Aux portes de la Jérusalem Céleste
This is the second booklet in French in the short series dedicated to a broad non-academic audience, this time with more illustrations based on the photographic campaign on the tympanum realized within the project. It presents the most visible artwork accessible to the visitor's gaze when arriving in front of the abbey church: the richly adorned and polychrome tympanum presenting the scene of the Last Judgement. Sculpted at the beginning of the 12th century, the portal is probably amongst the first of its type along the pilgrimage routes. The goal of the booklet is to present to a broad audience what perception the medieval pilgrims could have had of such an incredible artistic object, how they understood these sculptures and their theme, and what effect this liminal imagery could have had on them. It does so by explaining how a complex message of salvation is reinforced by sculpted images together with an elegant Latin poem which runs around and under them, borrowing from a variety of themes and concepts widespread both in the common and elite cultures of the 12th and 13th centuries.
- 48
- 18,5 x 19 cm