developments mark the rise of the Gothic style in France

What ideas, technological innovations, and stylistic developments mark the rise of the Gothic style in France?

Even as a pupil at the monastery school, Abbot Suger had dreamed of transforming the Abbey of Saint-Denis into the most beautiful church in France

. The dream was partly inspired by his desire to lay claim to the larger territories surrounding the Île-de-France. Suger’s design placed the royal domain at the center of French culture, defined by an architecture surpassing all others in beauty and grandeur.

After careful planning, Suger began work on the abbey in 1137, painting the walls, already almost 300 years old, with gold and precious colors. Then he added a new facade with twin towers and a triple portal. Around the back of the ambulatory he added a circular string of chapels (Figs. 12.2 and 12.3), all lit with large stained-glass windows (Fig. 12.4), “by virtue of which,” Suger wrote, “the whole would shine with the miraculous and uninterrupted light.”

This light proclaimed the new Gothic style. In preparing his plans, Suger had read what he believed to be the writings of the original Saint Denis. (We now know that he was reading the mystical tracts of a first-century Athenian follower of Saint Paul.) According to these writings, light is the physical and material manifestation of the Divine Spirit. Suger would later survey the accomplishments of his administration and explain his religious rationale for the beautification of Saint-Denis:

Marvel not at the gold and the expense but at the craftsmanship of the work.
Bright is the noble work; but being nobly bright, the work
Should brighten the minds, so that they may travel, through the true lights,
To the True Light where Christ is the true door.

Basilique de Saint Denis (Basilica of Saint Denis), 5:14

This church was an abbey church several centuries before it became a cathedral. The church is commemorated to Saint Denis, the first bishop of Paris, who was beheaded at Montmartre (Martyr's Mount) and according to tradition carried that head several miles before expiring. An earlier church was dedicated to his memory and a monastery has been at this location since the 7th century. As early as the 7th century some French kings chose to be buried at this spot and by the 8th century the Carolingian kings were choosing this abbey church for both coronation and burial. Finally, by 996 and until the French Revolution most of the kings of France were buried here. Just prior to and during the French Revolution, much damage was done to the church and the royal tombs were destroyed and their corpses thrown into a communal pit. But in 1805 Napoleon decided to restore the church and to have brought back to the church what remained of the royal tombs as well as sculpture and stained glass

        Chartres Cathedral 409

Chief among these is the Cathedral of Notre-Dame at Chartres, which, like the other Gothic cathedrals in both the Île-de-France and its surrounding territories, drew its inspiration from Paris. The cathedral’s spires can be seen for miles in every direction, lording over town and countryside as if it were the very center of its world (Fig. 12.5, and see Fig. 12.1). Chartres was, in fact, located in the heart of France’s grain belt, and its economy thrived as France exported grain throughout the Mediterranean basin. But more important, Chartres was the spiritual center of the cult of the Virgin, which throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries assumed an increasingly important role in the religious life of Western Europe. The popularity of this cult contributed, perhaps more than any other factor, to the ever-increasing size of the era’s churches. Christians worshiped the Virgin as the Bride of Christ, Personification of the Church, Queen of Heaven, and prime Intercessor with God for the salvation of humankind. This last role was especially important, for in it the Virgin could intervene to save sinners from eternal damnation. The cult of the Virgin manifested itself especially in the French cathedrals, which are often dedicated to Notre Dame, “Our Lady.”

Soon after the first building phase was completed at Chartres, between about 1140 and 1150, pilgrims thronged to the cathedral to pay homage to what the Church claimed was the Virgin’s tunic, worn at Jesus’ birth. This relic was housed in the cathedral and was believed to possess extraordinary healing powers. But in 1194, the original structure was destroyed by fire, except for the west facade, a few stained-glass windows, including one of the most beautiful, known as Notre-Dame de la Belle Verrière (“Our Lady of the Beautiful Window”) (Fig. 12.6), and the tunic of the Virgin. The survival of the window and the tunic was taken as a sign of divine providence, and a massive reconstruction project was begun in gratitude. Royalty and local nobility contributed their financial support, and the local guilds gave both money and work

Stained Glass 409

The stained-glass program at Chartres is immensely complex. The innovative engineering that marks Gothic architecture (to be discussed later in this chapter) freed the walls of the need to bear the weight of the structure. It also freed the walls to contain glass (see Materials & Techniques, page 411, and Closer Look, pages 412–413).

The purpose of the stained-glass programs in all Gothic cathedrals was to tell the stories of the Bible in a compelling way to an audience that was largely illiterate. The art allowed them to read the scriptural stories for themselves. At Chartres, 175 glass panels, containing more than 4,000 figures, are carefully designed, in Abbot Suger’s words, “to show simple folk … what they ought to believe.” Two windows are notable for their role in the cult of the Virgin. Notre-Dame de la Belle Verrière, whose central panel survived the fire of 1194, embodies the shift in style that occurred in the twelfth century as the Gothic supplanted the Romanesque. The Virgin and Child in the middle are almost Byzantine in their stiffness, their feet pointed downward, their pose fully frontal, the drapery of their clothing almost flat; compare the sixth-century mosaic of Emperor Justinian in San Vitale church, Ravenna (see Fig. 8.28 in Chapter 8). But the angels on the sides, which are thirteenth-century additions, are both less stiff and more animated. The swirls and folds of their gowns flow across their limbs, revealing the anatomy beneath them. 

Building the Great Cathedrals - Cathedrals in Color, 4:48

Except for the color in their stained glass windows, today, Gothic Cathedrals appear as drab as the material with which they were built: stone. But to medieval pilgrims, they were a kaleidoscopic feast for the eyes, inside and out

As the Gothic style developed, important architectural innovations contributed to the goal of elevating the soul of worshipers to the spiritual realm. Key among these innovations was rib vaulting. The principles of rib vaulting were known to Romanesque architects, but Gothic architects used these techniques with increasing sophistication (see Materials & Techniques, page 411). Rib vaulting allowed for the massive stonework of the Romanesque style to be replaced, inside and out, by an almost lacy play of thin columns and patterns of ribs and windows, all pointing upward in a gravitydefying crescendo that carries the viewer’s gaze toward the heavens. Extremely high naves—Chartres’s nave is 120 feet high, Reims’s nave is 125, and the highest of all, Beauvais’s, is 157, the equivalent of a 15-story building—add to this emphasis on verticality, contributing a sense of elevation that is both physical and spiritual. The nave of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame at Amiens is perhaps the supreme statement of this architectural verticality (Figs. 12.8 and 12.9). The nave is only 48 feet wide, but it soars to three times that height, 144 feet, and this narrowly proportioned space cannot help but create a sense of exaggerated height for the visitor. 

If we look at developments in architectural sculpture from the time of the decoration of the west portal of Chartres Cathedral (1145–70) to the time of the sculptural plan of the south transept portal (1215–20), and, finally, to the sculptures decorating the west front of Reims Cathedral (1225–55), we can see that, in a little over 100 years, Gothic sculptors had begun to reintroduce Classical principles of sculptural composition into Western art.

Although they seem almost Byzantine in their long, narrow verticality, feet pointing downward, the jamb sculptures on the west portal of Chartres mark a distinct advance in the sculptural realization of the human body (Fig. 12.14). These, and five more sets, flank the three doorways of the cathedral’s Royal Portal. The center tympanum of the portal depicts Christ Enthroned in Royal Majesty, the north tympanum the Ascension of Christ, and the south the Virgin and Child Enthroned. The jamb sculptures represent figures from the Hebrew Bible considered to be precursors of Christ. These works have little in common with Romanesque relief sculpture, typified by the Last Judgment tympanum on the Abbey Church of Sainte-Foy in Conques (see Fig. 10.22 in Chapter 10). While the Chartres figures remain contained by the form of the colonnade behind them, they are fully rounded and occupy a space in front of the column itself