fbpx

Category: notre-dame de paris

Posted on

Why were gargoyles so hideous?

The medieval churchgoer was laughing at devils and spirits that he knew were vanquished. Today we chuckle nervously at devils we’re not quite sure aren’t real.

A comic demon gargoyle at Visby Cathedral, Sweden. Courtesy Alexandru BaboƟ Albabos
After last week’s post on Notre-Dame, a reader asked, “I just learned that gargoyles are functional art. Any idea why they tend to be hideous?”
The word gargoylecomes from Medieval Latin and Old French, and means ‘throat’ or ‘gullet.’ It’s certainly more poetic than ‘downspout,’ which is what a gargoyle actually is. In English, gargoyle has come to be used for what are more properly known as chimeras or grotesques. These are the fantastic or mythical figures used for decoration in architecture.
Gargoyles are usually elongated to divert water from the wall. That’s why they’re the most visible of all the grotesques. We think of them as medieval, but water deflection has been a part of architecture forever, as has whimsy. The Egyptians and Greeks both used lions’ heads as gargoyles.
Waterspouts and other sculptured figures on the Freiburger MĂŒnster, Germany. The top waterspout is defecating. Courtesy Rebecca Kennison
But it was with medieval Catholic architecture that the gargoyle reached its highest art form. Sculptors of the Gothic cathedrals were expected to be ‘preachers in stone’ to the mostly-illiterate population of the time. They told the stories of the Bible, but also portrayed the animals and beings of popular imagination. Since their society was earthy, these figures can sometimes be doing things we think aren’t appropriate for church, like defecating.
Grotesques were not universally popular. Abbot Bernard of Clairvauxrailed against them in his monastery:
“What are these fantastic monsters doing in the cloisters before the eyes of the brothers as they read? What is the meaning of these unclean monkeys, these strange savage lions, and monsters? To what purpose are here placed these creatures, half beast, half man, or these spotted tigers? I see several bodies with one head and several heads with one body. Here is a quadruped with a serpent’s head, there a fish with a quadruped’s head, then again an animal half horse, half goat… Surely if we do not blush for such absurdities, we should at least regret what we have spent on them.”
Le Stryge is a 19thcentury Gothic Revival strix on the North Tower at Notre-Dame and reflects Victorian sensibilities. Courtesy Prosthetic Head
One of the most famous grotesques at Notre-Dame is not medieval at all, but Victorian. Le Stryge is a brooding demon who (until last week, at least) perched atop a buttress on the north tower. Nineteenth century Paris was obsessed with occultism; the grotesques added to Notre-Dame during its renovation reflect that.
Medieval society was less preoccupied with sin. “Whatever they may have lacked, the Middle Ages were a time when fun was ‘fast and furious,’ certainly in no respect behind our own day,” wrote architect Ralph Adams Cram in 1930. “Just because they were sincerely religious people and involved in the sacraments
 of their religion from the day of birth to that of death—and after—it is assumed they
 must have been sad, terror-stricken and morose.”
This dear little reading monkey grotesque is Bavarian. Courtesy )o(Medousa)o(.
It’s been theorized that the grotesques of medieval architecture were to ward off sin or were pagan representations slipped into Christian art. That theory would have seemed absurd to the churchmen who oversaw construction of these churches. They were, in general, far more sophisticated theologians than we are today.
What they had that we don’t, is an ability to laugh at cosmic jokes. The greatest of these is the death and subsequent resurrection of Jesus Christ, which puts Satan firmly in thrall. The medieval churchgoer was laughing at devils and spirits that he knew were vanquished. Today we chuckle nervously at devils we’re not quite sure are real.
Posted on

Notre-Dame de Paris

Restoration and destruction both start with a spark. Which will it be?
Notre-Dame on fire, April 15, 2019, courtesy LeLaisserPasserA38, Wikipedia.
I’ve never been to France, a deficiency I always meant to correct someday. Now I will never see Notre-Dame de Paris. Whatever is rebuilt there will not be the 800-year-old monument to a nation and a faith that stood there on Monday morning.
Before there were Christians, before there was a France, there was a Roman temple to Jupiter on the Île de la CitĂ©. Around the time when Gaul was transferred from the Romans to the Franks, a basilica was erected on the site. It was dedicated to Saint Stephen, the first martyr of Christianity. In 857, it was remade as a cathedral (which is the seat of a bishop). Successive remodelings attempted to keep up with the growing population of Paris, always unsuccessfully.
The Pillar of the Boatmen is a monumental Roman column from the first century AD. It was found re-used in the 4th century city wall on the Île de la CitĂ©, and indicates a shrine on this site before the conversion of Gaul. This block represents the gods Tarvos trigaranus and Vulcan. Courtesy MusĂ©e National du Moyen Age, Thermes de Cluny.
In 1160, Bishop de Sully embarked on an ambitious plan to raze the Cathedral and replace it in the trendy new Gothic style. The cornerstone was laid in 1163 in the presence of King Louis VII and Pope Alexander III. De Sully lived long enough to see the basic structure in place; his successor built the transepts and most of the nave. The west façade and the rose window were not finished until the 13th century, by which time the transepts were being remodeled. Better supports were added in the form of flying buttresses, one of the great engineering developments of the Middle Ages.
The complex, multi-tier flying buttresses of Notre-Dame.
This fire is not the first hit Notre-Dame has taken, but it’s the most serious. Huguenots destroyed some of its statuary in the iconoclastic fury that swept Europe in the 16th century. The Sun King updated it in the severe classical tastes of his time. As Robespierre and his radical brethren tried to stamp out Christianity during the French Revolution, the Cathedral was dedicated first to the Cult of Reason and then to the Cult of the Supreme Being. Of course, its treasures were destroyed or plundered. Twenty-eight statues of biblical kings on the west façade, mistaken by the mob for statues of French kings, were beheaded. The remaining statuary on the west façade, except for the Virgin Mary, was destroyed.
The Coronation of Napoleon, by Jacques-Louis David, 1805-07, courtesy of the Louvre.
Eventually, the church settled into life as a warehouse. Then Napoleon Bonaparte banned the cults and restored Catholicism. He was coronated at Notre-Dame in 1801.
By then, the Cathedral was a half-ruined mess. In 1844, an ambitious, 25-year reconstruction project ended with the Cathedral being renovated to its modern condition. It survived two World Wars mostly unscathed.
Notre-Dame in the Late Afternoon, 1902, Henri Matisse, courtesy Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Modern Catholics may feel that their church has been burning down around them for quite a while now. They’re under assault from within and without. In another sense, that’s true of the church as a whole, as Christians suffer martyrdom in unprecedented numbers worldwide. The blaze assumed a metaphorical power, coming, as it did, at the start of Holy Week. This is Christendom’s most solemn and significant observation.
The fire corresponded with the cremation of my missionary friend, Lori Delle Nij, in Guatemala. This morning she and Notre-Dame are in ashes, as you and I and everything else here in the Earthly City will ultimately be.
But it’s important to remember how Holy Week ends. I was moved by images of Parisians on their knees singing hymns as their Cathedral blazed in front of them. We are all promised Resurrection. “God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform,” wrote the poet William Cowper. Let it be so.