Professor

Cristian Léon

The most general area of specialization is sacred and religious art, which develops from the Paleolithic to the Baroque, but the specific area of doctoral specialization is medieval art and architecture (including Byzantine and Islamic), with greater depth in classical French and Spanish Gothic.

His thesis "Liturgy and Sacred Art in Classical Gothic: Conquest and rupture of the unified space" focuses on inquiring about the methods of art and sacred knowledge and the theological and cosmological symbology associated with the Christian temple in the French High Gothic, as it represents an apogee in the maturity of its churches, with a well-defined iconographic program, a theology matured in the light of scholasticism and metaphysics. The central objective is to study the crystallization of the process of maturity of the cosmological and theological symbology and of the iconographic program reached in the cathedrals of the High Gothic period in France. By establishing the general and permanent theological and cosmological symbology of these cathedrals, it will be possible to understand some of the principles and methods with which this Sacred Art operates, that is, to establish the constants of the formal language derived from that spiritual source which is the mysticism of the period of classical Gothic art. By basing this process of crystallization of the Christian temple, which finds its maximum expression and maturity in the High Gothic, it will be possible to establish the prototype of the sacred space, where the Liturgy becomes more splendorous, in perfect harmony with the architectural space, the symbolism and the respective iconographic program.
The doctoral thesis was defended in January 2016.