ArtHis 115. Assignment for the Second Paper. Gothic and Islamic architecture

This paper needs to use two books, one is Joshua C. Taylor's Learning to Look, second edition, and the other is Gardner's Art Through the Ages, fourth edition. 

ArtHis 115,  Assignment for the Second Paper

The purpose of this paper is for you to apply the ideas of style to a problem set in a particular, but hypothetical, place and time, under very carefully described circumstances and within a highly-defined format. While the best time to begin your preliminary research is right now, you will not be able to finish writing this paper until completion of the lectures on Gothic and Islamic architecture by October 4. PLEASE FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY.

The Problem: The place where your paper is set is the hypothetical town of Gigondas-les-Bains in the hilly country of the Massif Central in the middle of France, and the time is the year 1280. Most middle-sized (population 20,000) French towns of this era are provincial places, out of touch with the dramatic new developments in building and artistic style in the north of France, but Gigondas is a significant exception. Every year, pilgrims come from all over France (and the rest of Europe) to experience the miraculous curative powers of the local hot springs, believed by many to have been blessed for eternity by a local saint, Saint Grenache, some centuries before, and Gigondas has long been a place not only of healthful vacations, but a crossroads for the exchange of ideas about art from individuals who come from all corners of Europe. And in the stone cliffs to the south of town there is a mine in which alum can be taken from the earth in copious amounts; alum is an essential product for the dyeing of wool, and the great wool- producing centers of England, Flanders, northern France, northern Italy, Germany, and Spain all need this vital commodity.

By this time many of the greatest Gothic religious structures have already been either built or are well into the planning and building process in France (Abbey of St.-Denis, cathedrals of Chartres, Laon, Paris, Reims, Amiens, Beauvais and the Ste.-Chapelle in Paris), England (Salisbury and Wells Cathedrals), and Germany (Marburg, St. Elizabeth’s Church). Gigondas is a medieval equivalent of a health resort, a town chiefly known for the popular pilgrimage to the curative springs giving the town its name, where the tomb of St. Grenache contains holy relics, consisting of bones and clothing, that have along with the hot springs, exhibit remarkable curative powers. The old Romanesque cathedral built above both the springs and the tomb was in poor repair, small, dark, and suffering from mildew. The leading Church authorities, including the Bishop and Chapter, after consulting with the town notables, have decided to tear down the old church and build a new, modern (for 1280) church in the prevailing Gothic style, with a few new twists.

One of the purposes of rebuilding the cathedral in the most current modern style, aside from glorification of the saint, is of course to enhance the town's reputation as a tourist attraction and to increase its status relative to the nearby cities that constitute its main commercial competition. Since the tomb and springs associated with the saint make the town a center for pilgrims from all over Europe, the leaders first decide that the style of the new Cathedral dedicated to St. Grenache should reflect the styles of those nearby places - northern France, England and Germany - from which the bulk of the pilgrims come. But there is a novel idea that is also to be pursued. Gigondas sits astride the main pilgrimage road through central France to Compostela, and for centuries Muslim, Christian and Jewish merchants from Islamic Spain have passed through the town. The old mildew-afflicted cathedral indeed was famous for the beauty of its Islamic-tinged decoration, and the town fathers, the chapter, and the bishop have all resolved to remember this heritage in the new Gothic cathedral to be built in town. At the same time, they want to reflect the latest stylistic innovations from the three principal sources of Gigondas's resort and alum business — the northern French, the English, and the Germans.

To plan and oversee the new church, a Building Committee is constituted, consisting of four members, as follows: the Bishop of Gigondas is André of Picpoul, born nearby. Because his father was in the alum business, André traveled extensively to southern Spain in his youth, and is perhaps the strongest advocate of a Spanish (Islamic-loooking) style for the cathedral; the Dean of the Chapter, Sigiswald of Marburg, is a graduate of the university school of that city with its profoundly German heritage, and is a great admirer of the German churches with their hall- church characteristics. The richest local alum miner and merchant, Hyacinthe-Philibert-Antoine Tyler (son of a French mother and an English father), was raised until his twenties in the southern English town of Salisbury, and likes everything about the English Gothic style. Finally, the donor of the extra land in the town necessary to build the new cathedral (and the owner of the largest inn in town, and thus the chief beneficiary of the resort/pilgrimage trade) is the very wealthy Isabelle-Louise Clicquot, originally from Reims; she quite naturally is a strong partisan of the Gothic style of northern France.

After long discussions full of give and take and compromise, in which each Committee member argues for features that would benefit his/her particular interest, the members finally envisage a cathedral that reflects aspects of the Gothic style found in architecture of France, Germany, England, and also the Islamic style of faraway Cordoba, which by coincidence is also a major customer for the alum mined near Gigondas. As a consequence, the Chapter and Bishop have hired a well-traveled and experienced Master Builder who grew up in the kingdom of Navarra between France and Spain, Pierre de Pamplona, with specific instructions that he incorporate architectural features that express the town's cosmopolitan nature and its determination to utilize the best and most beautiful of artistic styles from all over Europe.

By strange coincidence, Master Pierre's previous travels as a journeyman have taken him not only to all of the Gothic monuments built before 1280 that are covered in the Gardner textbook and vour course lectures, but he also used to accompany the alum pack-trains to Cordoba before he took up his architectural training. Moreover, in traveling around Europe, when consulting with local architects during his travels he has also been able to see proposed plans for some Gothic buildings not yet completed, but which will be finished in the next two decades, that is, by 1300.

This remarkable bit of luck is a great asset for Pierre when he (that is, YOU) writes his proposal. As a result, Master Pierre de Pamplona is able to incorporate up-to-date aspects of the design of the required different styles into his new church. After a lengthy period of discussion, it was decided by the Committee and master Pierre that the cathedral will have a typical French west front; it will have an English-style site plan, as well as a double transept, and a French style east end and ambulatory. It will incorporate a German-style nave in the hall-church style, with high aisles and no triforium or clearstory, and a chapter house and cloister strongly influenced by the For this paper you are not asked to do any reading beyond the relevant sections in your two textbooks: the chapter on the Gothic art traditions in Gardner, and the relevant material on architecture in Taylor. Those are entirely adequate. If you do use other printed sources, they must of course be properly cited. It is those monuments discussed and illustrated in your text that your hypothetical builders will “study” and refer to in order to complete the proposal. Remember that it is extremely important that you work within both the geographic and time constraints of the assignment. Do not incorporate ideas or techniques from later periods or from modern architecture in your proposal.

Whether or not you choose read beyond your texts, however, you must properly and appropriately cite all quotations and extra reading sources in endnotes or footnotes, and you must include a bibliography in proper form. “Proper form” is defined in your handbook from Freshman Writing, or Turabian’s A Manual of Style, or Sayre’s book on writing art history papers, or the MLA Handbook. Papers that do not follow this format will not be accepted or graded.

For drawings, you are not expected to provide masterpieces of draftsmanship, but your drawings should reflect the written proposal, be cmsjstejn^            and embody your

best understanding of the four styles that form the focus of this assignment. We will be happy to look over legible drafts of this paper in office hours, up to the Monday before the paper is due, although office hours and our ability to return papers quickly will be more limited the closer we come to the due date.

Your paper should be a disciplined and serious response to the hypothetical situation of the assignment. While we hope your writing will be interesting and creative, we prefer that you avoid buffoonery and burlesque (both words are in your dictionary). The paper will be graded primarily on Ltjjdj^ree^f^ndj^ta^              on its clarity and

quality of writing, on the originality of its approach, and on its demonstration of vour competence in understanding of the architectural styles and architectural concepts discussed in thejext.sandjnxla.ss.

This paper assignment may appear intimidating or unusually complex to some of you at the outset. Just remember that over the past 49 years, thousands of students have written similar papers for Art History 115, and most of them have found it to be an enjoyable as well as a useful educational experience. In the end the overwhelming majority of them submitted well-written, creative, impressively documented papers for which they received appropriately approving grades. Relaxing and getting into the spirit of the paper will serve you well. Leaving the paper for the last minute, however, is an invitation to almost certain failure.

As always, your paper will be expected to be neat, carefully proof-read, well-organized, properly cited, clearly written, and submitted on time. We will be happy to consult with you in our office hours as you prepare this assignment.

For this paper you are not asked to do any reading beyond the relevant sections in your two textbooks: the chapter on the Gothic art traditions in Gardner, and the relevant material on architecture in Taylor. Those are entirely adequate. If you do use other printed sources, they must of course be properly cited. It is those monuments discussed and illustrated in your text that your hypothetical builders will “study” and refer to in order to complete the proposal. Remember that it is extremely important that you work within both the geographic and time constraints of the assignment. Do not incorporate ideas or techniques from later periods or from modern architecture in your proposal.

Whether or not you choose read beyond your texts, however, you must properly and appropriately cite all quotations and extra reading sources in endnotes or footnotes, and you must include a bibliography in proper form. “Proper form” is defined in your handbook from Freshman Writing, or Turabian’s A Manual of Style, or Sayre’s book on writing art history papers, or the MLA Handbook. Papers that do not follow this format will not be accepted or graded.

For drawings, you are not expected to provide masterpieces of draftsmanship, but your drawings should reflect the written proposal, be cmsjstejn^            and embody your

best understanding of the four styles that form the focus of this assignment. We will be happy to look over legible drafts of this paper in office hours, up to the Monday before the paper is due, although office hours and our ability to return papers quickly will be more limited the closer we come to the due date.

Your paper should be a disciplined and serious response to the hypothetical situation of the assignment. While we hope your writing will be interesting and creative, we prefer that you avoid buffoonery and burlesque (both words are in your dictionary). The paper will be graded primarily on Ltjjdj^ree^f^ndj^ta^              on its clarity and

quality of writing, on the originality of its approach, and on its demonstration of vour competence in understanding of the architectural styles and architectural concepts discussed in thejext.sandjnxla.ss.

This paper assignment may appear intimidating or unusually complex to some of you at the outset. Just remember that over the past 49 years, thousands of students have written similar papers for Art History 115, and most of them have found it to be an enjoyable as well as a useful educational experience. In the end the overwhelming majority of them submitted well-written, creative, impressively documented papers for which they received appropriately approving grades. Relaxing and getting into the spirit of the paper will serve you well. Leaving the paper for the last minute, however, is an invitation to almost certain failure.

As always, your paper will be expected to be neat, carefully proof-read, well-organized, properly cited, clearly written, and submitted on time. We will be happy to consult with you in our office hours as you prepare this assignment.