A dramatic reconsideration of the origins of Gothic sculpture employing new methodology and refuting previously accepted theories.

"This book makes a significant contribution to the study of medieval sculpture, primarily because it looks at an old set of problems with a fresh point of view. As in his first book, Masons and Sculptors in Romanesque Burgundy, Armi's research is based on exhaustive visual analysis. Armi dares to question certain long-held assumptions—for example, that the Headmaster was indeed the head of the workshop that created the Royal Portal; that his art derived in a vague way from Northern Burgundian Romanesque; that Gothic sculpture was nevertheless a product of the mid-twelfth century 'culture' of the Íle-de-France. These assumptions had led to a virtual dead end in art historical research on the sources of Chartres. Armi has succeeded in attacking the problem from a different angle and has proposed a new solution. Whether or not his hypothesis is accepted, he will surely cause many people to rethink the whole issue of the origins of Gothic sculpture." —Elizabeth Bradford Smith, The Pennsylvania State University

Despite the aesthetic and historical significance of the Royal Portal, scholars lack concrete knowledge about it since no documentation of its design and construction exists. Nevertheless, over the last century, a set of truths about the facade have become accepted. Employing a new methodology that overcomes the lack of documents with a revised form of connoisseurship, Edson Armi proposes a radically different biography of the headmaster that has far-reaching implications for the study of Gothic sculpture. With a new perspective on this, the most important mid-twelfth-century portal, the book concludes that the style and cultural context of Île-de-France sculpture is less defined and more diverse than previously imagined. More importantly, the book argues that the forms of art, as well as the design and working procedures in the Paris basin, can no longer be seen as unique or separate from the practices of provincial French art in the period before 1140.