Abstract

The article examines R. Recht’s Le croire et le voir. L’art des cathé- drales (XIIe–XVe siècle) (1999), which has been recently translated into Russian. The author criticizes both the monograph and its translation and highlights the main weaknesses of Recht’s concept. He also discusses the controversy concerning this book in foreign historiography and raises some topical issues related to the latest research on Gothic art. Rastorguev considers dubious the idea of increasing visuality of the cathedral space, which is allegedly linked to the new rite of displaying the Host, because Recht ignores the late Romanesque architectural tradition. His “art of cathedrals” becomes a poorly credible artificial construct, in which scholarly fashion and somewhat hasty, superficial conclusions prevail over an actual analysis of architectural form. Perhaps that is why there are many mistakes in the specific description of the architectural monuments. This article draws on an extensive historiographical material, which confirms the dubiousness of Recht’s methods and conclusions. The reviewer’s special subject is the quality of the translation, which does not stand up to criticism with regard to terminology. While the architectural analysis requires impeccable accuracy of description (which the author himself lacks), the translator adds his own faults to the author’s errors. They can be checked against contemporary and older publications, as well as on the website mappinggothic.org containing invaluable visual resources. Furthermore, the illustrations in the Russian edition do not correspond to the original ones, and they are placed out of their proper position in the most important cases (for example, in the analysis of the cathedrals of Bourges and Chartres). To conclude, the question is raised as to what should be translated on Gothic architecture, if, of course, it is not translated in the way it is done in the book under review.