本书由作者保罗宾斯基提供了一个关于公元1000年到1500年之间英格兰和欧洲西北部雕塑的新论述，研究了作为一种传教类的罗马式和哥特式艺术。宾斯基运用修辞分析，从威尔斯，威斯敏斯特，康波斯特拉，兰斯，沙特尔和纳姆伯格等地的各种各样的石头和木雕开展研究。他认为中世纪的雕塑不仅传达了信息，而且为构成其观众的主体创造了体验。宾斯基并没有拒绝哥特艺术的学术野心，他认为表面效果、装饰、色彩、多样性和不和谐有多种用途。在最近对雕塑和相关艺术的情感主义和唯物主义描述的批判中，他提出所有的材料都是由人类的意图和技巧塑造的，并具有“诗意”的功能。宾斯基探索了这些雕塑艺术的成长、变化和衰败的意象，以及恐惧和快乐的力量，使我们能够在观赏这些雕像作品时理解中世纪的语言和思想。

In this beautifully illustrated study, Paul Binski offers a new account of sculpture in England and northwestern Europe between c. 1000 and 1500, examining Romanesque and Gothic art as a form of persuasion. Binski applies rhetorical analysis to a wide variety of stone and wood sculpture from such places as Wells, Westminster, Compostela, Reims, Chartres, and Naumberg. He argues that medieval sculpture not only conveyed information but also created experiences for the subjects who formed its audience. Without rejecting the intellectual ambitions of Gothic art, Binski suggests that surface effects, ornament, colour, variety, and discord served a variety of purposes. In a critique of recent affective and materialist accounts of sculpture and allied arts, he proposes that all materials are shaped by human intentionality and artifice, and have a 'poetic' function. Exploring the imagery of growth, change, and decay, as well as the powers of fear and pleasure, Binski allows us to use the language and ideas of the Middle Ages in the close reading of artifacts.