Books, Arts & Photography, Schools, Periods & Styles, Gothic

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Valerie Steele, Jennifer Park
Gothic: Dark Glamour
by Yale University Press (Hardcover)

From its origins in the eighteenth-century literature of terror to its contemporary manifestations in vampire fiction, cinema, and art, the gothic has embraced the powers of horror and the erotic macabre. “Gothic” is an epithet with a strange history – evoking images of death, destruction, and decay. Ironically, its negative connotations have made the gothic an ideal symbol of rebellion for a wide range of cultural outsiders.  Popularly associated with black-clad teenagers and rock musicians, gothic fashion encompasses not only subcultural styles (from old-school goth to cyber-goth and beyond) but also high fashion by such designers as Alexander McQueen, John Galliano of Christian Dior, Rick Owens, Olivier Theyskens, and Yohji Yamamoto. Fashion photographers, such as Sean Ellis and Eugenio Recuenco, have also drawn on the visual vocabulary of the gothic to convey narratives of dark glamour. As the text and lavish illustrations in this book suggest, gothic fashion has deep ...

James Snyder
Northern Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, the grpahic Arts From 1350 to 1575
by Prentice Hall (Hardcover)

Timothy B. Husband
The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the "Belles Heures" of Jean de France, Duc de Berry (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
by Metropolitan Museum of Art (Hardcover)

One of the most lavishly illustrated codices of the Middle Ages, the Belles Heures (1405–1408/9) is the only manuscript executed in its entirety by the famed Limbourg brothers. Commissioned by its magisterial patron, Jean de France, duc de Berry, this richly illuminated Book of Hours, intended for private devotion and now housed in The Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum, counted among the duke’s large collection of prized possessions. The luminous scenes depicting the legends of the saints, the Hours of the Virgin, and the like, many with elaborately designed borders, exemplify the transcendent splendor of the Limbourg brothers’ talents.

Michael Camille
Gothic Art: Glorious Visions
by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (Paperback)

Gothic: Architecture - Sculpture - Painting
by h. f. ullmann (Paperback)

These substantial volumes on art periods vividly portray the most important achievements from the areas of European architecture, sculpture, and painting. The impressive photographs of works from all visual arts movements are at the center of these richly illustrated volumes. The books successfully provide an overview of the artistic diversity of the individual periods, and they couldn't have been written and illustrated any more clearly. The informative and interesting texts have been written by renowned authors from the fields of history, architecture and art history, providing a multifaceted view of each period. These books are a real pleasure for anyone with an interest in art.

Robert A. Scott
The Gothic Enterprise: A Guide to Understanding the Medieval Cathedral
by University of California Press (Paperback)

The great Gothic cathedrals of Europe are among the most astonishing achievements of Western culture. Evoking feelings of awe and humility, they make us want to understand what inspired the people who had the audacity to build them. This engrossing book surveys an era that has fired the historical imagination for centuries. In it Robert A. Scott explores why medieval people built Gothic cathedrals, how they built them, what conception of the divine lay behind their creation, and how religious and secular leaders used cathedrals for social and political purposes. As a traveler's companion or a rich source of knowledge for the armchair enthusiast, The Gothic Enterprise helps us understand how ordinary people managed such tremendous feats of physical and creative energy at a time when technology was rudimentary, famine and disease were rampant, the climate was often harsh, and communal life was unstable and incessantly violent.While most books about Gothic cathedrals focus on a ...

Audrey Niffenegger
The Adventuress
by "Harry N. Abrams, Inc." (Hardcover)

The author of the New York Times bestseller The Time Traveler’s Wife returns with another evocative “novel in pictures,” the much-anticipated follow-up to 2005’s The Three Incestuous Sisters. The Adventuress follows the dreamlike journey of an alchemist’s daughter. After she is kidnapped by a lascivious baron, she turns herself into a moth and flees to the garden of a charming butterfly collector named Napoleon Bonaparte. The story of how the two become lovers, and how their affair ends in tragedy and transcendence, is told through Niffenegger’s spare prose and haunting aquatint etchings. With a stunning and distinctive visual style reminiscent of the work of Edward Gorey, this gothic romance packs the emotional heft of the world’s great fairy tales. It will delight fans of the author’s previous works and enchant an entirely new legion of readers.

Judith Schalansky
Fraktur Mon Amour
by Princeton Architectural Press (Hardcover)

When was the last time a book on typography made you swoon? Just wait until you feast your eyes on Fraktur Mon Amour Berlin-based graphic designer Judith Schalansky's love letter to Blackletter fonts. Blackletter also known as Fraktur or Gothic type was commonly used throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. By the end of the Renaissance it had mostly been replaced by the typeface Latin Antiqua. The use of Blackletter type became taboo in Germany after World War II because it was incorrectly associated with the Nazis who actually banned its use in 1941 because it was falsely believed to be a Jewish invention. Revelations about the true history and meaning of Blackletter type have resulted in a resurgence in usage by graphic designers. Companies such as Nike Reebok and Coca-Cola now use Fraktur in their advertising. It decorates posters album covers and even skin in the form of tattoos. But a comprehensive collection of the most beautiful classic faces as well as the ...

Millard Meiss
Tres Riches Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry
by George Braziller (Hardcover)

One of the most successful art books of all time is now available in paperback for the first time. In their now-classic texts, Longnon and Cazelles recount the history of this work from its inception up until modern times. 139 color plates.

Roland Recht
Believing and Seeing: The Art of Gothic Cathedrals (Phoenix Poets)
by University Of Chicago Press (Hardcover)

Developments in medieval science that elevated sight above the other senses found religious expression in the Christian emphasis on miracles, relics, and elaborate structures. In his incisive survey of Gothic art and architecture, Roland Recht argues that this preoccupation with vision as a key to religious knowledge profoundly affected a broad range of late medieval works.             In addition to the great cathedrals of France, Recht explores key religious buildings throughout Europe to reveal how their grand designs supported this profusion of images that made visible the signs of scripture. Metalworkers, for example, fashioned intricate monstrances and reliquaries for the presentation of sacred articles, and technical advances in stained glass production allowed for more expressive renderings of holy objects. Sculptors, meanwhile, created increasingly naturalistic works and painters used multihued palettes to enhance their subjects’ lifelike qualities. ...

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