Chapel of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres (Eure-et-Loir, France) by Gzen92

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Book Length: 364 pages

In the realm of architecture, the Gothic style presents a mystery for the modern man; he does not communicate in the spiritual language that developed these marvelous sanctuaries of stone, yet he does not need it to see that there is something profound about them. He may indeed be like those inquisitive persons who were taken up with the wonders of Egypt before the finding of the Rosetta Stone. Lacking a codex or a translator, he cannot decode the artistic hieroglyphs displayed within these structures and, moreover, the marvelous theme that the very arrangement of physical space and materials is meant to convey: therefore, he cannot uncover the beautiful whole they come together to form. The Catholics of our times are in a similar rut, as the condensation and outright hatred of the Modernist clergy towards the cultural heritage of the Church has overwhelmingly encouraged omission and ignorance about this subject among the faithful. After all, how can these wicked men remake the Church in their image, according to their Liberal-Marxist mentality, if they build churches in a style that was conceived expressly for God? Therefore both non-Catholic and Catholic alike stand in need of a link to the past to understand the Gothic—and the learned art scholar, Otto von Simson, provides the reader with precisely this in his work.

Before delving into the history and technical aspects of Gothic, the author provides a thorough and fascinating exposition of the Medieval view of Art. As the values that were imbued in the very stones of these cathedrals are key to understanding the true meaning of these structures, this is a necessary prelude. For instance, he describes the Medieval view of beauty as follows:

True beauty, according to Augustine, is anchored in metaphysical reality. Visible and audible harmonies are actually imitations of the ultimate harmony which the blessed will enjoy in the world to come…Hence, the contemplation of such harmonies can actually lead the soul to the experience of God; hence, also, the truly regal place, the lofty mission, that the medieval Church assigned to the creation and enjoyment of artistic work of this kind.

(24)

The Medieval view, then, was Platonic and transcendent in nature; it rightly saw the artistic talents as means to point men towards God. It was profoundly real precisely because it sought to bring the harmonies of our true home, Heaven, down into this valley of tears. Undoubtedly, there is something incarnational here as well—and is there not a great justice in this? For Christ comes down upon the altar during the Holy Mass to feed his flock under the appearances of bread and wine; ought not the temples of the New Testament, then, need to be constructed and ornamented in a heavenly manner to befit the King of Heaven? Broadly speaking, therefore, all medieval church architecture (whether Gothic or otherwise) was a realization, as Simson is implying, of what St. Augustine did in writing: building upon the natural truths contained within Platonism and Neoplatonism to perfect them in the light of Revelation. However, what set the Gothic style apart was that two currents, these being the philosophical inquiry of the School of Chartres and the spiritual renewal of the Cistercian Order, would combine uniquely within twelfth century France to birth it, as the author outlines:

…the eminent group of Platonists assembled at the Cathedral School of Chartres; the second movement, antispeculative and ascetic, emerged from the great monastic houses of Cîteaux and Clairvaux; its personification was St. Bernard. French civilization in the twelfth century may almost be described as a synthesis of these two trends, which, although distinct, are nevertheless connected by close intellectual and personal ties, above all by the common heritage of St. Augustine.

(25-26)

Thus there was a harmony between true faith and true philosophy; and this harmony went on to produce some of the most magnificent architecture ever constructed by man. So as to preclude any doubt of this conclusion, Simson adds: “Indeed, Gothic art would not have come into existence without the Platonic cosmology cultivated at Chartres and without the spirituality of Clairvaux” (26). That point is something which he repeatedly returns to within this work, reinforcing it with brilliant analysis of how the Gothic embodies this unity alongside insightful historical commentary.

In connection with this, occasionally Simson pivots from his focus on the Middle Ages to compare their attitude to the prevailing attitude of modern times: and though this work was initially published in the fifties, the trends he comments on have even weightier relevance for our days. For example, in a later chapter he contrasts the attitude of the past, that sought sacrifice in order to build great things for the glory of God, to the prevailing utilitarian attitude towards art:

Our willingness to part with material possessions for the sake of values other than material provides something like a crude yardstick by which we can measure the relevance of spiritual matters for our life and our experience. The building of a cathedral like Notre Dame of Chartres required an economic effort far greater than that demanded by any other public project of the Middle Ages. In our own time, no work of art, religious or otherwise, has an importance that is even remotely comparable to which compelled an entire generation to pour its energies and its resources into the construction of the cosmos of stone that, between 1194 and 1220, rose gradually and breathtakingly above the town of Chartres…Our own indifference and lack of expectation are to be blamed for the boredom, interrupted by attempts to arouse the public’s attention with the help of cheap visual tricks, that characterizes most monumental architecture today. We no longer expect, and are not prepared for, the overwhelming experience of a consummate work of architecture.

(183)

What a condemnation this is of the present! Not only are many modern monuments guilty of utilizing such “cheap visual tricks”, but also the everyday buildings seen around us in our towns and cities. Schools and hospitals alike are built like giant ugly crates, seemingly designed to imprison the people who enter them; and imprison them indeed they do—to the spirit of this world. For such architecture does not inspire men to lofty things, but drags them down to the banality of materialism. Indeed, the very blindness that most people today possess in regard to the beautiful in art is the result of the proliferation of these sad wastes of space. One does not have to possess great insight to see that, unlike the great cathedrals of the Middle Ages, the consummate trash that has been thrust upon humanity by the schools of Brutalism and the like will be forgotten as soon as the vapid obsession with cultural self-negation that birthed them falls out of favor.

How then did this superior vision, one that exemplified true beauty in its harmony of faith and philosophy, come to produce the specific traits of the Gothic? As politics is downstream of culture, so too is architecture. The great abbot Suger of St. Denis drew inspiration from features found within extant Norman and Burgundian churches alongside prevalent metaphysical views to guide his vision of how the reconstructed church of St. Denis ought to look; in doing so, he created the first Gothic church. Recounting the key features of this new church and their latent significance, Simson writes:

…the twin-tower facade became the porta caeli—it is hardly a coincidence that the crenelations of Suger’s façade recall a Roman city gate; the design of his sanctuary and ambulatory was certainly inspired by the Dionysian metaphysics of light; and it is not even impossible that the co-ordination of vault ribs and supporting shafts, the emphasis given to these architectural members in the Gothic system, may owe something to the architectural symbolism of the New Testament, which impressed Suger as much as it had St. Augustine.

(135)

There must have been a number of Roman city gates still in use within France during the twelfth century; thus the message to the faithful would have been particularly striking, as Suger’s employment and modification of this secular design for his church must have naturally evoked the message that, indeed, the entrance to the church is the porta caeli. One gate for the city of man, and the other for the City of God. Indeed, does this not bring to mind the reality to all Catholics that the entrances to any of our churches are gates to Heaven? We, then, do not need to be twelfth century Frenchmen to be impacted by the power of this symbol—nevertheless, they would have understood it with greater depth than we, owing to the immediacy of the façade’s symbolism to their own culture and time.

The above mentioned Dionysian metaphysics of light are worth further consideration. As is elaborated throughout this work, the marvelous employment of the stained-glass window in the Gothic style takes its inspiration from those metaphysical ideas and subsequent philosophical tradition concerning the nature of light. In one passage, Simson relates that:

For the twelfth and thirteenth centuries light was the source and essence of all visual beauty. Thinkers who differ as widely as do Hugh of St. Victor and Thomas Aquinas both ascribe to the beautiful two main characteristics: consonance of parts, or proportion, and luminosity. The stars, gold, and precious stones are called beautiful because of this quality. In the philosophical literature of the time, as in the courtly epic, no attributes are used more frequently to describe visual beauty than “lucid,” “luminous,” “clear.” This aesthetic preference is vividly reflected in the decorative arts of the time with their obvious glittering objects, shiny materials, and polished surfaces. The development of the stained-glass window, impelled by the astonishing idea of replacing opaque walls by transparent ones, reflects the same taste.

(50-51)

Above these considerations of light was of course the more direct spiritual connotation it has as a symbol of God: to take one of many instances, St. John identified Christ as “the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world” (John 1:9). The use of the Paschal candle during the Easter liturgy conveys the same message. These aesthetic views of light, therefore, were the intellectual fruits of Catholic civilization that exemplified a deeper theological truth about the relationship of light to God Himself. Modern men may indeed (and still do) find bright things beautiful, but unfortunately their appreciation is superficial because they reject the Light of the World (John 8:12) and have not the symbolic mindset of the Medieval man. For the Medieval man would have seen the symbolism inherent in the stained-glass window’s ability to invite light into the sanctuary; he would have had his mind elevated to the contemplation that just as those rays of light enlighten the interior, so too does God come within this place to dwell within it. The typical modern man, however, is merely impressed by the visual effect because he has been cut off from the language of symbolism by false philosophy.

In the Introduction, Simson draws a comparison between these opposite views of symbolism in other words:

For us the symbol is the subjective creation of poetic fancy: for medieval man what we would call symbol is the only objectively valid definition of reality. We find it necessary to suppress the symbolic instinct if we seek to understand the world as it is rather than as it seems. Medieval man conceived the symbolic instinct as the only reliable guide to such an understanding.

(xix)

Simson is correct in referring to the symbolic as an “instinct”—an instinct sadly discouraged by artistic and philosophical nominalism (a point which, in fact, he returns to much later in the text). One might also point out that despite the usage of the symbolic instinct in pre-Christian cultures to convey high ideas, no culture other than the Medieval European truly mastered it. Why? The sacramental theology of the Catholic religion, for each of the seven sacraments are themselves spiritual realities conveyed by exterior symbols.

Of these, the most relevant to the present subject is that of Holy Communion. Our belief in transubstantiation, so marvelously defended during the centuries that saw the rise and popularization of the Gothic, informs us that Jesus Christ Himself descends from Heaven to the altar here on earth to become our spiritual food and drink under the appearances of bread and wine. The altar and the very church itself therefore become a place where Heaven and earth meet, not in a vague sense, in accordance to objective reality; the spiritual and the physical are thus united instead of divided. In tandem with this, the Eucharistic host is not only a symbol of Christ in the sense of “poetic fancy” (as most Protestants hold) but really becomes God when it is consecrated by the words of His priest. The buildings that serve as the temples of the New Testament, therefore, should be of great dignity in both their interior and exterior so as to edify all, whether faithful or nonbeliever, that this is a place truly worthy of holding this Eucharistic Presence. And was this not accomplished from the beginning of the Christian architectural tradition? Whether in the styles of the Romanesque, Byzantine, Gothic, or Baroque, we Catholics have erected the finest buildings in the world for this end. Can any other faith or civilization even claim to rival us? We, who constructed world wonders such as Hagia Sophia, Chartres Cathedral, and St. Peter’s Basilica, not for the glory of man, but for the sake of building temples to house the very Presence of God! How many countless souls have had their minds lifted from this world to the things of Heaven in such places, and how many more still do! Thus in the true religion, this symbolic instinct was transformed into a sacramental vision of reality. And this vision of reality, unlike the darkness of ancient and modern paganism, saw the universe not as accident, but ordered to a sublime harmony.

This metaphysical idea of the divine and the natural being united parts of the same order was not only believed in word, it was lived out; and Simson gives us much information in this regard, for he details the interconnectedness of the Gothic cathedrals and the everyday lives of the people who lived around them in the Middle Ages. For instance, in a chapter on Chartres Cathedral, he informs us:

Here the economic life of the entire city centered primarily in four great fairs, which, by the end of the twelfth century, had acquired nearly the reputation of the fairs of Brie and Champagne. The major fairs of Chartres coincided with the four feasts of the Virgin (Purification, Annunciation, Assumption, and Nativity), which drew innumerable pilgrims to the cathedral. As the fairs, in all probability established by the cathedral chapter, had originated in these festivals, so they remained dependent upon them. Religious souvenirs and devotional objects were purchased by pilgrims in very considerable quantities. As the fair of the Nativity (called the Septembresce, as the birth of the Virgin was celebrated on September 8), such articles seem to have comprised the bulk of all goods sold.

(166)

This is a fact that may indeed surprise even Catholics: fairs and festivals were originally established to promote pilgrimages! In medieval France, a society in which Christ was truly King, even commerce was brought into the service of the spiritual needs of the people. Modern society, with its insistence on “inclusion” has conceptually jettisoned these customs from their spiritual end, reducing them to mere materialistic or sentimental endeavors. However, it is to be hoped that Catholics can reclaim this custom; for without Christian customs how can we have a Christian culture?

Alongside this fact, the author informs us about another point which ought to be noticed:

It is of great interest that in Chartres several professions were originally organized as religious confraternities long before they received their statutes as guilds. In one of the windows in the chevet of the cathedral we see a banner with a red stocking, certainly the emblem of the hosiers, who became a sworn community only three centuries later…Even the corporate life of the artisans of Chartres was thus rooted in a religious reality whose mainstay was the cathedral. Without the sanctuary, the corporate existence of Chartres was inconceivable.

(168)

Even guilds began as religious confraternities: undoubtedly this process was not unique to Chartres. In coming into contact with such records, one again sees the intimate intertwining of the spiritual and the temporal of the Middle Ages; an intertwining that did not end with the mutual cooperation of Church and State, but also trickled down into and permeated the everyday lives of the people of Christendom. This relationship indeed created a dependence of civil communities upon the cathedrals such as in the case of Chartres, but it was entirely the right kind of dependence. Today men are dependent upon the forces of cosmopolitan fiat currency, while the churches that truly house Christ are brushed aside as mere optional Sunday visits. But if the sense of harmonious order has been ruptured in Christendom, it can be restored: for the faith that gave expression to that order in the Gothic style still lives in the minds, hearts, and souls of all true Catholics.

Catholic students of art and architecture will therefore find within this book an excellent repository of information about the immortal Gothic style. So too will Catholic students of theology, philosophy, and history; for Simson masterfully presents a thoughtful analysis not only of the style itself, but includes in his narrative many details about the temporal conditions that made this transcendent image of divine harmony possible. The text will present some difficulties for laymen unversed in architectural terms, but so long as they can handle its academic language and learn the definitions of these terms from outside sources, this matter can be overcome without too great a struggle.

The Medieval vision of beauty presented within the pages of this scholar’s work ought to be ours, for this Medieval vision is the Catholic vision—nominalism, whether theological or artistic, is an abhorrently irrational falsehood that leads only to ambivalence and self-negation. Only the path that begins and ends with the contemplation of the divine order established and vivified by the work of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost can enlighten man and make inspire the artist to create the highest works of art.