Mâle, Émile

Date born: 1862

Place born: Commentry, Allier, France

Date died: 1954

Place died: Château Chaalis (near Senlis), France

Major medievalist of French Gothic art and architecture, developed iconographic method. Mâle was the son of a miner raised in a small French village of Bézenet, Bourbonnais, and later Montheiux, near St.-Etienne, Loire. Among his childhood memories was that of his father reading the romantic version of the middle ages contained in Notre Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo (q.v.). In 1883 he enrolled at the École Normale Supérieure, Paris, initially hoping to be a painter. He studied literature, graduating in 1886. His friends included Joseph Bédier (1864-1938), whose philologic theories on the chansons de geste would greatly affect Mâle's own view of art. Intending to be an archaeologist, he continued his studies in ancient art and history at he École d'Athènes. While traveling with cousins in Italy during the summer, he came upon the fourteenth-century frescos by Andrea di Firenze in Santa Maria Novella in Florence and his enthusiasm for ancient art disappeared in favor of the medieval. Renouncing his fellowship in Athens, he returned to France and accepted a position as professor of rhetoric at St.-Etienne. He taught there three years, moving to Toulouse and then Paris to pursue his graduate degree. After an initial article on the iconography of the liberal arts in 1891, he began lecturing in art history in 1892 and publishing on Romanesque capitals at the Musée des Augustins, Toulouse, the same year. In 1894 an article on teaching of art history appeared, followed in 1895 by the first of what would be his consuming interests, the origin of French medieval sculpture. Mâle completed writing his two required dissertations between 1898 and 1899. The first, appeared in print in 1898 as L’Art religieux du XIIIe siècle en France. This study of 13th-century French iconography, drawn from the major cathedrals of France, was a great success. Based in part upon the work theories of Adolphe Didron (q.v.) and his Iconographie chrétienne, 1843, Mâle asserted that the Gothic cathedral was a pictorial encyclopedia to be read visually by the medieval worshipper. Mâle himself appeared to have misgivings about the book's reception (Harvey). The pair of works appeared together in 1902. In 1908 he was elected to the Chair of medieval archaeology, which the study of medieval architecture was then called, at the Sorbonne, which had been created just two years before. The same year he also published, L’Art religieux de la fin du moyen âge en France. In this book, Mâle argued that although styles among French art between thirteenth and fifteenth-century charged, it was largely due to matters of taste. He became emeritus at the Sorbonne in 1912. Mâle continued to publish, research and revise his writings into new editions. Unlike his colleagues, such as Henri Focillon (q.v.), Mâle refrained from contributing to newspapers. In 1917 he issued a book, L'art allemand et l'art français du moyen âge, which was harshly criticized for its contradictory view of German art. In 1922, L’Art religieux du XIIe siècle en France appeared, a synthetic treatment medieval art overall, tracing Gothic elements back to Romanesque forms. In 1923 (1927?) he succeeded Mgr. Duchesne as the honorary director of the école français de Rome. In 1927 he coined the term "iconography" (though Aby Warburg, q.v., had used it as an adjective), the hallmark of his method. He retired in 1937.

Mâle was one a of group of pioneering art historians, who, along with the German-speaking (but methodologically different) Adolph Goldschmidt (q.v.), Alois Riegl (q.v.), and Wilhelm Vöge (q.v.), were responsible for transforming art history from a fledging discipline into an internationally respected field of study. His books were widely appreciated during his lifetime, inspiring generations of art historians to study French iconography as a core explication of medieval art. He was among the first to recognize eastern influences in medieval art. Principally an iconographer, Mâle was responsible for "rediscovering" the baroque iconographic manual, Iconologia (1593) by Cesare Ripa (q.v.) in the late 1920s. Methodologically, Mâle was 19th-century in his outlook and remained aloof from approaches to art history outside his interest. He viewed religious architecture as the Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), borrowed from Didron. His approach, however, was and is frequently criticized by other art historians as being too narrow and nationalistic. His thesis that art of twelfth-century sculpture was born in French regional schools (Toulouse and Languedoc) was denied by the American scholar A. Kingsley Porter (q.v.) who argued instead that Pilgrimage routes provided a fluid transmission of iconography. Porter's “Spain or Toulouse?” review of Mâle’s book established the poles of scholarship for two subsequent generations of medievalists (Seidel). Andre Grabar (q.v.) tbelieved Mâle’s conception of the "encyclopedic cathedral" as overstated and ignoring secular thought. Even fellow iconographer Erwin Panofsky (q.v.) distanced himself from Mâle, considering his iconography too simplistic for true insight. Mâle’s blatant anti-German view of medieval art, L'art allemand et l'art français du moyen âge, written in part to counter Die deutsche Plastik vom ausgehenden Mittelalter bis zum Ende der Renaissance by the German nationalist Wilhelm Pinder (q.v.) appeared during World War I. It, too, was derided in reviews. Michael Camille (q.v.) added to these criticisms in 1989, citing Mâle's interpretation of medieval art as relying too exclusively through literary sources and less on how the art functioned. Recent new translations of his work, have affirmed that, though narrow in their outlook, his interpretation of form is correct.

Home Country: France

Sources: Mann, Janice. "Romantic Identity, Nationalism, and the Understanding of the Advent of Romanesque Art in Christian Spain." Gesta 36 no. 2 (1997): 156-64; Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. Research Guide to the History of Western Art. Sources of Information in the Humanities, no. 2. Chicago: American Library Association, 1982, p. 60; Dvorák, Max. Idealism and Naturalism in Gothic Art. Translated and noted by Randolph J. Klawiter. Preface by Karl Maria Swoboda. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1967, p. 212-13; Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. Modern Perspectives in Western Art History: An Anthology of 20th-Century Writings on the Visual Arts. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971, p. 56; Salerno, Luigi. "Iconography." Encyclopedia of World Art. 7: 769ff; Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l'histoire de l'art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, pp. 208, 210-212, 469; Seidel, Linda. “Arthur Kingsley Porter (1883-1933)” in Medieval Scholarship: Biographical Studies on the Formation of a Discipline. Volume 3. New York: Garland, 2000, pp. 281, 283; Havey, Jacqueline Colliss. "Mâle, Emile." Dictionary of Art; Porter, A. Kingsley. "Spain or Toulouse? and Other Questions." Art Bulletin 7 (1924): 4; Emile Mâle: le symbolisme chrétien: exposition. Vichy: La Bibliothèque, 1983; Luxford, Julian M. "Émile Mâle." in Key Writers on Art. Chris Murray, ed. London/New York: Routledge, 2003, vol 2, pp. 204-211.

Bibliography: [complete bibliography] Lambert, Elie. Bibliographie de Émile Mâle. Poitiers: Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 1959; [dissertation:] L'art réligieux de XIIIe siècle en France: étude sur l'iconographie de moyen âge et sur ses sources d'inspiration, published under the same title, Paris: E. Leroux, 1898, English, Religious art in France, XIII century: a study of medieval iconography and its sources. London: Dent, 1913; [issued as a set as] L'art réligieux. 4 vols. issued and reissued as a series, Paris: Colin, 1902-32, specifically: a) L'art réligieux du XIIIe siècle en France, 1902, b) L'art réligieux de la fin du moyen âge en France: Etude sur l'iconographie du moyen âge et sur les sources d'inspiration. 1908, c) L'art réligieux du XIIe siècle en France: Etude sur du moyen âge les origines de l'iconographie. 1922, d) L'art réligieux après le Concile de Trente: Etude sur l'iconographie de la fin du XVIe siècle du XVIIIe siècle en Italie, France Espagne et Flanders. 1932, issued as a set in English, edited by Bober, Harry, as a) Religious Art in France: the Thirteenth Century: a Study of Medieval Iconography and its Sources. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984, b) Religious Art in France: the Late Middle Ages: a Study of Medieval Iconography and its Sources. Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press, 1986, c) Religious Art in France: the Twelfth Century: a Study of the Origins of Medieval Iconography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978, e) Religious Art from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982, L'art et les artistes du moyen âge. Paris: Colin, 1927; L'art allemand et l'art français du moyen âge. Paris: Colin, 1917; La cathédrale de Reims. Paris: Bloud & Gay, 1915; L'histoire de l'art. Paris: Larousse, 1915; Rome et ses vieilles églises. Paris: Flammarion, 1942, English, The Early Churches of Rome. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1960; L'art religieux après le Concile de Trente: étude sur l'iconographie de la fin du XVIe siècle, du XVIIe, du XVIIIe siècle, Italie, France, Espagne, Flanders. Paris: A. Colin, 1932; La fin du paganisme en Gaule et les plus anciennes basiliques chretiennes. Paris: Flammarion, 1950.