These gargoyles, Camille contends, were not mere avatars of the Middle Ages, but rather fresh creations-symbolizing an imagined past-whose modernity lay precisely in their nostalgia. Michael Camille begins his long-awaited study by recounting architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc’s ambitious restoration of the structure from 1843 to 1864, when the gargoyles were designed, sculpted by the little-known Victor Pyanet, and installed. The first comprehensive history of these world-famous monsters, The Gargoyles of Notre-Dame argues that they transformed the iconic thirteenth-century cathedral into a modern monument. III.Most of the seven million people who visit the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris each year probably do not realize that the legendary gargoyles adorning this medieval masterpiece were not constructed until the nineteenth century. Dark Gargoyles: Surrealism, Fascism and the Occult Monsters of the Media: The Gargoyles in the Twentieth Century Huysmans’s Chimera: The Cathedral as Whoreĩ. Freud, Hysteria, and the Gynecologic Gargoyle The Beast as Beholder: From Marville to MieusementĨ. The Worker as Beholder: Henri Le Secq and Viollet-le-Duc The Dandy as Beholder: Charles Nègre and Henri Le Secq Monsters of Light: The Gargoyles of Photographers Monsters of Melancholy: The Gargoyles of Charles Méryonħ. The Wild Beast and the Revolutionary WorkerĮpilogue to Part I: The Gargoyles Restored (1864)Ħ. Monsters of Revolution: The Gargoyles of Politics Monsters of Race: The Gargoyles of Scienceĥ. Quasimodo’s Grimace and the Craze for GargoylesĤ. Monsters of Romanticism: The Gargoyles of Victor Hugo Monsters of Stone: The Gargoyles of Victor Joseph Pyanetģ. Viollet-le-Duc’s Anti-iconographic ImaginationĢ. Monsters of Reason: The Gargoyles of Viollet-le-Duc Provocative, at times profoundly insightful, Michael Camille unveils the fantasies and anxieties of both Viollet-le-Duc and all the restorations since in the veils of meaning and emotions of France’s most visited cathedral.”īarry Bergdoll, Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, Museum of Modern ArtĪbbreviations of Locations and Sources of Illustrationsġ. This last work of one of our time’s great medievalists is, like Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris, at once monumental and wide ranging, yet always focused on a demonic protagonist. Viollet-le-Duc and Jean Baptiste Lassus have long been cast as the handmaidens of nineteenth-century positivism, instilling a vision of rational structure and historical development on the cathedral only recently purged of its Revolutionary years as a Temple of Reason. Writing a history of the cathedral’s bevy of gargoyles, Michael Camille brilliantly confirms Viollet-le-Duc’s definition of ‘restoration’ as both a word and thing of modern coinage. “The ‘restoration’ of Notre Dame de Paris has always been controversial. Read More about The Gargoyles of Notre-Dame Read Less about The Gargoyles of Notre-Dame Lavishly illustrated with more than three hundred images of its monumental yet whimsical subjects, The Gargoyles of Notre-Dame is a must-read for historians of art and architecture and anyone whose imagination has been sparked by the lovable monsters gazing out over Paris from one of the world’s most renowned vantage points. Tracing their eventual evolution into icons of high kitsch, Camille ultimately locates the gargoyles’ place in the twentieth-century imagination, exploring interpretations by everyone from Winslow Homer to the Walt Disney Company. He goes on to map the critical reception and many-layered afterlives of these chimeras, notably in the works of such artists and writers as Charles Méryon, Victor Hugo, and photographer Henri Le Secq. Most of the seven million people who visit the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris each year probably do not realize that the legendary gargoyles adorning this medieval masterpiece were not constructed until the nineteenth century.
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