The “Headmaster” of Chartres and the Origins of “Gothic” Sculpture

Professor Armi's study represents a dramatic reconsideration of the origins of Gothic sculpture by employing new methodology and refuting previously accepted theories. Despite the aesthetic and historical significance of the Royal Portal, 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 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.

“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 Île-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

C. Edson Armi is Professor of Art History at the University of California, Santa Barbara and author of Masons and Sculptors in Romanesque Burgundy: The New Aesthetic of Cluny III (1983), winner of the CINOA International Art History Prize, and The Art of American Car Design: The Profession and Personalities (1988), both published by Penn State.

Art History & Architecture

           Aesthetics

           Medieval

           Art Theory & Criticism

Philosophy

           Aesthetics

Medieval and Early Modern Studies

           Medieval Art and Architecture