et de paysages’ (p. 241). Just as the former statement continues to inspire studies on the unique form of the novel, so the latter invites us to ask what a novel ‘plein […] de paysages’ may imply. This is the question that Keiichi Tsumori raises in a three-part book written originally as a doctoral thesis. Tsumori follows in the footsteps of André Ferré, Georges Poulet, and Jean-Pierre Richard, who dealt respectively with geography (Géographie de Marcel Proust (Paris: Sagittaire, 1939)), space (L'Espace proustien (Paris: Gallimard, 1963)), and the fragmentation and unification of the sensible world (Proust et le monde sensible (Paris: Seuil, 1974)), among other renowned commentators. More than one notion of landscape operates in Tsumori's book depending on whether the author draws from literary theory, aesthetics, phenomenology, or other literary works. To the rather flat question as to whether Proust ‘expresses landscape in his writing’ (p. 19), Tsumori provides rich analyses and a creative typology of landscapes that include ‘sonorous landscapes’ for example, by attending ‘chronologically’ to Proust's tâtonnements around them, from the early fictional and critical writings to À la recherche, against the backdrop of diverse aesthetic stances (from romanticism to modernism). The land, the countryside, and nature are prevalent in Proust, and not only as a result of the writer's interest in John Ruskin's work on Venice and French gothic architecture. Remembering, itself, coincides with the transformation of things into landscape (p. 374). Among many significant critical topoi raised by landscape is the opposition between objectivism and subjectivism. A landscape, so one of its definitions goes, emerges with the subject's perception of the external world more or less independently from its physical and geographical characters. Proust has inventively integrated the subjectivist conception into the story of a literary vocation, through a division of labour between the hero and the narrator with respect to perception. While landscapes emerge in the hero's consciousness through misperception and memory, the narrator develops a transcendent point of view on the hero's remembered landscapes that will form the basis of poetic creation. Landscapes, notably those of Paris during the Great War, concretize the hero's changing perceptions and aesthetic consciousness. These arguments are developed in the third and strongest part of the book, through the opposition between static and dynamic landscapes, where Proust has recourse to panoramic visions and elevated locations in order to create temporal continuity out of spatial discontinuity, and to integrate the subjective and objective outlooks. If Proust's travels helped form his depiction of places in his early writings, it is the motorcar and speed which have played that role in his late work. The book enlarges our knowledge of Proust, in addition to making us experience À la recherche as a novel almost exclusively made out of compelling landscapes.

GOTHIC CHURCHES IN PARIS ST GERVAIS ET ST PROTAIS IMAGE MATCHING 3D RECONSTRUCTION TO UNDERSTAND THE VAULTS SYSTEM GEOMETRY

Abstract. This paper is part of a research about ribbed vaults systems in French Gothic Cathedrals. Our goal is to compare some different gothic cathedrals to understand the complex geometry of the ribbed vaults. The survey isn't the main objective but it is the way to verify the theoretical hypotheses about geometric configuration of the flamboyant churches in Paris. The survey method's choice generally depends on the goal; in this case we had to study many churches in a short time, so we chose 3D reconstruction method based on image dense stereo matching. This method allowed us to obtain the necessary information to our study without bringing special equipment, such as the laser scanner. The goal of this paper is to test image matching 3D reconstruction method in relation to some particular study cases and to show the benefits and the troubles. From a methodological point of view this is our workflow: - theoretical study about geometrical configuration of rib vault systems; - 3D model based on theoretical hypothesis about geometric definition of the vaults' form; - 3D model based on image matching 3D reconstruction methods; - comparison between 3D theoretical model and 3D model based on image matching;

Consolidation or initial design? Radiocarbon dating of ancient iron alloys sheds light on the reinforcements of French Gothic Cathedrals

Large quantities of iron reinforcements, found in most Gothic monuments, are a data source for the interpretation of medieval architecture however their role both in contemporary engineering theory and the technical reality of construction yards has not yet been specified due to the difficulty of directly dating them. We present here an original radiocarbon dating methodology to date metal itself. Radiocarbon dates were measured for iron reinforcements used in specific parts of Bourges and Beauvais cathedrals, two iconic buildings in the development of French gothic architecture. Coupled with archaeometric and archaeological data, the new chronological results illuminate the major and active roles played by iron in the strategy of the building yards. At Bourges, iron was assimilated into the cathedral's construction strategy, whereas at Beauvais iron was integrated from the initial design, added to the monument following the vicissitudes of the building yard, and still used during the modern period. Thus, through decisive advances in radiocarbon dating of iron artefacts, the evolution of medieval architectural and engineering thought and action has been more reliably reconstructed.

The Fractal Pattern of the French Gothic Cathedrals

The classic patterns of Euclidean Geometry were used in the construction of the Gothic cathedrals to provide them with proportion and beauty. Still, there is also another complex concept related to them: the un-evenness of their structures, which determines their space-filling ability, that is, their level of roughness. In this paper we use the techniques of Fractal Geometry to generate parameters which provide a measure of roughness. In this way we show that the French Gothic cathedrals do not only follow Euclidean geometric patterns, but also have a general non-random fractal pattern.