This book is composed of excerpts from Emile Male's more weighty tomes on French religious art. Unfortunately, the result is a patchwork of ideas that are not well connected and not clearly explained. A reader interested in Gothic art, for example, would learn more reading Male's more complete "The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century." "Gothic Image" is longer and perhaps more detailed than "Religious Art from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century," but "Gothic Image" is easier to read because the ideas are presented more completely.