Paris Architecture

Sainte Chapelle 1243-1248 Gothic

La Madelaine 1808 begun Neoclassic Vignon

Column Vendome 1810 Neoclassic Percier & Fontaine

La Marseillaise 1833-1836 Neoclassic Rude

Paris Opera 1861-1874 Romanticism Garnier

Pompidou Centre 1977 Postmodernism Piano and Rogers

Eiffel Tower created for the 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris. (6 million visitors climb the Tower each year.) Visit the Virtual Tower.

Chartres Floor Plan

The Maze on the interior floor of Chartres Cathedral 

Gothic Art

Lady and the Unicorn Tapestry, Paris

Self Portrait, Peter Parler, 1379-1386, St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague

Tres Riche Heurs de Duc de Barry illustrating the Labors of June, Limbourg Brothers manuscript, c. 1400 CE, Netherlandish

Adoration of the Magi, detail, Gentile de Fabriano

c. 1423 CE, Italian, Uffizi, Florence, Italy

Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, France, Royal Portal approx. 1140's CE

Virgin and Child, c. 1330 CE, French, Notre Dame de Paris

Medieval, Middle-Ages…Gothic…
The above were originally terms of abuse, coined to describe a period about a thousand years, between the fall of the Roman Empire and the rebirth of classical learning during the Renaissance. We can divide the span into these subdivisions:

The Dark Ages (550-750),

Carolingian and Ottonian (750-1000),

Romanesque (1000-1150) and

Gothic (1150-1400).

We pick up history at the last period, the Gothic. New ideas began to flourish during this time, and the political, social, theological and philosophical changes were reflected in the great cathedrals and their art.
Gothic society saw a greater stability than in the previous Romanesque period. Feudalism was ordered under new emerging monarchies, especially in England and France. A balance was provided by the emerging middle classes, made up of tradesmen, craftsmen, doctors, teachers, lawyers and others.
Women took on new roles, and gained new status compared to the past. For example, the Romanesque period had been dominated by men. The new Gothic era say important women such as Eleanor of Aquitane, the wife of Louis VII, presiding over a "court of love" in which courtly manners and respect for women were the hallmark. The aristocracy enjoyed the new romance stories. The noblewoman Marie de France introduced the story of the lovers Tristan and Isolde to the court, and other love stories followed closely, including the new Arthurian legends of Kind Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. The concept of chivalry was born of these stories.

The cult of the Virgin Mary was of growing importance in the middle ages, and by the Gothic period was the single most important cult in Christianity. The centrality of the Virgin as the vehicle for prayer and as the primary intercessor with the Deity for the needs of mortal man helped to allow for the development of new attitudes toward mortal women. Mary was seen as the Mother of Heaven, as the embodiment of the Mother Church, as the protector and intercessor on behalf of all her children on earth. Mary became the Lady. Her image graced the banners of knights riding into battle, and the Christian knights dedicated their lives to her. Furthermore, knights could dedicate themselves to a mortal woman in a similarly exalted way, and the stories of knights riding into battle with the token of their Lady became a characteristic motif in the romance tales of this time.

The cult of the Virgin Mary was based on love. Love, in the spiritual and earthly realms was celebrated in romance tales, music and literature, and in the art of the time.
Love was also celebrated by one of the most influential figures of the time, St. Francis of Assisi. Francis saw Christ as a loving Savior, rather than the Supreme and Terrible Judge of men. (-make note of the different aspects of Christ in the Eastern and Western Church traditions in art-)The Franciscans movement strengthened religious faith, and emphasized God's All-Embracing Love.

The Gothic period was a time of learning. The first universities began to appear in the cities of Bologna, Padua, Oxford and Paris in the 12th and 13th centuries. Monastic scholasticism evolved into these institutions which taught theology, mathematics, astronomy, music, grammar, logic, law, medicine, and philosophy.
At the beginning of the 13th century, Pope Innocent III ruled over both the spiritual and temporal world. It was a time of supreme power for the papacy.

Early Gothic
Eleanor of Aquitane and her husband, Louis VII and members of the Royal Court were in attendance at the dedication of the new choir of the abbey church of St. Denis, in 1144. The Abbot Suger (pronounced soo-zhay) was a man of extraordinary influence in the developing Gothic style. From his early, humble years, he had dreamed of embellishing the Church of France. His dream had a political as well as spiritual dimension. In fact, when Louis VII embarked on the Second Crusade, he left Abbot Suger as his regent. Remember, that Kingdom in Suger's time was not much larger than the Île-de France. Suger dreamed of a larger territory, and of a building style to embellish it.
In his search for a rebuilding of the old Abbey of St. Denis, Suger was inspired by writings of the fifth century. The legend of the patron saint of the royal house, St. Denis, had become confused with those of a fifth century saint whose writings emphasized light as a vehicle for communion with the divine. This belief in the spiritual dimensions of light led Suger to explore new methods of building that emphasized the spiritual power of light.
Suger summoned artisans and craftsmen from diverse regions. They created what Suger himself praised as, "_a circular string of chapels, by virtue of which the whole church would shine with the wonderful and uninterrupted light of the most luminous windows, pervading the Interior beauty." Ah, the light of the most luminous windows! Immediately, we leap into one of the glories of Gothic Art! The stained glass of Abbot Suger's windows!
Well, in order to include these wonderful windows, Suger had to find a way to leave out great portions of supporting wall. The use of ribs made of stone…slender column-like features, allowed for ribbed vaulting to distribute the ceiling's weight to interior columns, therefore, creating a kind of skeletal armature, thus allowing the piercing of the no-longer-weight-bearing walls with windows of stained glass. The ribbed vault had been used earlier, but never before for the purposes of creating an interior flooded by mystical light.
And, oh, man, was it successful in doing just that! The abbey of St. Denis set a precedent that was followed by the Île-de-France (the area surrounding Paris) for the next 50 years.....and into the rest of Europe well into the 1500's!
One of the churches that was deeply influenced by the St. Denis precedent was set right in the heart of Paris. It was a cathedral…the seat of a bishop (cathedra means seat) and was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. You know it by the French for "Our Lady": Notre Dame.
The 13th century was a period which saw the growth of cities. Paris, as the capital of the capital of the kingdom of France, had 150,000 inhabitants. Remember that the cathedral is not only a religious house, it is a civic one, as well. All participated in the building. (If some only symbolically).
An Abbot wrote,
"Who has ever heard tell, in times past, that powerful princes of the world, that men brought up in honor and wealth, that nobles, men and women, have bent their proud and haughty necks to the harness of carts, and that, like beasts of burden, they have dragged to the abode of Christ these wagons…"
Those not dragging loads of stone, often contributed money rather than labor to the adornment of the church. Bakers and harriers, and cloth-weavers all gave money to their guilds to buy stained-glass windows in honor of God (and, often, themselves. Proud of contributions, they often had pictures of their crafts included in the scenes in colored glass.)A cathedral was literally the crowning achievement of city, its spires seen from great distances, its bells calling out across the land.

The decorative arts flourished under church patronage. Vestments for the clergy and the for the rituals of the mass required the manufacture of luxurious and finely-wrought textile arts. Weaving, embroidery with metallic threads of gold and silver, the introduction of precious gemstones into the embroidery, and the production of fine materials are hallmarks of the late gothic work in fiber. Great tapestries were also produced during the gothic period. One of the greatest of these is a cycle called "The lady and the Unicorn". Representing the five senses and desire, the images are of exceptional refinement and beauty. Originally meant to decorate cold stone walls, the originals are now preserved in the collection of the Cluny museum in Paris. Bookbinding and manuscript illumination became important work for the monastic centers, and monks copied by hand important documents, and illustrated them lovingly with works of great originality and complex beauty. One of the most famous prayerbooks was illustrated or illuminated by the Limbourg brothers. Born in the Netherlands, the Limbourgs produced their great masterpiece "les Trés Riches Heurs de Duc de Berry" in France in the 15th century. The prayer book was lavishly illustrated with scenes of seasonal activities such as falconning and hunting, for the month of August and sheep-shearing for July. The upper register of the images features a calendar with astrological symbols.

Cathedrals became pilgrimage centers and people came from all over Europe to visit those cathedrals that had the greatest relics. Relics could be pieces of the clothing, bone fragments or hair from an important or beloved saint. These relics were considered sacred items, and many were thought to have healing properties. The faithful would travel great distances just to see or be near an important relic. The relics were housed in elaborate reliquaries. These containers were often made of crystal and silver or bronze. They were often gilded, chased or engraved with elaborate designs, encrusted with pearls and gemstones and lavishly adorned with enamel work. Although the decorative art of enameling was brought to its greatest heights in Byzantium, remarkable quality work was also done in the west.
~Benita Goldman

The Thinker
1881
bronze

Rodin
71.5 x 40 x 58 cm.

The Age of Bronze 1877 Rodin

Burghers of Calais 1886 Rodin

Balzac 1892-1897 Rodin

The Hand of God 1898(c) Rodin

The Gates of Hell 1880-1917 Rodin

The Conversation 1880(c) Camille Claudel