ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
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The long reach of the medieval Islamic workforce
WILL PODMORE is enthralled by the convincing case that guilds of Islamic craftsmen were responsible for the European gothic style
EVOLUTION OF GOTHIC FROM ISLAMIC: Arches of the former mosque, the Cordoba Mezquita, in traditional Islamic style and completed in 971, are incorporated into the Gothic style of the transept of the Main Chapel (1523)
[Daderot/CC]
KEITH RICHMOND relishes a superbly conceived modern version of Aeschylus’ drama of murderous family succession
MICHAL BONCZA recommends a minimalist installation that prompts intriguing connotations
FIONA O’CONNOR questions the achievement of this year’s Orwell prize winner for political fiction
LEO BOIX reviews two powerful Latin American novels in which myth and crime fiction expose the deadly consequences of patriarchy, clandestine abortion and state violence
New releases from Laura Veirs, The Waterboys, and Yard Act
Ron's rages are sincere and — according to his wife — healthily cathartic. But can these splenetic outbursts loosen the grip of capitalism at its most monstrous?
Islamesque: the forgotten craftsmen who built Europe’s medieval monuments
Diana Darke, Hurst, £25
THIS is a wonderful book, fully and colourfully illustrated. Diana Darke is an Arabist and cultural expert who has lived and worked in the Middle East for over 30 years. She describes beautifully hundreds of cathedrals, churches, monasteries, palaces and castles.
She challenges the conventional wisdom that only Rome could be the source of Christian architecture. The accepted idea is that the “Romanesque” style simply emerged between 1000 and 1250 across the whole of Europe, making it the first pan-European architectural style since Imperial Roman.
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