Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Villard de Honnecourt's Drawings of Reims Cathedral: A Study in Architectural Representation

1997; Volume: 18; Issue: 35 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1483536

0391-9064

Jamés S. Ackerman,

Historical Art and Architecture Studies

Among the nearly seventy drawings on parchment preserved from the model book of Villard de Honnecourt are a number done in the chantier of Reims Cathedral, around 1230. They are of great interest, not only as a record of the building of the Cathedral, but for what they show of the graphic representation of architecture in the late Middle Ages. They include the first drawing combining the inte­rior and exterior elevation, the first cross-section, and an idiosyncratic representation of the central absidal chapel. While Villard does not seem to have been an architect or master mason, his volume documents a highly developed graphic capacity. The paper is a critical study of the group.