Save the date for the September 11th Julius Fund talk by Charles Little, Curator Emeritus of Medieval Art  and The Cloisters,  The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The catastrophic fire of Notre Dame of Paris on 15 April brought global attention to the world of Gothic art and the cathedral as one of its crowning glories. But what makes Paris so pivotal for this dramatic artistic change?

A recent exhibition in Paris grappled with the notion of the ‘Birth of Gothic Sculpture’ posing intriguing notions of how and why it all happened.  The lecture will explore some of these features and especially how key monuments became a springboard to a new style–called at the time ars nova (new arts) or opus francigenum (french works). Museums today also grapple with this moment of Europe in transformation in presenting and understanding the various manifestations of the idea of Gothic–dreamed up in renaissance Italy–and still searching for answers.