I love "Drop the word Gothic and just look at what's in front of you", it applies to so much jargon. Sometimes categories obscure rather than clarify. Thanks for this!
Absolutely, I have been saying similar things for a long time, and recently in my Sainte Chapelle story.
Labels like 'Gothic' are like gluing Post-it notes on buildings, statues, and paintings.
The silliness, as you rightly mention, goes on with "International Gothic", Rayonnant Gothic, Flamboyant Gothic, and so on, all of it the fresh stuff coming out of cows.
These labels do not help the art lover understand why a particular statue, painting, or building is special.
I did a bit of research into the term "Gothic," which was created as a pejorative by people writing about the revival of classical architectural styles (all'antica)—or classically inspired styles—in Italy, starting in the 1400s.
In my article on Brunelleschi and in the endnotes, I compiled a list of people who referred either to "Gothic" or "barbarian" architecture in this way, which Renaissance architecture was a counterfoil to. In my article on Brunelleschi, I referred to all the sources I could locate in the PDF of endnotes that accompanies the article, with copious quotations.
I think the earliest to denounce "the Gothic" (that I could find in print) was the architect Filarete in his treatise on architecture (1464). The idea was also central in Manetti's Life of Brunelleschi and then the same ideas are repeated in Vasari.
All of these writers trace the rejection of the Gothic back to Brunelleschi himself, because that is what he was trying to "undo" with his new style of Renaissance architecture.
Of course, there was a bit of Italian nationalism involved in all of this, because they wanted to "make Rome great again" in the words of Ross King.
I love "Drop the word Gothic and just look at what's in front of you", it applies to so much jargon. Sometimes categories obscure rather than clarify. Thanks for this!
Absolutely, I have been saying similar things for a long time, and recently in my Sainte Chapelle story.
Labels like 'Gothic' are like gluing Post-it notes on buildings, statues, and paintings.
The silliness, as you rightly mention, goes on with "International Gothic", Rayonnant Gothic, Flamboyant Gothic, and so on, all of it the fresh stuff coming out of cows.
These labels do not help the art lover understand why a particular statue, painting, or building is special.
I did a bit of research into the term "Gothic," which was created as a pejorative by people writing about the revival of classical architectural styles (all'antica)—or classically inspired styles—in Italy, starting in the 1400s.
In my article on Brunelleschi and in the endnotes, I compiled a list of people who referred either to "Gothic" or "barbarian" architecture in this way, which Renaissance architecture was a counterfoil to. In my article on Brunelleschi, I referred to all the sources I could locate in the PDF of endnotes that accompanies the article, with copious quotations.
I think the earliest to denounce "the Gothic" (that I could find in print) was the architect Filarete in his treatise on architecture (1464). The idea was also central in Manetti's Life of Brunelleschi and then the same ideas are repeated in Vasari.
All of these writers trace the rejection of the Gothic back to Brunelleschi himself, because that is what he was trying to "undo" with his new style of Renaissance architecture.
Of course, there was a bit of Italian nationalism involved in all of this, because they wanted to "make Rome great again" in the words of Ross King.
https://livingideasjournal.com/brunelleschi-invention-renaissance-architecture/
Endnotes with quotations from the original sources:
https://livingideasjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Notes-to-The-Man-Who-Invented-Renaissance-Architecture.pdf