How did people living in the Middle Ages respond to spectacular buildings, such as the Gothic cathedrals? While contemporary scholarship places a large emphasis on the emotional content of Western medieval figurative art, the emotion of architecture has largely gone undiscussed. In a radical new approach, Architecture and Affect in the Middle Ages explores the relationship between medieval buildings and the complexity of experience they engendered. Paul Binski examines long-standing misconceptions about the way viewers responded to medieval architecture across Western Europe and in Byzantine and Arabic culture between late antiquity and the end of the medieval period. He emphasizes the importance of the experience itself within these built environments, essentially places of action, space, and structure but also, crucially, of sound and emotion.
By:
Paul Binski
Imprint: University of California Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 203mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 23mm
Weight: 590g
ISBN: 9780520402997
ISBN 10: 0520402995
Series: Franklin D. Murphy Lectures
Pages: 264
Publication Date: 10 February 2025
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Contents Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction Making “Sense” of Medieval Architecture Language, Experience, and Decorum Gothic Sublimity? Introducing the Argument 1. Admiratio Metaphor and Aspect Columns and Import: Th e Backstory Great Churches and Rhetorical Occasions Eusebius: Jerusalem and Tyre Wonder Megalomania 2. Tristitia-Laetitia The Road to Compostela and the Banishment of Grief Orphic Concord and the Gothic Organum 3. Terror The Place of Fear Fruitful Fear The Thundering Ark: Organs, Bells 4. Sublimia Suger, Jean de Jandun, Photius Gothic Angelization and Exhilaration Utterance 5. Claritas, Jucunditas, Nobilitas Claritas Jucunditas Light, Color, and Countenance Nobilitas Conclusion: Spectacle, Genre, and Imitation Spectacle Implications and Challenges Genre Imitation Notes Bibliography List of Illustrations Index
Paul Binski is Emeritus Professor of the History of Medieval Art at Cambridge University, a Fellow of the British Academy, and a Corresponding Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America.
