medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
From: James Bugslag <[log in to unmask]>
> Christopher,
> this is close:
> Kidson, Peter, "Panofsky, Suger and St. Denis," Journal of the Warburg and
Courtauld Institutes, 50 (1987), 1-17
http://www.jstor.org/stable/751314
("Fair Use" copies available on request)
thanks, Jim.
this one had, somehow, slipped through my Fine Net --though i believe that i
may have read it before, in some previous Incarnation, i didn't have it in my
rapidly Metastasizing bibliography.
since my original question to you (in the context of the Met's Year 1200 show
of 1974) was:
> do you know of any significant previous work which aimed at deposing St.
Suger as the sole Inventor of Gothic Architecture?
i suppose that i may assume that you don't know of any previous work which
deposes St. Suger.
which probably means that there ain't any.
just a quick glance at Kidson's article tells me that he agrees with my
assessment of Suger's books on his work at St. Denis:
"They are overwhelmingly about matters of no conceivable interest to anyone
outside the Abbey of St Denis. They are concerned with the disposal of income
from various properties, the commemoration of benefactors like Charles the
Bald, the provision of decent dinners for the monks and, above all, the
smartening up and enlargement of the abbey church. In short,
they were intended solely for domestic consumption."
and, since Great Minds run in the Same Ruts, we both must be right.
it is surely a sign of Old Age (which is not at all to be confused with
Maturity) that i find myself increasingly interested in problems of
Methodology --in particular of how to deal with the myriad "constructs" which
are necessary in order to understand the past, but which are also prone to
lead one into such thickets as circular cul-de-sacs (now *there's* a concept
which it is difficult to get one's head around), distortions and even outright
and utter misinterpretations of that past.
the whole idea of "Gothic" is, to me, one of the more pernicious of these
obstructive, tyrannical constructs, and it is very, very difficult for some of
us who Cut our Teeth on Dr. Jansen's _History of Art_ to extricate ourselves
from its Siren-like embrace.
c
OED:
GOTHIC
b. A term for the style of architecture prevalent in Western Europe from the
twelfth to the sixteenth century, of which the chief characteristic is the
pointed arch. Applied also to buildings, architectural details, and
ornamentation.
Our quotations seem to show that the term was taken in the first instance from
the French, and employed to denote any style of building that was not
classical (Greek or Roman)...
c1660 J. Evelyn Diary anno 1641 (1955) II. 50 Harlem..hath one of the
fairest Churches of the Gotique designe, I had ever seene.
1713 Wren in Parentalia (1750) 297 This we now call the Gothick Manner of
Architecture (so the Italians called what was not after the Roman style).
1739 C. Labelye Short Acct. Piers Westm. Bridge 44 Narrow Gothic Arches,
supported by monstrous Piers.
1742 B. Langley Anc. Archit. Restored Dissert. i, Every ancient Building
which is not in the Grecian Mode is called a Gothic Building.
1750 S. Wren in Parentalia 273 They had not yet fallen into the Gothick
pointed-arch.
THICKET
1850 W. Allingham Music-master in Poems ii. xv, The thicket-tangling,
tenderest briar-rose.
i wrote:
> don't neglect the papers given at the Suger - St. Denis symposium, Al.
>
>
http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Abbot_Suger_and_Saint_Denis?Tag=&title=&author=&pt=&tc=&dept=
>
>
> i think that that one might stand up in the future as a real Historiographic
Watershed in the study of "Early Gothic" --there may have been earlier Nails
driven into the Dionysian Coffin, but those papers certainly were the first
ones that i became aware of.
>
> how about it, Jim?
>
> do you know of any significant previous work which aimed at deposing St.
Suger as the sole Inventor of Gothic Architecture?
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|