Between Ordine and Capriccio. Gothic Architecture in the Theatre of the Enlightenment
- DOI
- 10.2991/icadce-17.2017.2How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- Theatre architecture; stage design; Gothic taste; Age of Enlightenment; architectural theory; Francesco Gradizzi
- Abstract
The perception and rethinking of the "dark Middle Ages" in the period of Enlightenment largely determined the interpretation of the present, and expectations for the future. That was why the appearance of Gothic images and motifs on the theatre stage was not just another phase in the history of art and architecture or a fad for the "Gothic taste", but also a factor of political propaganda geared to public opinion and domestic and foreign policies. What did the 18th-century theatre-goers and stage decorators perceive as "Gothic"? How did the "settings", iconographic tradition and predilections of European playwrights and librettists change over the Age of Enlightenment? The article looks at these and other nuances of Gothic motifs' invasion of the ephemeral architecture of the theatre stage. The grand staging of Catherine the Great's historical play The Early Reign of Oleg, in which action takes place in the "Gothic Antiquity" of the Russian state, is a special theme that graphically demonstrates the political underpinnings of recourse to the national "Gothic". A search for the iconographical prototypes of the theatre images turns out to be no less captivating than the ideologically charged reconstruction of historical memory.
- Copyright
- © 2017, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
- Open Access
- This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
Cite this article
TY - CONF AU - Anna Korndorf PY - 2017/05 DA - 2017/05 TI - Between Ordine and Capriccio. Gothic Architecture in the Theatre of the Enlightenment BT - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Arts, Design and Contemporary Education (ICADCE 2017) PB - Atlantis Press SP - 6 EP - 19 SN - 2352-5398 UR - https://doi.org/10.2991/icadce-17.2017.2 DO - 10.2991/icadce-17.2017.2 ID - Korndorf2017/05 ER -