- Gardner's Art Through The Ages, 11th edition, Vol. I, pp. 495

Notre Dame de Paris Facade

  


Notre Dame de Paris Back view

 "To hold the much thinner - and taller - walls of Notre-Dame in place, the unknown architect introduced flying buttresses, exterior arches that ... counter the outward thrust of the nave vaults.  Flying buttresses seem to have been employed as early as 1150 in a few smaller churches, but at Notre-Dame in Paris they circle a great urban cathedral. ... The precisely positioned flying buttresses and rib vaults with pointed arches was the ideal solution to the problem of constructing towering naves with huge windows filled with stained glass.  The flying buttresses, like slender extended fingers holding up the walls, are also important elements contributing to the distinctive "look" of Gothic cathedrals."

- Gardner's Art Through The Ages, 11th edition, Vol. I, pp. 496

 "In contrast to monastic churches, which were usually small and completed fairly quickly, the building histories of urban cathedrals often extended over decades and sometimes over centuries.  The financing depended largely on collections and public contributions (not always voluntary), and a lack of funds often interrupted building programs.  Unforeseen events, such as wars famines, or plagues, or friction between the town and the cathedral authorities would stop construction, which then might not resume for years. ... The rebuilding of Chartres cathedral after 1194 took a relatively short 27 years, but at one point the townspeople revolted against the prospect of a heavier tax burden.  They stormed the bishop's residence and drove him into exile for four years."

- Gardner's Art Through The Ages, 11th edition, Vol. I, pp. 497

Chartres at Night

  

 "Despite the vastly increased size of the clerestory windows, the Chartres nave is relatively dark.  The explanation for this seeming contradiction is that light-muffling colored glass fills the windows.  These windows were not meant to illuminate the interior with bright sunlight, but to transform natural light into Suger's mystical lux nova [new light].  Chartres retains almost the full compliment of its original stained glass, which , although it has a dimming effect, transforms the interior's character in dramatic fashion."

- Gardner's Art Through The Ages, 11th edition, Vol. I, pp. 499

Stained Glass Window (Nativity) in Chartres

 "In the German Rhineland, then still ruled by the successors of the Carolingian and Ottonian emperors, work began in 1176 on a new cathedral for Strasbourg, today a French city.  The apse, choir, and transepts were in place around 1240."

- Gardner's Art Through The Ages, 11th edition, Vol. I, p. 524

Strasbourg Cathedral Aerial View

Strasbourg Cathedral: View from the Street

     and a view at night:  

 "In Gothic France, as already noted, art became increasingly humanized and natural.  In Gothic Germany artists carried this humanizing trend even further by emphasizing passionate drama.  Heightened emotionalism (or expressionism) proved an important ingredient of German art in succeeding centuries and even in the modern era."

- Gardner's Art Through The Ages, 11th edition, Vol. I, pp. 524 - 525

Strasbourg Cathedral Architectural Ornamentation (Doorway Tympanum)

  


Strasbourg Cathedral Interior

 "Stained glass is almost synonymous with Gothic architecture.  No other age produced windows of such rich color and beauty.  The art of making colored glass is, however, very old.  Egyptian artists excelled at fashioning colorful glass vessels and other objects for both home and tomb. Archaeologists also have uncovered thousands of colored-glass artifacts at hundreds of sites throughout the classical world."

- Gardner's Art Through The Ages, 11th edition, Vol. I, p. 500


Strasbourg Cathedral Stained-Glass Windows

  

 "But if the technology of manufacturing colored glass was ancient, how artists used stained-glass in the Gothic period was new.  Stained-glass windows were not just installed to introduce color and religious iconography into church interiors.  That could have been - and was much earlier - done with both mural paintings and mosaics, often with magnificent effect.  But stained-glass windows differ from those earlier techniques in one all-important respect.  They do not conceal walls; they replace them.  And they transmit, rather than reflect light, filtering and transforming the natural light as it enters the building.  ... Hugh of Saint-Victor, a prominent Paris theologian who died while Suger's Saint-Denis was under construction, also commented on the special mystical quality of stained-glass windows.  "Stained-glass windows," he wrote, "are the Holy Scriptures . . . and since their brilliance lets the splendor of the True Light pass into the church, they enlighten those inside." "

- Gardner's Art Through The Ages, 11th edition, Vol. I, p. 500


Strasbourg Cathedral Roses Window **

Illuminated Manuscripts -

This manuscript, from the Getty Collection in Los Angeles, was made in Italy in the 13th century.  It is painted on parchment using tempera paints.  It follows some of the styles of Byzantine art, but is clearly from the West and Roman Catholic in its use of Latin texts.  The dramatically illustrated letter, shaped like a heavenly throne upon which Christ is seated, is the letter "A" from the word "Aspitiens" (English: Look or Behold). The bulk of the page itself is occupied with the musical notation which indicates the relative pitches and relative durations used to sing this text.