FALSE START: 400 POSTS IN LESS THAN ONE YEAR

AN INCOMPLETE HISTORY OF MEDIAEVAL ART XXIII: BOURGES CATHEDRAL, OR THE ROAD NOT TAKEN 

In the course of rebuilding Chartres Cathedral after the disastrous fire of 1194, the master masons devised solutions for several of the major structural and aesthetic problems that had hampered the development of the Gothic style in the previous half-century. These included the logical articulation of the bay system; the correlation of the bay system to the sexpartite groin vaults; and the extensive use of external flying buttresses. The latter obviated the need for a gallery level above the aisles, thereby simplifying the elevation by reducing to three storeys, and made possible the dramatically larger windows of the clerestory level wit . Although the cathedral was never completed (it was to have 7 towers), the design was widely-admired and the “Chartres solution” was used, with local adaptations, in most of the major rebuilding campaigns of the first half of the 13th-century, including Soissons, Reims, Amiens, Beauvais and the nave at Saint Denis.

The was however, an alternative model, in many ways more refined, unified and structurally daring than Chartres. The cathedral of St Etienne at Bourges, the capital of duchy of Berry, was rebuilt almost exactly at the same time (work began at Bourges in 1195) and at the same breakneck pace, as Chartres. By the early 1220s, both were operational. The building campaign at Bourges was funded by Henri de Sully, brother of Eudes de Sully, the bishop of Paris. The Bourges groundplan, featuring double ambulatories and aisles and the non-projecting transept, is clearly modeled after Nôtre Dame, Paris.

The architect of Bourges however, looked closely at the Chartres nave as it went up, identifying problems, observing how they were solved then using that information in his own original design. The final result had learned from Chartres without  replicating it. One such problem concerned the relatively heavy forms of the flying buttresses and the last-minute addition of a third tier of buttressing a the clerestory level reflected a miscalculation of the outward thrusts created by the weight of the stone vaulting.

As Bourges had two aisles/ambulatories of different height, wrapped around the nave volume, the exterior buttresses, longer and leaner than Chartres step up from the lower, outer aisle to the taller inner aisle and terminate at the springing point of the vaults; the load is carried back down them in a more efficient, unbroken manner along lighter members.

The Bourges nave arcades had to be the same height as the aisle vaults. Because there are two aisles, however the arcades had be be much taller than the were at Chartres, and allow for the nested viewing of the outer aisle from the inner aisles and nave. This arrangement makes for a stunning optical experience: working from inwards to outwards, the diminution  of height corresponds to a recession into space. The suppression of the transept allows for an unbroken view of the three graduated volumes, which achieves both a visual unity and clearly expresses the ordering principle of the building’s interior spaces.

The Bourges system had a major drawback, however. The plan had to be precisely calibrated and closely followed from the very first courses of stone through completion in order for it to work properly. The system did not allow for the last-minute addition of extra buttresses as was the case at Chartres or any other corrections, and subsequent master masons could not alter the original plan without ruining the entire project. The Bourges solution was therefore like a technically-demanding stunt that the mason had to perform correctly the first time or fail. Evidently few others were up for the challenge because no subsequent Gothic building campaigns adopted the Bourges solution. Later masons did not reject the Bourges solution so much as they declined to compete with the master, a testimonial to his greatness as an architect.

The most fun a poor art history major can have without selling their soul for the ability to travel the world. 

Google maps lets you go in places now: Musee d’Orsay, The Met, Versailles, all of the places above, and tons more. I am pleased. 

                        500th Posting

AN INCOMPLETE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL ART XXX: THE GUILD WINDOWS OF CHARTRES CATHEDRAL 

In 1194, a disastrous fire destroyed most of the Cathedral of Nôtre Dame at Chartres. Presumed lost was the church’s most important relic, the sainte chemise, or tunic worn by the Virgin at the time of Christ’s birth. Its subsequent miraculous recovery was interpreted as a sign that the Virgin, to whom the cathedral and city were dedicated, was dissatisfied with the old Romanesque church and wanted a new palace, befitting her status as the Queen of Heaven. Construction began on the new structure immediately. 

 The new, Gothic cathedral was largely complete within 20 years. The building campaign owed its rapid progress to the cathedral chapter and city’s economic dependence on the income generated by the thousands of pilgrims, who traveled to the Chartres every year to venerate the relic of the Virgin. Until at least the choir of the new cathedral was completed, the relic could not be installed, nor could services be performed. To raise money, the relic was taken on a on tour of northern French cities, but the expedited construction campaign was mainly funded by the bishop and cathedral chapter, who donated 10 years of their incomes, the nobility and the Capetian royal house. Ample documentary evidence also survives indicating that the artisan’s guilds of the city of Chartres also made generous contributions as well. 

 The evidence for guild participation in the funding of the rebuilding is found in the narrative stained glass windows installed in the nave and transept of the new church. Scenes of contemporary, secular commercial activity appearing in the lower margins of many of the windows function as donor images for the guilds that financed them. The principal subject of these windows is usually the life of the guild’s patron saint or a scriptural narrative related to their trade. 

The trades depicted in the guild windows include bakers, farriers, butchers, apothecaries, wine merchants, fishmongers, furriers, and shoemakers. Also present are stone masons and sculptors working on recognizable elements of the new cathedral. The wealthy drapers of Chartres specialized in a green and red striped wool cloth, which is represented in their window’s guild signature and in the choir window behind the high altar, where the Virgin is shown wearing the same local product. It has plausibly been suggested that the window depicting the story of the Prodigal Son, which lacks explicit guild imagery, but shows scenes of the son drinking at a brothel, was a civic-minded and voluntary donation of the local prostitutes guild.*

The cost of a 10-meter window composed of hundreds of pieces of colored glass arranged to form 20-30 scenes from biblical narratives was higher than that of a three-story stone house in the center of town, and Chartres Cathedral has over 20 such windows. This suggests something of the expansive prosperity enjoyed by the merchant and artisan classes in the 13th century. 

* See the first chapter of Wolfgang Kemp, Sermo Corporeus: Die Erzählung der mittelalterlichen Glasfenster (1986), translated as The Narratives of Gothic Stained Glass (1997).

For the trade windows in general, see Jane Welch Williams, Bread, Wine, and Money: The Windows of the Trades at Chartres Cathedral (1993).