(bright classical music)
- [Narrator] We're in the town of Chartres,
about an hours train ride from Paris,
looking at the great Medieval cathedral
Notre Dame de Chartres.
- [Narrator] It's easy to think about this church
as a day trip from Paris,
but back in the 11th, 12th, 13th centuries
the town of Chartres was a major destination unto itself.
- [Narrator] But it's important
that we understand it within the orbit of Paris,
because Gothic as a style developed in Ile de France,
that is the area around Paris
that was ruled by the king of France.
We think now of France as a nation with stable borders,
but in the Medieval Period the king only controlled
the area immediately around Paris.
And it was in this area
that the architectural style of Gothic first developed.
- [Narrator] Chartres was a destination
for a very particular reason.
It had, and still has, the tunic that the Virgin Mary wore,
it was believed, when she gave birth to Christ.
- [Narrator] As the Virgin Mary's importance grew
during the Medieval Period,
the importance of this church,
and specifically this relic, grew.
- [Narrator] We're looking at the cathedral today
with apartments and cafes around it,
but this was once part of a complex of buildings
that included a school, a palace for the bishop,
a hospital, and in fact, the School of Chartres,
an educational institution very much akin to a university,
was very important and famous during the Gothic Period.
- [Narrator] Many other people
associated with The School of Chartres
believe that the pursuit of knowledge,
learning about the world around us,
was the pathway to understanding the divine.
- [Narrator] And they were studying the texts
of the ancient Greeks and Romans,
of Aristotle and Plato.
- [Narrator] In fact, we can see the impact
of The School of Chartres in some of the sculpture
that adorns the west doorway.
- [Narrator] The west facade of Chartres
dates to the mid 12th Century
and so we see it as an early Gothic facade.
That's obvious when we compare it
to a High Gothic 13th century church like Amiens
where the portal is pierced everywhere
and there's almost no sense of masonry,
no sense of the stone.
But here the windows on either side of the doorway
are quite small.
- [Narrator] In fact, the first story of the towers
still recalls the Romanesque.
The windows are actually rounded.
And very little of the wall is given over to openings.
The architects were still nervous
about supporting the enormous weight
that was to be piled above.
- [Narrator] And that's because stone vaulting,
the ceiling of these churches, are enormously heavy.
- [Narrator] This is all solid limestone.
- [Narrator] And they exert tremendous pressure
downward and outward,
and so you need these very strong walls and piers
to support the weight of that stone vaulting.
- [Narrator] The facade is fairly simple.
From left to right, there are basically three parts.
A tower on the left, the central area,
and the tower on the right.
If we go from bottom to top,
we also have a division of three.
- [Narrator] At the very top
we see what's known as a Kings Gallery,
Old Testament royal figures.
Below that, the beautiful round rose window.
These are very typical of Gothic architecture.
This is using something called plate tracery.
We have primary a sense of the stone
and then opening within that,
as opposed to bar tracery,
where we have just these thin bars
that separate the panes of the stained glass windows.
- [Narrator] We'll see that especially in later windows
in places like Amiens.
Now below the rose window are three large lancets
and these vertical windows reflect the portals below them.
- [Narrator] The three portals are covered with sculpture.
Anyone walking into this church
would read something in the pictures.
Let's talk about the parts of the Gothic portal.
At the very top we see sculptures within the archivolts
and the archway that is framed by archivolts
is known as a tympanum.
- [Narrator] Below that, supporting each of the tympana
is a lintel.
That is a kind of crossbeam of stone.
Those are supported by small engaged columns
known as colonettes that line each side of the three doors.
Those are really door jambs
and attached to those are figures
which are known therefore as jamb figures.
- [Narrator] What's interesting
is that they're angled inward,
and so we're invited to enter the church.
- [Narrator] For this front porch is quite shallow
compared to what will happen at, say, Amiens.
- [Narrator] For the doorways become almost funnels
into the church.
- [Narrator] The archivolts protrude outward,
creating canopies.
Overall, this front is really fairly modest
compared to what happens in the Gothic.
Nevertheless, it is one of the most important
and one of the earliest fully-conceived sculptural programs.
Let's get close and take a look.
When I was in school, the three tympanum
were taught to me as follows.
The tympanum on the left showed the Ascension of Christ.
The largest of the three, the tympanum in the middle,
showed the Second Coming of Christ.
The tympanum on the right
showed scenes that related to the life of the Virgin Mary.
But things have changed.
- [Narrator] We have a new interpretation
and that is that the portal on the left,
instead of depicting the ascension,
depicts Christ before he takes on physical form.
- [Narrator] That is, a Christ out of time.
- [Narrator] Before the incarnation,
before God has made flesh.
Below, we see four angels.
- [Narrator] And probably my favorite part of this
is the way that the angels try to reach below the barrier
that separates them from the prophets.
Some of the prophets don't seem to have any idea
that there's anything above them,
although a few have cocked their head with some interest.
- [Narrator] Well, they're prophets.
They begin to see the future,
they begin to understand God's plan for mankind
but they can't see it entirely.
- [Narrator] In order to see that,
we have to go to the right tympanum,
the tympanum devoted to the Virgin Mary.
- [Narrator] Who makes possible God taking on physical form
and entering the world so that we can be saved.
- [Narrator] Let's start with the lintel.
We can make out a winged figure.
This is archangel Gabriel announcing to the Virgin Mary
that she will bear Christ.
- [Narrator] And next to this we see a scene
known as The Visitation
where Mary is visited by her cousin Elizabeth.
Mary is pregnant with the Christ child,
and her cousin Elizabeth
is pregnant with Saint John the Baptist.
- [Narrator] Then the most important scene in the lintel,
the center.
Here we see Mary in the manger
having just given birth to the Christ child
who's swaddled just above her.
- [Narrator] And just to the right,
a scene of the Adoration of the Three Shepherds
have come to honor the Christ child.
- [Narrator] Above this, we see the presentation of Christ
in the temple.
- [Narrator] Mary and Joseph have brought the Christ child
to the temple.
- [Narrator] And then above that, in the tympanum,
we see the Virgin Mary enthroned
with the Christ child on her lap with angels on either side.
This represents the Throne of Wisdom.
- [Narrator] When Christ is shown seated on Mary's lap,
Mary's body is understood as the Throne of Wisdom.
Christ is understood as the personification of wisdom.
- [Narrator] And Mary, in turn, is understood
as that throne, but also as the church itself.
- [Narrator] Both Mary and Christ as shown frontally,
very symmetrically, and Mary is enthroned here
as the queen of heaven.
On the left, we had an image of Christ
before the incarnation, before taking human form.
On the right we have the moment
when Christ enters the world in order to save it.
Then in the center we have the Second Coming of Christ,
when the dead rise from their graves
and all of mankind is judged.
- [Narrator] What's important, though,
is that that is the end of time.
So a period before time, a period of human time,
and a period at the end of time.
- [Narrator] Christ is surrounded
by symbols of the four evangelists.
- [Narrator] The four writers of the gospels
and is shown in the center larger than any other figure.
This is called hieratic scale
emphasizing His relative importance.
He is shown seated on the throne of heaven
surrounded by a mandorla.
- [Narrator] A large, full-bodied halo.
Below him we see 12 figures.
These are the 12 apostles.
Now, the jamb figures
are especially beautiful here at Chartres.
These represent Old Testament prophets and kings and queens,
and by association, the kings and queens of France.
- [Narrator] The jambs of the west work
are my favorite figures at Chartres.
They're so long and attenuated.
They're so solid and so elegant.
- [Narrator] You'll notice that each figure
is attached to a column
and each figure resembles a column.
And so there's a interdependence between the architecture
and the sculpture that adorns it.
- [Narrator] It seems natural to wonder
why the figures have been so abstracted,
why they're so absurdly long.
Or even why their feet seem to be dangling down a bit.
- [Narrator] These are heavenly, divine figures.
They're not meant to look physical and on this earth.
They're meant to look transcendent.
If you look at the drapery,
the falls are indicated by lines.
- [Narrator] There's a very little sense of mass.
Instead, there's a real emphasis on the linear.
- [Narrator] By the time of the High Gothic Period,
and, in fact, on other later sculpted portals
here at Chartres, we'll see figures
who have much more volume, figures become more human.
- [Narrator] Another important attribute
is their sense of isolation.
Each figure seems isolated from the figures beside it.
- [Narrator] That, too, will change
on the later sculpted portals at Chartres
and at other High Gothic cathedrals.
- [Narrator] But we've been talking about the portals.
I think we oughta use the doors.
Let's go in.
We've walked into the cathedral
and we're entering into this long space,
which was based on a basilica plan.
- [Narrator] A basilica is a type of building
that Christians borrowed from the ancient Romans.
It's longitudinal.
It has an entrance on one end,
opposite that is the apse, the holiest part of the church.
- [Narrator] And if you were to look at the church
from a bird's eye view, you would see that the church
sketches the shape of a cross
because it is the long hallway, the nave,
that is crossed by something called the transept.
- [Narrator] Here at Chartres, the north and south transept
also have doorways that are sculpted.
- [Narrator] This church is a little more complicated
because on either side of the nave,
there are auxiliary hallways known as aisles.
This was so that pilgrims, that is religious visitors,
could enter the church and move through to the apse
and around the other side
without disturbing a mass that might be taking place.
- [Narrator] Those pilgrims were primarily here
to see the famous relic of the tunic of the Virgin,
and later another relic that was acquired by the cathedral,
the head of Saint Anne, the Virgin Mary's mother.
- [Narrator] And, in fact,
the most famous relic of this church,
the tunic of the Virgin Mary,
played a very important role
in the church that we're now sitting in.
We were looking at the west front
and that was part of a church that dated to 1145.
But in 1194, there was a terrible fire
and most of the church burned to the ground.
- [Narrator] But miraculously,
two priests saved the tunic of the Virgin Mary.
When the people of Chartres saw that the tunic was saved,
they interpreted this as a miracle, one with a message.
That the Virgin Mary wanted an even more beautiful
and grander church to house her relic.
- [Narrator] And that's the church that we're in now.
- [Narrator] The west front of the church
that survived the fire is decidedly Early Gothic.
The church that we're sitting in now
that was built after the fire
is clearly the beginning of the High Gothic style.
- [Narrator] That's probably most clear
if we look at the interior elevation,
because unlike earlier Gothic churches like at Paris
where there was a four-part elevation,
here we have a three-part elevation.
- [Narrator] The three-part elevation
consists of a nave arcade,
these very tall, pointed arches
that are very slender and graceful.
- [Narrator] That's the lowest level.
- [Narrator] On top of that, we see an arcade
standing in front of a wall.
And that area is called the triforium.
Above that, we see a very tall clerestory windows.
In this case, each bay of the nave
we see two lancet windows topped by an oculus.
- [Narrator] The three segments of the elevation
are united by the piers
and the colonettes that are attached to the piers.
You can see them soaring from the pavement below
all the way up.
- [Narrator] We have that interest in linearity
and these lines that draw our eye upward
that are so typical of Gothic architecture.
As we follow those colonettes up,
we see that they divide into ribs
that form the four-part ribbed groin vaults
that constitute the ceiling, the vaulting of this church.
- [Narrator] The pointed rib groin vault
allowed for greater height than a round arch would,
and that's because a pointed ribbed groin vault
pushes its trust more down than out.
- [Narrator] And as a result, it can rest on smaller piers
and not as much buttressing is required.
We should say that one of the primary goals
of the Gothic architect
was to open up the walls to the stained glass,
glass that helped to make the interior
a space that recalled the divine,
that gave one a sense of heaven here on earth.
One of the ways you could do that
was with a flying buttress
essentially supporting the building from the outside.
- [Narrator] Instead of having massive walls
within the church, much of the weight is supported
by flying buttresses
that help support the lateral thrust of the building.
While the flying buttresses
are beautiful architectural elements in their own right,
they were really subservient to the idea
of allowing the walls to open up
to allow for more glass, for more light
to enter into the church.
But this wasn't aesthetic.
The idea was that light itself
was an expression of the divine
and nowhere is this more evident than in Chartres
where more of the original glass survives
from the Medieval Era.
- [Narrator] That glass
has largely this lovely deep blue color
that's especially associated with Chartres.
There's also reds and golds creating a space
that makes you feel
as though you're almost inside of a jewel
with light refracting in all different ways.
- [Narrator] It is still stunning.
It's still spectacular.
One can only imagine the impression
this glass would have made in the 12th century
when most people's clothing was earth colors,
where painting was rare.
- [Narrator] Where windows in your houses were very small
and so coming into this space was a transcendent experience.
And we're so fortunate to be here today
when so much of the restoration work on the interior
has been completed
and we can see that the walls have been cleaned.
They used to be a dark brownish gray.
The conservators here have painted the stone
the way that is was painted in the 12th and 13th century.
- [Narrator] Somewhat unexpectedly,
the stone was covered with a thin layer of plaster
and then painted onto that was this light ochre color
with white lines painted on top of it
to mimic the joinery of the stones below,
but not accurately.
That layer of plaster and paint obscures the true masonry.
- [Narrator] 19th and 20th century visitors to Chartres
talked about how dark it was,
but they were seeing it with centuries of grime
and we are fortunate today
to begin to see it the way that it looked
in the 13th century.
- [Narrator] Let's walk down towards the apse
and take a look at one particularly famous
stained glass window.
- [Narrator] One that dates from the Early Gothic Period
from before the fire.
- [Narrator] This tall window
is sometimes known as the Virgin of Beautiful Window.
The blue contrast against the red is extraordinary.
It looks like the window
is made out of rubies and sapphires.
Mary is frontal.
Here, again, we see Mary as the throne of wisdom.
- [Narrator] Mary is elongated.
Both of the figures are strictly frontal.
We're clearly looking at a heavenly image
and not an earthly image, but a projection of the divine.
- [Narrator] At the end of the north transept
is an enormous rose window on top of five lancets.
This is a much bigger rose
than what we've seen in the earlier west front.
- [Narrator] This was paid for by Blanche of Castile,
the mother of Saint Louis, King Louis IX,
who was a major patron of Gothic art.
- [Narrator] We can see fleur-de-lis throughout this window,
a reference to the French monarchy.
- [Narrator] In the center of the rose,
we once again see the Virgin Mary holding the Christ child.
Surrounding Mary we see doves and angels
and then prophets and kings.
- [Narrator] For example, in the 12 o'clock position
we see King David.
- [Narrator] When we look at the five lancets below,
we see in the center Saint Anne, Mary's mother.
Remember that the cathedral acquired the relic
of the head of Saint Anne,
so it's appropriate that she's honored here in this window.
- [Narrator] And she's holding the infant Mary.
- [Narrator] And then the two lancet windows on either side,
we see these interesting pairings
of virtuous and villainous kings,
and also Old Testament priests.
- [Narrator] For example,
the lancet just to the left of Anna shows King David,
and the smaller figure, Saul,
who is shown with a sword through his chest.
We've walked out the south transept.
Porch is so different from the west front.
- [Narrator] Here we're about 80 or so years
after the sculpture on the west facade
and things are really different for Gothic architecture
and Gothic sculpture.
- [Narrator] The porch projects
much more than the west front did,
which is a characteristic of the High Gothic,
but the jamb figures have changed so so much.
- [Narrator] Well, before we saw a real interdependence
between the figure and the architecture.
The figure looked like a column,
and it was in front of a column.
Here the figures are still in front of columns,
but they an independence from the architecture,
which is entirely new.
- [Narrator] The most famous figure on the south porch
is the Saint Theodore, and you can see why.
- [Narrator] Well, he looks almost
like an ancient Greek or a Roman figure.
We see that the body has movement.
The jamb figures on the west portal
were so elongated and static.
- [Narrator] They were columnar.
- [Narrator] And they had no sense of liveliness to them.
Theodore seems almost as though he could walk off the porch
and greet us.
- [Narrator] His right hip juts out
and it creates this Gothic sway.
Just look at the feet.
His feet are firmly planted,
whereas the figures on the west front
seem to dangle, somehow, in midair.
- [Narrator] In his right hand
he carries a spear with a banner,
and we see much more than on the west front
a sense of volume to the drapery,
especially when we look to the hem of the garment
where we see real three dimensional folds.
- [Narrator] Theodore is still attached to the column.
- [Narrator] We can't call him free-standing.
- [Narrator] But he does seem animated.
- [Narrator] In his belt we see the hilt of a sword,
and his left hand rests on a shield,
which is pressed against his thigh.
There's a naturalism to his movement
and the way he carries himself
that tells us we're now in the High Gothic Period.
- [Narrator] The Cathedral at Chartres
is remarkable for so many reasons.
But what I love about it, especially,
is the way that it represents
the evolution of the Gothic style,
from the columnar jamb figures on the west work,
to the High Gothic representations
that we see on the south porch.
- [Narrator] I'm so glad
we decided to spend the day at Chartres.
(bright classical music)