The International Gothic as Concept and Category

• In Event: The Gothic Present and Renaissance Art I

Abstract

This paper explores the history and historiography of the term “International Gothic.” First defined in nineteenth-century discussions of French art and nationalism, International Gothic is now used to describe a wide range of European art from the period between about 1350 and 1450, or even 1500. One of its great advantages it that it provides a place within art history for production that is not otherwise much studied: fifteenth-century Catalonia, for instance, or painting in Sicily before Antonello da Messina. Paradoxically, however, as a category International Gothic has also served to marginalize such art within larger teleologies. This paper will examine some of the most influential uses of the term, from Courajod to our contemporary moment, to explore why this might be so.

Author

• Anne Dunlop, University of Melbourne