Inside Out Library · Explore

L'art profane à l'église; ses licences symboliques, satiriques et fantaisistes. Contribution à létude archéologique et artistique des édifices religieux

Witkowski, G.-J. (Gustave Joseph), 1844-1923 · 1908 · Paris, J. Schemit · 38 pictures

A 1908 Paris study by the art historian Gustave Joseph Witkowski, written for scholars of church architecture, cataloguing secular and satirical carvings found inside Christian churches. The pictures are small black-and-white line engravings of medieval sculpted figures: a nude woman riding a beast, a standing nude flanked by bearded faces among acanthus leaves, a martyrdom scene with soldiers, and a pair of figures holding animals. A designer could take from them the crisp, stylised line of Gothic carving and its grotesque, decorative motifs.

Christian art and symbolism

Internet Archive · Getty Research Institute · Public domain (published before 1931) · More from this library