Flamboyant Architecture and Medieval Technicality The Rise of Artistic Consciousness at the End of Middle Ages (c. 1400 c. 1530)

Pages: xviii + 200 p. Illustrations:70 b/w, 43 col. Language(s):English. Publication Year:2019. Brepols, ISBN: 978-2-503-57729-6 - Paperback ---- SUMMARY This book seeks to further our understanding of the socio-genesis of artistic modernity by turning to microhistory. It explores a late-medieval decorative procedure that emerged and spread in northern and central France from the early fifteenth century to the start of the following century. Using the well-known miniature, the Building of Solomon s Temple in Jerusalem from the fifteenth-century codex of Les Antiquités judaïques as a starting point, this study deals with architecture and technical knowledge of builders. This investigation unpacks and reveals many aspects of the technical and visual culture of late medieval craftsmen and artists. The virtuosic skills these artisans displayed are worthy of inclusion in the development of technical practices of Flamboyant Gothic architecture. They also reflect broader cultural and social configurations, which go far beyond the history of building. This micro-historical perspective on what can be called hyper-technical Gothic contributes to our appreciation of the role of technical mastery in establishing social hierarchies and artistic individuation processes during the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern period. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1. Technical Savoir-Faire as Historical Topic Observations on a well-known Illumination Nantes, Tours and the Master of the Munich Boccaccio Representation of a technical Gesture and Jean Fouquet s Heritage A French 15th-Century sculptural savoir-faire Late Medieval Gothic Building Sites and Technical Innovations First Conclusions 2. Slate Inlay: A Technical History Functional Constraints Hollowed out blocks for Inlay The Practice of Preparatory Tracing Installation in the Archivolts An Operational Change at the Beginning of the 15th Century An Interruption in the History of Technique: Auxerre The Consequences of a new stereotomic System Choices of Stone Types Conclusions on Implementation 3. Social History of a Skill Traces and Remains of a Valued Procedure The Practical Geometry of a Building Site at the End of the Middle Ages and its Tools The Tools and their Uses The Prevalence of the Square The insignological Uses of the Compass The Incisions at Tours and Rouen as Illustrations of Construction Practices Workers with Stone: social History of a Technique Masons and Sculptors Stone-cutters and Carvers of Images The Socio-Professional Distinction of the Creators of the Canopies the Case of Bourges Technical One-upmanship and Informal Hierarchies at a Building Site 4. Microarchitecture and Represented Space Architecture and Represented Space Towards 1400 in Central/Middle France: a Rupture Microarchitecture as a Locus Slate Inlay and the Depth of Fictive Space Baldachins, Canopies and Late-Medieval Sacral Regimes Monumental Syntax toward Architectural Wit 5. Virtuosity, Varietas and Captatio benevolentiae Slate or Glass Insertion, Admiratio and Varietas Material and Colour Contrasts during the Late Middle Ages An Incunabula of c. 1400 Slate Inlay as a Technology of Enchantment Late Gothic Art: A Hyper-Technical Cultural Regime 6. Conclusion Bibliography Colour Plates.…