Toward an Anagogical Imagination: How Gothic Architecture Might Make Known the Things Unseen
Publication Details
Köhler Ryan, R. (2012). Toward an Anagogical Imagination: How Gothic Architecture Might Make Known the Things Unseen. Biennial Conference in Philosophy, Religion and Culture: The Expressible and the Inexpressible.
Abstract
This paper is a philosophical investigation of the medieval understanding of the anagogical level of interpretation (of Scripture, but I will argue also of relationship to the world). It proposes that anagogy is represented in Gothic sacred architecture, where the visible constantly refers to what is invisible but intelligible. The builders of these structures intimate that something can actually be experienced and known of the unseen. I propose to discover and articulate the juncture at which the seen and the unseen meet in such sacred spaces.
Keywords
Abstract Only, anagogical, gothic architecture, Abbot Suger, fourfold sense of Scripture
Comments
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The Author:
Dr. Renée Köhler-Ryan