The Transept 1907

This is Joseph Pennell’s etching of the Transept, created sometime between the late 19th and early 20th century. Pennell was an American expatriate artist, known for his prints of urban landscapes and architecture, with a fascination for the monumental structures of European cities. Pennell’s choice of subject matter aligns with the late 19th-century interest in the Gothic style and the social role of the church. The transept, the transverse part of the church that crosses the nave, takes center stage, and becomes a symbol of religious authority in a changing urban landscape. France, where this image was made, was in the midst of intense secularization in the late 19th century, with public debates regarding the separation of church and state. Pennell’s print can thus be interpreted as part of a nostalgic turn to religious institutions during a period of social and political change. To truly understand Pennell's image, we might consult period guidebooks, architectural surveys, and religious publications, tracing the ways the Gothic cathedrals were being reimagined in the social imagination of the time.