Editor’s Note: The Spice of Life

For those who have come to expect a refreshing mixture from Source in terms of subject, medium, and period, this quarter’s issue will not disappoint. Gothic architecture, Venetian guilds, Michelangelo, eighteenthcentury tapestry, cinema in the service of art criticism, South American painting in the nineteenth century, and the leisure reading of a French impressionist make up the bill. We do not claim to rival Cleopatra in sex appeal, but we too may say that age cannot wither nor custom stale our infinite variety! Marek Walczak calls attention to the motif of ropes which appear among the carved stone decorations of Gothic buildings in Poland from thefifteenth century. For example, a heavy cable of rope serves as a doorframe for the law students’ residence at JagiellonianUniversity in Krakow.