Welcome!
Hello, StuartLondon, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
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before the question. Again, welcome! carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 03:03, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
Hello, I am a student of physics from Israel that finds a great interest in Gothic architecture, which I consider, along with Gothic Revival as the finest and most beutiful style of architecture. I pretty much wrote almost all the material on Gothic architecture on the Hebrew Wikipedia based on the English Wikipedia, a book in Hebrew by Nurith Kenaan Kedar (a professor of Gothic art in Tel Aviv University) and the book "The Gothic Cathedral" by Christopher Wilson, which I am currently reading. I discovered your contribution to Rayonnant after I expanded the coresponding Hebrew article he:סגנון גותי קורן and then I saw your userpage and found out you are Academic PhD on Gothic. Since there aren't many good sources in Gothic architecture in Hebrew or at Google can you recommend me about good books (or good websites) on Gothic architecture? Thank and Welcome to Wikipedia! MathKnight Gothic Israeli Jew 19:52, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
Hi Stuart! The only problem with the addition of Draper's book to the bibliography of the English Cathedrals page is that I wrote the entire article, and didn't use that book. I think we need a section called Further reading to which we add the Draper book and any other recommendations that you have. Amandajm (talk) 07:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Amandajm (talk) 07:42, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I just took a look at your home page. I must introduce myself as probably the main ego that you have to deal with here, apart from William Michael Rossetti, who shows up on these pages most persistently, because very large chunks of Britannica 1911 have been used wherever and whenever an article was needed on an art subject. Aaaargh! He writes, with scorn, that some people (fools!) actually like the insipid paintings of Fra Angelico! At least you no longer have to worry about offending him.
Anyway, back to me. I defend the articles that I have written quite ferociously againt vandalism, prejudice, simple-mindedness, bloody-mindedness, sheer stupidity, and well-intention bumbles. I do not defend them against real scholarship, or the actions of a number of reliable, knowledgeable individuals who are not simply pushing barrows. I notice Johnbod has already done some tidying up around one of your articles.
I would greatly value some learned input. I was just about to totally rehash Cathedral architecture of Western Europe.
What it needs is to have Banister Fletcher's formula written out of it for exactly the reason that you have identified- it presents an antiquated way of looking at architecture. Secondly, it needs to extend to Eastern Europe, now that more info is available. My proposal is to rename it something like Architecture of European cathedrals of the Western tradition. It can then be followed up by Architecture of cathedrals of the Eastern Orthodox tradition (or some such) and Architecture of cathedrals of Africa, Asia, Australasia and the Americas.
Would you be in on this?
If you are going to edit on Wikipedia, this is what you have to be prepared for:
A note about formatting. We do not use title case for headings and sub-headings. Weee at Wikeee only capitalise the first word.
Welcome aboard! Amandajm (talk) 09:49, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Dear Amanda,
Many thanks for that and lovely to hear from you. Copy editing is not my strong point so am most grateful for your cleaning up of the Beauneveu article (I fear my contributions on Tracery may need similar attention if you ever feel in the mood...)
I'm enormously relieved to hear of your plan to de-Fletcherise European Cathedrals. I'm as fond of BF as the next person but it is, as you say, a tad out of date. Unfortunately Mr Cruikshank's editorial interventions have tended to make things worse rather than better and it's now in the same category as Ruskin and V. le Duc (and to some extent Frankl) - i.e. fascinating texts by highly educated experts but which are now studied more for what they reveal about earlier attitudes to art history. I fear Pevsner is going the same way, though his talent for description (if not his ability to explain things in their historical context) remains unmatched.
Anyway, I shall be happy to assist with your rewrites in any way I can - I certainly have no wish to tread on your toes, since you clearly put a great deal of time and effort into this. I was planning to work my way through the various French cathedral articles since that's my main area of expertise and many of them need filling out or correcting. Obviously being an English art historian specialising in Gothic art I do know a little bit about English cathedrals too. Since my PhD is on narrative art across all media I also do a lot of work on architectural sculpture, stained glass, manuscript illuminations, ivories and Limoges enamels so may be able to help out in those areas too. Generally though I don't go much beyond the early-15th century!
Not sure how much time I'll be able to spend on WP since this is going to be a very busy academic year (rather too much lecturing to do, as well as the small matter of needing to get my PhD thesis finished and submitted by end of March) but I'll do what I can. Off to Chartres on monday for a week or so (poking around up the scaffolding in the choir) but will be around more after that.
All the best, Stuart
StuartLondon (talk) 11:08, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Pevsner... his description of St Stephen's, Walbrook, made it all clear to me, all those years ago as a teenager. The building was designed on paper, a doodle almost, with all the traditional elements of nave, aisles and transepts somehow brilliantly combined with the vitruvian whatsit! My friend Leo would have loved it. Recently they have turned it into a "church in the round" which, of course, it lent itself to, admirably. But it ignores the subtlety of the building....
English Gothic architecture. Now, there is a little problem. I have started on it a couple of times and never seen it through.
I know more about English cathedrals than French ones, and am most inconveniently located, being in Wollongong. We have a have a Gothic Revival Pro-Cathedral in Wollongong. It is by one of the most accomplished Gothic Revival architects, Edmund Blacket. The Pro-Cathedral of St Michael and All Angels belongs to the Sydney Anglican. You may know what this implies. Then again, being ten thousand miles away, you might not. Anyway, Wollongong is more Sydney than Sydney. St Michael's is just big enough to swing the proverbial cat in (if your purpose is to break its neck against the wall).
Anyway, what I started out to say is that I have been working my way through the English cathedrals, with the assistance of the locals. I started with Bristol. That was OK. I was invited to Chester, but there was a horrible war going on in Chester at the time. I think that the Bell-ringers must have been locked out or something equally nasty, so I went further north to Carlise, where the Scots came over the Border and made some corrections. I got deflected by threats to the substance of St Warburge's, Preston, and ended up at St Chad's, Birmingham. I got back to Chester eventually. I haven't mentioned Canterbury here. As you may have noticed, I tried to do this in affabecklauder but it didn't work. Anyway, I looked at Canterbury, clutched my head, and retreated to Durham. Durham still hasn't come together, because Worcester got in the way. I know that seems improbable, but it did. So did Camperdown Cemetery. Anyway, when I've got the time, I'll take on Canterbury. I'd be interested to know what you think about the painting of the canopy over the Black Prince.
I envy you, up there, getting a close look at the wonders of Chartres. I'm getting so old and rheumaticky that I don't do scaffolding and scaling anymore.
I also do Renaissance painting.
Cheers! Amandajm (talk) 12:42, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Any thoughts on this new article? A precise definition seems hard to pin down. Also the new Royal Gold Cup - any comments welcome. Johnbod (talk) 14:53, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
You wrote "On July 6th 2010 the cathedral was damaged by fire and reconstruction started shortly after, begining at the eastern end". I think this date is a mistake. --Khips (talk) 04:01, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
Hi Stuart, I'm grateful for your improvements to Chartres Cathedral, an article I did a major copyedit on long ago but which has had various ongoing problems. One caveat: your most recent edit removed a sentence—
From a distance it seems to hover in mid-air above waving fields of wheat, and it is only when the visitor draws closer that the city comes into view, clustering around the hill on which the cathedral stands
—which I think is highly beneficial to the article. In a few short words, it conveys a sense of the visual uniqueness of the cathedral in a way that any amount of dry, analytical language cannot. It also is refreshingly vivid writing, which is often in short supply around here. What would you think about restoring the sentence? Rivertorch (talk) 17:13, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
I was wondering if you would help me with this article ? I need support because I'm not a native speaker and furthermore I did not study art (I'm still ashamed about my attempt on wp:fr fr:Représentation des animaux dans l'art médiéval occidental, maybe the subject was not the easier one). --Anneyh (talk) 17:26, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
Yea, reading these articles to extract information is frustrating. I think everyone would be better served if the 'completed' field in ((Infobox church)) was set to 'unknown' for these. I did notice that the Basilica of St Denis does not even use the template. Also using the architecture category directly is problematic since apparently the meaning is different based on the local usage. Placing articles directly into those ambiguous categories is problematic. Is the date when design started, or finished or is it when construction started or when construction finished? For a design which started a movement, I have not idea how you class that in some years. The best solution in my mind is to leave it in the architecture style categories. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:20, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Glad to see you working on the Abbey of St Denis.
Regarding the posting immediately above this, there is some ridiculous notion that all the churches on earth can be shoved into little dated boxes. The exact name of the boxes has changed several times and is currently "Churches completed in....." which is ridiculous. Likewise there is a category for "Cathedral architects..." or some such, which is equally foolish as it must by definition exclude the architects of St Peter's. The muddle at Wikimedia Commons is even greater. It is increasingly difficult to find anything as the sections become more and more refined. I'm still reading up on parish churches. I don't think I'm very popular right now! Toodle-oo! Amandajm (talk) 02:37, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your message. I understood that to be the case, but I wanted to double check. Amandajm (talk) 11:25, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Hi! Glad to see you are still around. A comment on the content (which certainly doesn't have to be a long list of language points a la everyone else) at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Middle Ages/archive1 would be very welcome. Johnbod (talk) 09:37, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Hi,
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Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:11, 24 November 2015 (UTC)