For their medieval viewers, ivory composite caskets could function as visual surveys of the genre of love.
Gothic France
Above the entrance to Amiens, animated figures and flowing drapery attest to the increasing naturalism of Gothic sculpture in the 13th century.
Amiens Cathedral
Images of the side wound and the mystical tradition from which they emerge have provided fertile material for scholars engaged in “queering” the Middle Ages.
Mysticism and queer readings of Christ’s Side ...
The fire that engulfed the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris was a terrible tragedy—though not an unusual one.
The Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Paris
Mary’s swaying hip, elongated neck, and tender touch of the Christ Child all imbue this golden sculpture with grace. A pomegranate signals death.
Humanizing Mary: the Virgin of Jeanne d’Evreux
Glass fills a staggering three quarters of this chapel’s walls. The entire building serves as a reliquary for the crown of thorns.
Sainte-Chapelle, Paris
Weightless walls of glass and lifelike sculpture—in its freedom and invention, the great cathedral at Reims typifies High Gothic style.
Reims Cathedral
A luxury reserved for royals, moralized bibles paired image and text. Their commentary compared 13th-century bad guys to biblical villains.
Bible moralisée (moralized bibles)
Chartres boasts a multicolored ceiling and famous blue stained glass. The west front survived a fire, as did the miraculous tunic of the Virgin.
Cathedral of Notre Dame de Chartres
Evoking the heavenly through shimmering, colored light.
Birth of the Gothic: Abbot Suger and ...
This visually dazzling manuscript helped lift King Louis IX to sainthood. A dedication page shows the book’s illuminator at work.
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