Eloquent Bodies: Movement, Expression, and the Human Figure in Gothic Sculpture

Product Description

A radical reassessment of the role of movement, emotion, and the viewing experience in Gothic sculpture

Gothic cathedrals in northern Europe dazzle visitors with arrays of sculpted saints, angels, and noble patrons adorning their portals and interiors. In this highly original and erudite volume, Jacqueline E. Jung explores how medieval sculptors used a form of bodily poetics—involving facial expression, gesture, stance, and torsion—to create meanings beyond conventional iconography and to subtly manipulate spatial dynamics, forging connections between the sculptures and beholders. Filled with more than 500 images that capture the suppleness and dynamism of cathedral sculpture, often through multiple angles,
Eloquent Bodies demonstrates how viewers confronted and, in turn, were addressed by sculptures at major cathedrals in France and Germany, from Chartres and Reims to Strasbourg, Bamberg, Magdeburg, and Naumburg. Shedding new light on the charismatic and kinetic qualities of Gothic sculpture, this book also illuminates the ways artistic ingenuity and technical skill converged to enliven sacred spaces.

Review

“Jung advocates embodied viewership by citing primarycontemporary sources as well as her own experiential viewings ofsculptures and monuments. . . .
[Such] phenomenological approaches . . . have the potential to be methodologically capacious, and insist upon multiple seeings andexperiences, towards that which may not even privilege the eye.” -Aspectus: A Journal of Visual Culture

In this thought-provoking book Jung . . . attempts toreorient readers’ senses and illuminate meaning that goes beyond passive and static viewing. . . . Ultimately this is abook about looking at and experiencing sculpture in ways that putfamiliar works in the new light of the posited interaction between artand viewer. . . . Recommended. —
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Book Description

This groundbreaking book offers a radical reassessment of the role of bodies, emotion, and the viewing experience in Gothic sculpture.

About the Author

Jacqueline E. Jung is associate professor in the Department of the History of Art at Yale University.