(piano playing)
Beth: We've just walked up a very steep hill,
in the town of Vézelay, in Burgundy, in France,
and we're in the Church of La Madeleine.
Steven: We're in the narthex, actually,
which is the forecourt inside the church,
before you walk into the Basilica itself,
and, in the second set of doorways,
on the main portal above,
are a set of incredible tympana,
but the central one is just astonishing.
This is among the first large scale figural sculpture
of the late medieval period.
Beth: This is a very important church.
It houses the relics of Mary Magdalene.
It was the place where
one of the pilgrimage routes began.
Steven: The pilgrimage routes that worshippers
could follow, on their way
to Santiago de Compostela, in Spain,
from church to church,
from set of relics to set of relics.
Beth: This church is important for the relics,
and is a place where a pilgrimage route began,
but it's also important because this was the place
that the Second and Third Crusades began.
Steven: The First Crusade, which began in 1095,
was an attempt by Christians, in the West,
to retake Jerusalem from the Muslims.
Now, of course, this was a terribly violent campaign
and, although, they were initially successful,
ultimately, they were driven out.
The second campaign was called
by the Abbot Clairvaux who wanted the Crusaders
to go forth into non-Christian lands
and to convert those foreigners.
This idea of moving out and converting the world
is reflected in the subject matter of this tympanum.
Beth: In the center, we see Christ
with 6 Apostles on either side.
Christ is giving his Um,ission to the Apostles
to spread the Gospel to all peoples
of all nations, and all creatures.
Steven: You can see, actually,
that they're all holding books.
Those would be the Gospels themselves
that they're going to be preaching,
and, if you look very closely,
you can see that there are rays,
miraculous representations of light,
that are reaching from Christ's fingers
to the Apostles themselves.
Beth: Some art historians have interpreted
this scene as the Mission to the Apostles,
and some as the event that happened,
10 days later, of the Pentecost,
when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles
and they were given the ability to speak
in many languages to convert
the peoples of the Earth.
Steven: This tympanum is quite deliberate
in representing the host peoples of the Earth,
and, in a sense, the strangeness of the world
beyond Christian borders.
Beth: The world was very small
in the early 12th century.
Steven: That's true.
The Europeans really didn't know much
about the world beyond their borders.
The First Crusaders had come back
with marvelous stories, and they had spoken
of people from southern Asia who had ears
large enough to wrap themselves in.
Beth: And, we see that on this tympanum.
Steven: That's right. They spoke of small people
that needed ladders to get up on to their horses,
and that's represented also, literally, here.
This really speaks to the ignorance
and, in some ways, the fear that people here had
of the worlds that they didn't know.
Beth: In the center of this tympanum,
we see Christ in a mandorla, a kind of body halo.
Steven: But, he breaks out of it.
He's so powerful, and so large,
that even that spiritual light can't contain him.
Beth: And, he's very thin, and elongated.
Steven: He's also really elegant.
Look at how his posture is somewhat to the side.
The knees are together,
but they're pushed to our right,
and I suspect that this was one of the ways
that his divinity is represented.
Look at his body. You're absolutely right.
He's very flat, very linear, very attenuated.
Look at the way in which patterns
are so carefully rendered.
There are those marvelous kinds of swirls,
and it's as if the cloth itself is a sign
of his spirituality.
Beth: Well, and I think there's a divine energy
that seems to run through the figures
in their gestures and their limbs.
Steven: Christ is the largest figure.
He dominates everything.
Beth: And, here we are, in the early 12th century,
at this moment of the rebirth of monumental
sculpture in the West.
Steven: Some scholars have suggested
that the stylization, especially of the cloth,
can be seen in representations in painting
from this time, especially paintings from Cluny,
the large Benedictine church just south of here.
Beth: Then, actually, there's one example
that survives, of painting, from that period,
at Berzé-la-Ville, that some scholars suggest
this resembles.
Steven: It makes sense that, since large scale
figural sculpture was just being revived,
that artists would look to other media
for systems of representation.
Let's take a look at the sculpture itself.
We have Christ in the middle, as we've established.
We have the Apostles on either side,
and then, down in the lintel, we have the peoples
of the world, from different historical periods.
We have, perhaps, the ancient Greeks, on the left,
that need to be converted.
Just above the tympanum itself,
there are a series of compartments.
They also reflect this idea of conversion.
Beth: And, specifically, the power that Christ
gave the Apostles to save and condemn,
to preach the Gospel to all nations and creatures,
to heal the sick, to drive out demons.
We see, for example, the conversion of the Jews.
Steven: We see people with heads of dogs.
We see people who are blind who can see.
I mean, it's a series of miracles
that's meant to inspire.
But, I think it's crucial that all of this reference
to the New Testament is also, at the same time,
meant to be an inspiration for medieval men
to go out and convert, to go out and save.
Beth: In the very place where Bernard of Clairvaux
called for the Second Crusades.
(piano playing)