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Литературные истоки готической физиогномики
The chapter proposes a comparative analysis of some texts, from the middle XIIth century to the middle XIIIth century, that, in author’s opinion, can explain the much discussed origins of the « gothic » naturalism, especially in the representation of human body. The author gives a critical review of some historiografic discussions on this crucial art-historical problem, from Vöge to Sauerländer, Büchsel, and Recht. The common art-historical views are compared for data from some literary and philosophical texts of the XIIth century, in prose and poetry : the Philosophia by William of Conches, the Cosmographia by Bernard Silvestris, the De natura corporis et animae by William of Saint-Thierry, the Liber physonomie, written by Michael Scot around 1230 and still unedited. The interest for detail, the growing expressivity in monumental sculpture, from Chartres to Reims and Castel del Monte, is in many respects parallelled by literary descriptions of beauties and gestures of protagonists. In these profoundly humanistic trends, the poets are often in advance to sculptors, and sculptors leave painters behind: this inequality in rhythm is a peculiar character of western culture around 1200.
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