The Reception of the Principles in England

According to Michael Podro, Heinrich Wölfflin was ‘explicitly concerned with the construction of critical systems’ . His reception in England, however, was anything but systematic and, as I shall suggest, was characterized far more by the role of individual historians and critics, and by small groups, than by institutions. The coterie, the ‘invisible college’ has always mattered in the English intellectual and critical tradition and with it the conversation of friends and allies. Indeed, English reception of Heinrich Wölfflin’s work started in earnest with the critic, artist and art guru from one such coterie, the Bloomsbury group, Roger Fry (1866-1934) (Fig. 1). In the December 1903 number of The Athenaeum, Fry had reviewed Wölfflin’s Die klassische Kunst (1899), there retitled for English readers as The Art of the Italian Renaissance and more generally known by the title Classic Art . Fry’s main concern in this review was more the canon than method: to him, Wölfflin was rehabilitating the art of the seicento, sight of which had been lost since Burckhardt. The quattrocento had abandoned the grand style, the Sublime, for the sweet, rational, middle style: but then Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo restored ‘greatness’, religious idealism, the power of ‘condensation’ or concentration of effect. In effect, from an English perspective, Fry spotted in Wölfflin a rehabilitation of the grand manner of Reynolds

An Early Miniature Copy of the Choir Vault of Wells Cathedral at Irnham, Lincolnshire

The parish church of St Andrew at Irnham in Lincolnshire possesses a richly carved stone monument dating to around 1340 which bears the arms of Sir Geoffrey and Agnes Luttrell, associated with the celebrated Luttrell Psalter. The form, imagery and function of this monument are problematical and are discussed first in order to create a context for an unusual aspect of its architecture, namely that its inner vault is a miniature copy, unique in this part of England, of the main vault of the choir of Wells Cathedral, a so-called ‘net’ vault. Amongst the reasons for such an unusual citation may be the existence in Somerset, in the diocese of Wells, of one branch of the Luttrell family at the time this monument was raised.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis via https://doi.org/10.1080/00681288.2016.122019

The Smiling Abbot: Rediscovering a Unique Medieval Effigial Slab

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Archaeological Journal on 06/11/2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00665983.2017.1366705The article reports on a newly re-discovered fragment of a recumbent effigial slab commemorating Abbot Hywel (‘Howel’), most likely an abbot of the Cistercian house of Valle Crucis, near Llangollen (Denbighs.). The slab was probably carved very early in the fourteenth century, and could have covered the abbot’s burial place. The stone was dislocated and fragmented at an unknown point in the abbey’s history, and most likely removed from the site during the nineteenth-century clearance of the abbey ruins. It was briefly reported on in 1895 and has been lost to scholarship subsequently. If indeed from Valle Crucis, the stone is the only known effigial slab commemorating a Cistercian abbot from Wales, and a rare example from Britain. Given that few similar Cistercian abbatial monuments have been identified from elsewhere, the ‘Smiling Abbot’, although only a fragment, is a significant addition to the known corpus of later medieval mortuary monuments. The article discusses the provenance, dating, identification and significance of the monument, including the abbot’s distinctive smile. The stone sheds new light on mortuary and commemorative practice at Valle Crucis Abbey in the early fourteenth century

The English medieval first-floor hall: part 2 – The evidence from the eleventh to early thirteenth century

The concept of the first-floor hall was introduced in 1935, but Blair’s paper of 1993 cast doubt on many of those buildings which had been identified as such. Following the recognition of Scolland’s Hall, Richmond Castle as an example of a hall at first-floor level, the evidence for buildings of this type is reviewed (excluding town houses and halls in the great towers of castles, where other issues apply). While undoubtedly a number of buildings have been mistakenly identified as halls, there is a significant group of structures which there are very strong grounds to classify as first-floor halls. The growth of masonry architecture in elite secular buildings, particularly after the Norman Conquest, allowed halls to be constructed on the first floor. The key features of these are identified and the reasons for constructing the hall at this level – prestige and security – are recognized. The study of these buildings allows two further modifications to the Blair thesis: in some houses, halls and chambers were integrated in a single block at an early date, and the basic idea of the medieval domestic plan was already present by the late eleventh century

Aesthetic Attitudes in Gothic Art: thoughts on Girona Cathedral

The aim of this paper is to explore aspects of medieval aesthetic experience and criticism of architecture by means of the documented Catalan and Latin expertise held at Girona Cathedral in 1416-17. Medieval documentation of this type is relatively rare. Having outlined the cases made by the architects summoned to give their opinions on the development of the cathedral, the discussion considers three particular junctures. The first is that of illumination and affect, particularly jucunditas and laetitia; the second is that of nobility and magnificence; and the third is the juncture of the palace and church. I suggest that there is significant common ground between secular and religious buildings in regard to aesthetic experience and verbal articulation. Arguing against comprehensive aesthetic and theological orders of thought and experience, and in favour of the occasional character of medieval experience, I conclude that much of the known language of this sort sits ill with Romantic and post-Romantic concepts of the Sublime

The Gothic Line of Beauty: Motif and Medieval Aesthetics/La Línea de la Belleza en el Gótico: motivos y estética medieval

This intervention is concerned with the use and agency of line in Gothic and later art. At the creative height of the Gothic period in England, in the 13th and 14th centuries, curvilinear aesthetics lay at the heart of a number of creative achievements in the figurative arts and architecture. Thought needs to be given to how such linear aesthetics were understood and experienced historically. Starting with the affinity between ‘line words’ and textile manufacture, the paper moves to the idea of the ‘motif’ (or topic) as an originating point of invention. Some motifs or topics enjoyed a long history. One was the lineaserpentinata, which here is tracked forwards from Dürer and Lomazzo to Hogarth, and then back to the so-called ‘ogee’ or double-curved S-line in Gothic art. The question of the continuity of gender and moral evaluation of line is finally placed in the wider and more enriching perspective of occasion or contextual understanding and experience. KEYWORDS: line, motif, topic, occasion, agency

The Painted Chamber and painting at Westminster c.1250 to 1350

2 volsSIGLEAvailable from British Library Lending Division - LD:D54691/85 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo