The Gothic Cathedral: Origins of Gothic Architecture and the Medieval Concept of Order (Bollingen Series XLVIII)

xx, 275 pp. "The value of The Gothic Cathedral lies in its approach to two essential problems. The first one is concerned with the appreciation of Gothic architecture. Was it rational, or was it illusionistic? It was symbolic in its conception, mystical in its aim, and calculated in its principles. The second problem pretains to the relationship between thought, society, and art. Von Simson shows that in Gothic architecture history creates its own symbols, whether political, economic, intellectual, or artistic, all of them following an independent but convergent spiritual pattern."