Gothic Art for the 21st Century?

Abstract

Review of: Roland Recht, Believing and Seeing: The Art of Gothic Cathedrals, Translated by Mary Whittall, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 2008. A translation of a book originally published in 1999, ‘Believing and Seeing’ expresses the nature of this volume more clearly than its subtitle, ‘The art of the gothic cathedrals.’ The prominence of the arts as a means of expression for devotion is central to its discourse. A highly idiosyncratic book that has perhaps suffered a little from the passage of time and translation, it is full of revealing citations and insights. But it is methodologically fluid and needs to be read with a more current bibliography, especially the Gothic Architecture of Paul Frankl as revised by Paul Crossley.

Keywords

• gothic cathedrals
• art
• belief
• liturgy