ARTH 360
The Gothic Cathedral: An Art History Spring 2025
Division I W Writing Skills

Through their enormous scale, through the gravity-defying complexity of their construction, and through the sumptuousness of their materials and decoration, Gothic cathedrals — the medieval equivalent of the blockbuster movie, and then some — have amazed visitors for centuries. The widespread social media reaction of shock and dismay to the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris four years ago, moreover, indicates that this power of the cathedral to dazzle and to capture hearts remains very much alive. But how have art historians, specifically, made sense of these extraordinary, and extraordinarily complex, monuments? And how have the questions they have asked about the cathedral changed over time? Through a close examination of a number of influential books, in particular — each one of them a kind of miniature cathedral in its own right — this 300-level seminar will investigate the shifting interpretation of the Gothic Cathedral over the past 150 years. In so doing, the seminar aims to shed light not only on the fascinating multiplicity of realities that make up the Gothic cathedral but also on the changing shape of the discipline of art history itself, from its beginnings to the early 2020s.