Paris_ The Collected Traveler - Barrie Kerper [152]
Once inside, look at the relationship between the length of the church, the height of its ceiling vault, and the dominating presence of windows. Before looking at the numerous details of the interior, take a quick tour of the cathedral, following the bas-côté (right aisle) all the way to the abside (apse) and then come back to the main portal by the left aisle. Stop at the croisée du transept (transept crossing), where the north-south and east-west axes meet. This is the best place from which to evaluate the daring of the medieval engineers and architects, who erected vaults up to 140 feet high. Leaning against one of the four angle pillars, look up to the vault or the tower in the transept. It is dizzying, especially in Bourges or Amiens. Try to imagine the cathedral as it looked originally, when every inch of space was covered with color—paint, tapestry, embroidery, Byzantine brocades, or Oriental rugs.
Depending on the time you have and the interest you feel for details of architecture and iconography, you may want to tour the cathedral again, this time following the description of Michelin or a more specialized book. To better appreciate the beauty and picturesque details of the pillars and tall stained-glass windows, bring a pair of binoculars. Without them, you might not realize that the beautiful stained-glass windows are not just displays of color, but long narrations that usually can be read from bottom to top and from left to right. In Chartres, the famous Charlemagne window (on the left in the ambulatory, behind the main altar) traces Charlemagne’s story from the vision of Emperor Constantine to Charlemagne’s deliverance of Jerusalem through Roland’s battle with the Infidels and subsequent death.
Chartres’s windows also reflect the wide range of donors, those individuals with sufficient power and wealth to make donations independently of the ecclesiastical authorities. A full panorama of medieval society (some four thousand royalty, nobility, tradesmen, and craftsmen) is shown in figurative medallions depicting seventy guilds or corporations (bakers, shoemakers, water carriers, butchers, money changers, wine merchants, and tailors, among others) hard at work.
The Charlemagne window was paid for by the corporation of fur merchants, whose “signature” stands at the bottom, where a merchant shows a fur-lined cloak to his customer. Some signatures were displayed in prominent locations (the medieval equivalent of advertising): the newly baked bread of the bakers who donated the window of the Prodigal Son can be seen in the central window of the central chapel, whereas the portrait of another donor, Thibault, Count of Chartres, was put in a dark corner next to the Notre-Dame de la Belle Verrière window to the right of the choir.
The art of identifying seemingly anonymous characters or saints in stained-glass windows or other art forms lies in the recognition of their distinctive emblems, used in art since the sixth century CE. These clear and expressive images enabled even illiterate people to understand abstract ideas. Not only do we recognize them because of their appropriate dress (bishops in robes, kings crowned and robed, soldiers in armor) but also by the instrument of their death (the wheel for Saint Catherine, the knife for Saint Bartholomew, stones for Saint Stephen, arrows for Saint Sebastian …).
Equally important is the relative position of the saints in relation to Christ, because the closer to God, the saintlier the character is assumed to be. On the portal of the Last Judgment in Notre-Dame de Paris, the saints are presented in orderly concentric bands below the patriarchs, prophets, confessors, martyrs, and virgins surrounding the figure of Christ.
Symmetry was also regarded as the expression of heaven’s inner harmony, so artists