The Gothic Image
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Markings: Fair - Rubbed edges and bumping on spine and corners
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
At the heart of medieval Europe's greatest artistic achievement stands a single, transformative vision — the Gothic cathedral — and Émile Mâle's The Gothic Image stands as the definitive guide to decoding its magnificent symbolic language. Originally published in French as L'Art religieux du XIIIe siècle en France, this landmark work chronicles the entire iconographic programme of the thirteenth-century French cathedral, presenting the sculptural cycles, stained glass windows, and carved portals not as mere decoration, but as a vast theological encyclopedia carved in stone — a Bible in images for the medieval faithful. Mâle writes with the authority of a scholar who spent a lifetime immersed in the cathedrals of France, and his prose carries a rare combination of rigorous academic precision and genuine lyrical passion. He argues that every figure, every narrative scene, and every symbolic motif was part of an ordered, purposeful cosmology drawn from scripture, the Church Fathers, and the encyclopedists of the Middle Ages. A foundational text in the history of art and religious iconography, The Gothic Image remains as essential to understanding medieval culture today as it was upon its first publication — a work that will forever change the way you look at a cathedral.
Author: Emile Mâle
Format: Paperback
Published: 1961, The Fontana Library
Genre: History of arts
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Markings: Fair - Rubbed edges and bumping on spine and corners
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
At the heart of medieval Europe's greatest artistic achievement stands a single, transformative vision — the Gothic cathedral — and Émile Mâle's The Gothic Image stands as the definitive guide to decoding its magnificent symbolic language. Originally published in French as L'Art religieux du XIIIe siècle en France, this landmark work chronicles the entire iconographic programme of the thirteenth-century French cathedral, presenting the sculptural cycles, stained glass windows, and carved portals not as mere decoration, but as a vast theological encyclopedia carved in stone — a Bible in images for the medieval faithful. Mâle writes with the authority of a scholar who spent a lifetime immersed in the cathedrals of France, and his prose carries a rare combination of rigorous academic precision and genuine lyrical passion. He argues that every figure, every narrative scene, and every symbolic motif was part of an ordered, purposeful cosmology drawn from scripture, the Church Fathers, and the encyclopedists of the Middle Ages. A foundational text in the history of art and religious iconography, The Gothic Image remains as essential to understanding medieval culture today as it was upon its first publication — a work that will forever change the way you look at a cathedral.