Peter Kidson sets out to analyze Panofsky’s writings on Abbot Suger and whether they depict an accurate image of the man and his role in the development of the Gothic style. He argues that Panofsky gives Suger too much credit and calls into question the innovations Panofsky brought to the Suger conversation: the Abbot’s connection to St. Bernard and his status as an intellect. Kidson goes on to address these points thoroughly through analysis of Suger’s writings.
In the last section of his study, Kidson looks at studies that came after Panofsky and their contributions to the conversation. This inclusion is appropriate yet not given a thorough connection. Earlier in his article, Kidson discusses how Panofsky focused on Suger in his study and …show more content…
In many instances where Kidson was describing a person or group of people, the language he used could be rather harsh and extremely polarizing. For example, on page 8, he compares “the relaxed Benedictine Suger and the austere Cistercian Bernard.” A more extreme example comes on page 2 when describing the devide between Gothic architecture historians: “On the one hand the artchair art historians have gone their own way, busily dreaming up iconographical fantasies that all too often could never have been taken seriously by any practicing architect, even if they were actually put to him; while on the other the down to earch archaeologists have resolutely turned their backs on all such nonsense, but are so myopically obsessed with mason’s marks and masonry breaks that they scarcely ever attend to larger issues.” This comparison leaves little room for overlap or collaboration and polarizes the different approaches. There are times when Kidson used words like “silly” (page 6) or phrases like “nasty, sexy puns” (page 8) that seem out of place in a such a scholarly article. These specific word choices come across as harsh and can be distracting from some aspects of the
In the last section of his study, Kidson looks at studies that came after Panofsky and their contributions to the conversation. This inclusion is appropriate yet not given a thorough connection. Earlier in his article, Kidson discusses how Panofsky focused on Suger in his study and …show more content…
In many instances where Kidson was describing a person or group of people, the language he used could be rather harsh and extremely polarizing. For example, on page 8, he compares “the relaxed Benedictine Suger and the austere Cistercian Bernard.” A more extreme example comes on page 2 when describing the devide between Gothic architecture historians: “On the one hand the artchair art historians have gone their own way, busily dreaming up iconographical fantasies that all too often could never have been taken seriously by any practicing architect, even if they were actually put to him; while on the other the down to earch archaeologists have resolutely turned their backs on all such nonsense, but are so myopically obsessed with mason’s marks and masonry breaks that they scarcely ever attend to larger issues.” This comparison leaves little room for overlap or collaboration and polarizes the different approaches. There are times when Kidson used words like “silly” (page 6) or phrases like “nasty, sexy puns” (page 8) that seem out of place in a such a scholarly article. These specific word choices come across as harsh and can be distracting from some aspects of the