Figure 54

"Perhaps the reason for this new verisimilitude has best been expressed by Sedlmayr, who calls attention to 'an apparent polarity' between architecture and sculpture in the thirteenth century, since the architecture is 'idealized' at the same time that the seculpture is 'realistic.' But this polarity, he explains, is only apparent, for although the architecture may suggest the ordered tranquility of heaven, the sculpture seeks to bring the Heavenly nearer to the observer.⁹⁰ ... That there was no actual trend towards 'realism' for its own sake in Gothic sculpture is apparent from its development elsewhere. We may be impressed by the 'classical' look of the famous Visitation at Reims, or by the skilful draperies of the Strassburg Master (Figs. 54, 55), but after the middle of the thirteenth century a more sever stylization begins to set in which harmonizes with the Gothic taste for flowing linearity and pointed finials." - p. 185

⁹⁰ Op.cit. p. 245.