The Gothic Cathedral: Origins of Gothic Architecture and the Medieval Concept of Order - Expanded Edition - Softcover

Otto Von Simson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691018677 ISBN 13: 9780691018676

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1988

Synopsis

The classic work on Gothic religious architecture, now with added illustrations and a new section by the author on rose windows

No other monument of a culture so radically different from our own is as much a part of contemporary life as the Gothic cathedral. In this illuminating book, esteemed art historian Otto Georg von Simson explores how Gothic architecture is an expression of supernatural reality, and shows how, to those who designed and worshipped in the great cathedrals of France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, this symbolic function of sacred architecture overshadowed all others. The Gothic Cathedral takes readers from the birth of the Gothic style with the Basilica of St.-Denis to the consummation of the form in the majestic Cathedral of Chartres, revealing how these incomparable architectural masterpieces embodied the spiritual and intellectual order of the medieval world.

About this title

About the Author

Otto Georg von Simson (1912–1993) was professor emeritus of art history at the Free University of Berlin. His books include Sacred Fortress: Byzantine Art and Statecraft in Ravenna (Princeton).

From the Back Cover

This essay seeks to understand Gothic architecture as an image, more precisely, as the representation of supernatural reality. To those who designed the cathedrals, as to their contemporaries who worshiped in them, this symbolic aspect or function of sacred architecture overshadowed all others. To us, it has become the least comprehensible.

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691018677
• ISBN 13: 9780691018676
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368