Art & artists of the Middle Ages

"To French art historian Male, Christian art is an unfolding drama of the earthly revelation of the divine spirit, with influences interacting across centuries. Author of such popular books as The Gothic Image, he writes with passion and scholarship. He marvels at the earliest Syrian portrayals of the Gospel story, in which turbulent realism triumphed over Hellenic calm; he ties the battlements of Mont-Saint-Michel to the saga of Joan of Arc. Following Roman roads across Arab Spain, he admires firsthand the ``gossamer wonders'' of Cordoba's Great Mosque and speculates that it must have inspired the architect of Notre-Dame-du-Port. First published in 1927, now translated into English for the first time, this collection of specialized essays leaps from French Gothic ivories and glass paintings to Raphael, in whose pictures ``one senses the presence of God everywhere.'' -- Publisher's Weekly.