Summary Of The Politics Of Selective Eclecticism By Lyman

Improved Essays
Lyman, Thomas W. 1988. "The Politics of Selective Eclecticism: Monastic Architecture, Pilgrimage Churches, and Resistance to Cluny." Gesta 27, no. 1-2: 83-92. Lyman’s article does not originally appear to be useful to my project. The building in question is Romanesque style instead of Gothic and the focus is on French buildings rather than Spanish. However, these buildings are being analyzed in the context of a pilgrimage to Spain and what Lyman is doing can influence the way Spanish pilgrimage cathedrals are studied. The article aims to challenge the role historians have given Cluny in the formation of a pilgrimage style church. He looks specifically at churches along El Camino de Santiago and while he does not look at Spanish examples, both …show more content…
He looks at the cathedrals in chronological order to reveal how the earlier Burgos could have influenced Leon. When addressing each cathedral individually, Williamson takes care to look at the history of the building, making it a good source for basic background knowledge such as important dates and financial supporters. During his analysis of el Puerta del Sarmental at Burgos, Williamson argues that the design and technique suggests that workmen from Amiens also worked at Burgos. He doesn’t provide any textual evidence to support this and he also neglects to provide images of Amiens to compare; it would have been easier to see this connection if he had done so. Williamson also devotes a lot of time and effort to his discussion of ground plans, especially with regards to León and its connection to Reims, but does not provide a visual of either one. After looking at each cathedral specifically, he goes on to argue that their influence spread throughout Spain and is especially present in smaller churches across the region. In his conclusion, he states that the two cathedrals “acted as the points of entry for the importation of the mature French Gothic Style of architecture and sculpture into Spain.” However, he doesn’t really provide any solid proof of this in either visual or textual form. While his article stands as proof of the phenomenon of looking at Spanish Gothic Cathedrals as “imports,” the article does not provide any strong support for the claim and fails to address why there is a lack of

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Just as the church’s interior is spacious, so is the outside spacious, as there is a small plaza outside the church’s front façade with cafes nearby. There is also a tiny park to the building’s left. However, while the surrounding buildings are of similar masonry to the church, they are not in a gothic style. There is also a building to the right of the church that is coated in glass windows, a modern architecture feature that starkly contrasts the church’s traditional…

    • 439 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ponce De Leon Hall History

    • 1173 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Built primarily in the 19th century revival style of the Spanish Renaissance, the hall shares the style’s influence from Gothic, Romanesque, and other historic sources (“Spanish Architecture Overview”). Similar to the Spanish Renaissance architecture of the past, the exterior of Ponce de Leon hall possesses the typical courtyard-centered organization, ornate portals, carved doorways, lack of ornamentation except around doors and windows, tiles, Italian-influenced facades and features, (Sherman, 139-140) and even a tower, that, in its more current setting commands a level of importance and power through its appeared connection to the past (Figure 2). Breaking up the smooth concrete walls of the exterior are red brick, which adds both a stylistic contrast and mimics the quoins along the corners of Italianate and other Renaissance Revival styles (Figure 3). These details are repeated around the arched windows and doorways, and carried up along the tower, which is also a prominent feature for these antecedents of the Spanish Renaissance. The details of the conical tower roof and the column capitals are reminiscent of Moorish ornamentation, but the projecting roofs with ornamental bracketing and repeating elements already mentioned all show the heavy influence of the Italian Renaissance Revivals on the Spanish architecture (Sherman…

    • 1173 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gateways To Art Summary

    • 997 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The text “Gateways to Art: Understanding the Visual Arts”, introduces and discusses a lot of information that has to do with spirituality and religious art. Many architectural works that have been created as an art form also function as sacred spaces. It should be known that although there are many sacred spaces across different belief systems, that they actually have many architectural features in common. In Greece, we have the Parthenon and the Acropolis.…

    • 997 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Michael Camille, Image on the Edge (Chapter Three: In the Margins of the Cathedral), (Harvard University Press Ann Arbor: University of Michigan University Library, Scholarly Pub. Office 1992), 77-98. In his chapter on “margins” within a Gothic Cathedral, Michael Camille examines architectural features that act as symbols of marginalization and hierarchy.…

    • 897 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Conquest in 1492 brought a number of changes to Latin America. In particular, art in New Spain was largely influenced by its European counterparts. As a result, a number of artists were trained in European painting styles. Miguel Cabrera had this upbringing in the art world. In this paper, I am going to examine the composition of his painting Don Manuel Jose Rubio y Salinas, Archbishop of Mexico (Fig. 1), along with providing information about the subject.…

    • 1211 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Summary In “History as Judgment and Promise in A Canticle for Leibowitz,” Dominic Manganiello argues that the idea of History within A Canticle for Leibowitz can serve as judgment, promise, and religious bias by examining the close relation between the church and historical memorabilia. Manganiello identifies History as a myth in which it is vulnerable to historical bias through false representations of previous generations as well as the heavy monastic influence the church has on historical records and its publicity to the public. The article focuses on the power of the monastery within and narrows in on “The Flame Deluge” and “Lucifer” to examine the reasoning behind the historical bias.…

    • 1806 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Rothko Chapel

    • 537 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Rothko Chapel, located in Houston, Texas, presents a deceptively simple exterior. The ungarnished brick walls lack intrigue or grandeur, the doorway is simply a means of entrance rather than a spectacle, yet over 55,000 visitors are drawn to the location every year (YouTube). The sanctuary inside is just as plain, aside from fourteen imposing murals created by the chapel’s namesake, Mark Rothko. They adorn bare walls, constantly shifting appearance with the light cast from the chapel’s skylight (Dowell). They seem to be the only lively aspects of an otherwise static place.…

    • 537 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Now, in Latour’s eyes, the cathedral stands exposed as a “grim” (p. 100) relic of a past conflict between the native experience and the imported. The importance of the past comes to play, where the people who labored as slaves to build a church are expected to believe in the religion and follow its teachings (McCullough, 7). The slavery and the injustices make it difficult as seen by Latour. The mission becomes difficult due to the decisions that were made in the past.…

    • 953 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In “Cathedral”, the imagery being portrayed is very light, as if it didn't exist. Readers have to carefully read the material in order to obtain a sense of imagery. With that being said, the narrator questions himself, “How could I even begin to describe [a cathedral]?” The narrator has only seen cathedrals on “late night television”; therefore, he only has a mental image of what it looks like. The narrator is extremely frustrated trying to draw a Cathedral when Robert asks him, but he just cannot do it.…

    • 1632 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The example of Spanish Romanesque technique is located inside of the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in A Coruña, Spain. The statues of the four prophets, Jerimiah, Daniel, Isaiah, and Moses, were created by Master Mateo using the medium of stone in the year of 1168. The works were commissioned by King Ferdinand II of León. Looking at the Romanesque styled statues the style appears blocky and mechanical. The folds of the robes are chunky and linear sometime appearing as mere lines that cross the underlying stone.…

    • 207 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Comparing and Contrasting: The Basilica of Saint Sernin and Cathedral of Chartres Centuries have passed and to this day churches tower above France, marking the astonishing legacy of the Romanesque and Gothic styles designed in the Middle Ages. A Romanesque church example is the Basilica of St. Sernin in Toulouse, France 1080-1120 (fig.1) and an example of a Gothic church is the Cathedrale de Notre Dame de Chartres in Chartres, France 1194-1260 (fig.2). Much like their periods, the Basilica of Saint Sernin and the Cathedral of Chartres have many similarities regarding their styles, function, and context; however also have many differences. The Basilica and the Cathedral both had radiating chapels and apse; vaults, arches; vault supports;…

    • 803 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One of the main aspects of modernization that crept into the village was Christianity as a new religion. For instance, Catholicism came into the society through the merchants that had interacted with the missionaries. It is interesting to note that Catholicism was not introduces to the village by the missionaries. This is what the author describes as very orthodox Catholics (84).…

    • 1463 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In today’s cultural climate, pluralism and perspectivalism reign (Kӧstenberger & Kruger, p. 16). The reliance on personal experience has caused traditional thought to be challenged. An overlying paradigm of diversity (p. 18) has compelled “true” orthodoxy to be challenged, and as a result, heresy is seen as the “new orthodoxy” (p. 16,). In The Heresy of Orthodoxy, Kӧstenberger and Kruger (K2) provide a fair examination of the Bauer thesis which lays its foundation on the major urban centers of the first and early second centuries. The Bauer thesis, as popularized by Ehrman, argues that diversity – not unification - was present in early Christianity; “heresy preceded orthodoxy” (p. 17).…

    • 1453 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Martin Luther’s weren’t the only reforms that swept Europe in the early 1500s. He had come to his conclusions a tortured soul, desperately searching for a way to be redeemed in the eyes of God. But those same conclusions were reached by another, and not from the perspective of a tortured soul, but from the scholarly pursuit of truth. The teachings of Ulrich Zwingli affected Switzerland much the same as Luther’s affected Germany, but not even these great reformers were prepared for the Anabaptist movement. In this paper I will summarize chapters 5-6 in Justo Gonzalez’s The Story of Christianity.…

    • 801 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Modernism and Modernisms - Semester 1 The modernist building that I will be discussing in this essay is the Barcelona Pavilion. The Modern Period began from the late 19th Century all the way to early 20th Century. “Modernism, in the arts, a radical break with the past and the concurrent search for new forms of expression.”…

    • 1059 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays