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The Gothic Image: Religious Art In France Of The Thirteenth Century (Icon Editions Series)

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By knowing this deeper history of some of Europe’s most iconic buildings, travelers can approach these well-known attractions with new eyes and can appreciate that the “East-West divide” isn’t as deep as we are often led to think. Reviving the Gothic in England Gothic novels tend to create a feeling of uncertainty, by making the characters and the reader question what they believe and what is real. This character might be protected by their innocence, though they will probably be in great danger.

In the same way antagonists require rules, it is important that readers have a chance to see the answer to their questions revealed, or that the readers are given enough clues to formulate an answer for themselves. The Lottery does a great job of presenting a seemingly enigmatic scenario – a lottery for which people do not wish to be chosen – and giving a reasonable explanation for why it might exist. In this way gothic literature can be said to relate more closely to the mystery genre, than the horror genre. Though, of course, these genres already compliment one-another quite well. Gothic literature often contrasts different types of characters: victims and predators, good and evil. They are full of strange and often supernatural characters like ghosts, vampires and werewolves. Or sometimes it’s humans that seem to have something different about them, they might have special senses or abilities. These blog posts on Global Spiritual Studies give you more insight into the Gothic Image travel experience.

Gothic is mostly dominated by church architecture during this period, but is also seen in collegiate architecture, notably at Oxford and Cambridge. At the same time, the role of the medieval architect or master mason develops from a mere stonemason in the early Middle Ages, to one of middling or higher rank during the more literate and sophisticated 15th century. Widespread throughout western Europe during the Middle Ages, this architectural movement lasted from the 12th to the early 17th century. Gothic is the architecture of the pointed arch, the rib vault, the flying buttress, window tracery, pinnacles, and spires. By the 15th century walls are reduced to a minimum by large arcades, huge windows, with an emphasis on verticality. For instance, the creature in Frankenstein seeks out companionship, but is thwarted by its appearance. This becomes the core motivator for the plot, and the tragedy of the creature causes conflict between the protagonist (here conceptualized as the creature) and the antagonist (here conceptualized as the doctor). Of course Shelley's masterpiece allows you to view the same story from another angle, and consider Viktor Frankenstein the protagonist (unrequited love included), and his creation the monster or monstrous force which prevents him from reaching his goal, or uniting with his beloved. Gothic Revivalists worked hard to invert Wren’s argument. They said it was Greek or Roman neo-classicism that was the suspicious foreign import. However, Wren was historically correct. Creative dialogue between East and West continues into the present day. The 2021 short list for the Stirling Prize, one of the most prestigious architectural awards in the United Kingdom, included the beautiful Central Mosque in Cambridge, designed by Marks Barfield Architects.

The wooden roof beams over the main prayer hall spread up and out like intricate tree branches. It is an echo, perhaps, of the lovely theory proposed by Bishop William Warburton in 1760 that the ribbed ceilings of Gothic churches derived from “northern people having been accustomed, during the gloom of paganism, to worship the deity in groves.” This was purely speculation, as roof ribbing came from Eastern building solutions. During the long building campaigns of the Middle Ages, the style evolved from simple pointed forms, with plain windows, to the highly elaborate vaults and decorative tracery seen from the 14th century.Soon enough, the impact reached out from sacred and public spaces into the worlds of commerce. The English department store, so central to the luxurious Victorian shopping experience, was also borrowed from the covered markets and bazaars of the Middle East. The continuing interplay of East and West Saracen” was the term used in medieval Europe to group together Arab Muslims. Wren supposed that it was during the Crusades (from 1096 to 1291) that Western Europeans fighting against the expansion of Islamic states in the Middle East first glimpsed the pointed arches, ribbed roofs, domes, rose windows, and minaret towers that were typical of religious buildings and palace complexes across large swaths of the Islamic East. Once the crusaders returned home, what Wren called the “sharp-heeled arch” began to appear over new church doorways, and minarets became models for cathedral bell towers and spires. In gothic fiction certain characters are considered archetypal. These characters have a recurring place in many stories, and while they should not be relied upon, they should also not be shunned. Just because a character is archetypal, does not mean they are necessarily cliché. In most gothic fiction the hero is virtuous, ambitious, and self-sacrificing; they are motivated to return to or pursue a relationship, either in love, lust, or kinship; and they are separated from their goal by circumstances arising either from the antagonist of the fiction, or the horror of the fiction, or both. Director of Gothic Image Tours, Jamie George, left his native Scotland for London in the early 1960s to pursue a career in television and media. “After a while, I took a year off to study areas that had always interested me – the myths and legends of Britain, the sacred landscape and folklore. As the year went by, I decided to live in Glastonbury and in some ways it felt like coming home.”

What gothic literature does not do, is leave the reader hanging as regards answers to the primary motivations of the plot. Yes, there may be a few threads unresolved at the end of the story, but the central horror (or other darkness) of the text should be explicable (understood by the reader) by the time the text is finished. Again, the unknowable, the unanswerable and the incomprehensible are all elements of eldritch horror. Smaller settingsSteve Marshall was a professional musician for 30 years and a sound engineer. But now, he is an independent researcher in the field of archaeology, having spent close to ten years researching and photographing the Avebury landscape and monuments. The result is a ground-breaking book, Exploring Avebury, the Essential Guide, which was published in 2016. New areas that Steve explored in depth, are sound and acoustics and the connection between the siting of prehistoric monuments and moving water. Just like many Gothic stories are set in isolated locations, the motif of strange places puts characters somewhere strange and mysterious.

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