(upbeat piano music)
- [Steven] We're in the square in the city of Reims
in France looking at one of the great Gothic cathedrals.
- [Beth] Everything seems to reach heavenward.
- [Steven] It's pierced everywhere.
- [Beth] As we look at it, it hardly feels like stone,
it has a weightlessness.
- [Steven] This is a characteristic
of the High Gothic period.
- [Beth] We're not far from Paris,
and in fact the great Gothic and High Gothic churches
form a circle around Paris.
- [Steven] This period in the 12th and 13th centuries
was a period in which France was not
the nation as we now know it.
The Capetian monarchy, the king of France,
was in control only of the Ile-de-France,
the area that surrounds Paris.
Beyond that, other feudal barons, lords,
controlled large areas.
- [Beth] But it's during exactly this Gothic period
that the Capetian monarchs expand their territory,
and increase their power.
And one of the ways they do that
is by cathedral building.
- [Steven] A building like this doesn't
spring out of nothing.
This is based on centuries of experimentation
that we can see especially in great Romanesque churches
in the years after the turn of the millennia.
- [Beth] The desire to build roofing out of stone
that we see being in the Romanesque
reaches a kind of perfection during the Gothic.
It's these developments in things
like flying buttresses and in the Groin Vault
that allow the Gothic builder to build so tall, so high,
to pierce the walls in the way that he does
to allow light to enter the building.
- [Steven] But all of that is in the service
of the spiritual,
to use light symbolically to create a space
that is meant to represent heaven on earth.
- [Beth] Typically for both Romanesque and Gothic churches
we have a west front which has three entrances.
Generally, that reflects the interior of the church.
- [Steven] And these are called, portals.
And they reflect the interior because the central doors
enter into the widest part of building, the nave.
And each of the side doors open up into the side aisles.
- [Beth] Beginning in the Romanesque period,
we begin to see figures on either side of the doorway
and above the doorway in a space called the tympanum.
The figures on either side, they're called jamb figures.
- [Steven] Because they're attached to the door jams.
And then surrounding the tympanum,
almost like amplification of the shape,
are archivolts.
These radiate out and here they create closed porches.
- [Beth] They're quite deep.
They create this funnel that draws the visitor in.
Now here at Reims, instead of sculpture,
we have stained glass in the tympanum.
The sculpture that we would expect to see in the tympanum,
is now above that in the gabled spaces above the achivolts.
- [Steven] Now just above the rose window
in this central portal,
there's another even larger rose.
- [Beth] At this cathedral in particular,
the artists have achieved an amazing thing
with the stained glass windows.
They've reduced that stone that holds the glass in place
to very fine tracery.
It seems miraculous that that glass is being held in place.
- [Steven] And glass has even been added
around the rose itself.
And solid stone in earlier churches
has here been opened up to allow even more light in.
On either side of the rose window are two enormous towers,
pierced throughout so that light pours through them
and they seem delicate.
- [Beth] And then we have another feature
which is typical of Gothic churches,
in this case it's located above the rose window,
and this is called the Gallery of Kings.
Here we have a row of Old Testament kings
who are understood as the ancestors of Christ.
According to the New Testament,
Christ traced his lineage back to the house of King David.
- [Steven] This is called the tree of Jesse
and that refers back to Jesse the father of King David.
But in this particular church
at the center of the Gallery of Kings,
we see the baptism of King Clovis,
the man who begins the ancient Merovingian Dynasty,
a dynasty that the more modern kings of France
would have looked back to.
- [Beth] What happened at Clovis's baptism was a miracle.
The oil required to anoint him
during the coronation ceremony was miraculously
received by the Bishop from a dove sent by God.
- [Steven] That legend is important
because this is the Cathedral
where the coronation ceremonies took place,
where the kings of France received their divine inspiration,
their divine power.
- [Beth] So let's go take a closer look
at the central doorway.
What strikes me most of all as we approach
any of these the three doorways
is how animated the jam figures are.
They tilt their heads, they move their bodies.
Many of them look down at us.
It feels as if they're alive,
and if we imagine that they were once painted,
that would have enhanced their realism to any visitor
walking through these portals.
- [Steven] But if they were real, they were giants.
These are large sculptures.
- [Beth] Significantly larger than life-size.
- [Steven] We've walked into the central portal
and we're looking at the jam figures
that are on the right side.
We have two scenes.
On the left is the Annunciation,
we see the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary.
The Annunciation is the moment when the Archangel Gabriel
visits Mary with the news that she will bear Christ.
- [Beth] And on the right we see a scene
known as the Visitation
when Mary's cousin Elizabeth visits.
They are both pregnant,
Elizabeth is pregnant with Saint John the Baptist.
And of course Mary is pregnant with the Christ child.
- [Steven] When you look at these two pairs of sculptures,
you can see that they were carved at different times
and in very different styles.
- [Beth] This is a big undertaking to build a cathedral.
Not only would you have to have many masons
who are cutting and carving stone,
but also many sculptors who are working
likely coming from different workshops in the region.
And so it makes sense that you might have sculptures
that are stylistically different.
And here at Reims especially,
we know that sculptures were moved
from different locations on the building.
And so it's not quite as coherent as we might see
at another Gothic church, like Amiens, for example.
- [Steven] Well, look at the figures on the right.
They look so classical.
They're wearing drapery that at first glance
seems as if it could come from ancient Rome.
- [Beth] Right, and that's what we mean by classical-looking
back to the cultures of ancient Greece and ancient Rome.
And we know that Reims was an important ancient Roman city.
There are ancient Roman ruins here
that may have been an important source of inspiration
for the sculptors who did the scene of the Visitation.
- [Steven] So much so that earlier art historians
thought for a time that these might actually
be antique sculptures from ancient Rome.
- [Beth] What makes them look so classical,
so ancient Greek or Roman
is that clinging drapery.
We could think back to the sculptures
on the Parthenon for example.
- [Steven] And like those ancient Greek sculptures
we see attention to the bodies below the drapery.
When we look at Mary,
we see her right knee projecting out,
a traditional way of representing the body
that we call contrapposto where her weight
is largely on her left leg in this case.
- [Beth] However one of the tips that tells us
this is not classical, but is in fact Gothic,
is that that sway in her hip
that forms an S curve in her body is exaggerated.
And that's something we do see
quite often in high Gothic sculpture.
- [Steven] This is a characteristic
that was considered quite elegant
and part of the courtly culture
especially of 12th and 13th century France.
- [Beth] In early Gothic sculpture when we had jam figures,
there was a very close association
between the figures and the columns behind them.
But here the figures seem to almost have nothing
to do with the columns behind them.
They're very independent.
The figures interact with one another.
There's a sense of freedom from the architecture,
so that we almost read these as freestanding sculptures.
- [Steven] Lets take a look at the Annunciation.
It's not just that this pair contrast
with the classicism of the Visitation,
but the figures are different from each other.
- [Beth] And so we seem to have actually
these two pairs of sculptures,
the hands of three different sculptors.
Compared to the figures around her,
Mary seems very simple.
She might hark back to an earlier Gothic style.
Her drapery is primarily these lines
that fall straight down toward her feet.
We have very little sense of a body underneath that drapery.
- [Steven] She reminds us of the more
columnar figures at Chartres.
although she has more mass,
she has more solidity, she's more of this world.
- [Beth] But look at how kindly her face appears,
gentle, generous.
Mary is understood as an intercessor
as someone who intercedes between human beings
and the divine.
As someone who appeal to Christ
and help ensure our place in heaven.
- [Steven] And that is beautifully represented
by the angel to her left.
This is Gabriel announcing to Mary
that she will bear Christ.
And in this case the angel is represented
with anatomy that seems otherworldly.
The head is quite small, the body is lyrical,
the carving is incredibly delicate,
and Mary seems earthly in comparison.
- [Beth] He is very elongated,
a very thin graceful neck.
The way he pulls up his drapery
seems like a very refined member of the court in Paris.
Art historians believe this is the latest
of these four figures.
- [Steven] The original paint,
the original polychromy is still visible.
This is a reminder that all of these figures
would have been brightly-painted.
- [Beth] That lovely angelic smile,
that other worldly smile.
The puffing of the skin around the eyes,
the delicate curls of the hair.
These are features that we see
in other sculptures from this time period.
- [Steven] And that we can see in other
jam figures on this church.
If we turn around to the left side of the central portal,
we see especially the figure known as Joseph
carved in a style that is very similar to the angel.
- [Beth] And last but not least,
we have a figure in the center
as we look toward the doorway,
this is called the trumeau which supports the lintel.
And here we see a very atypically Gothic sculpture
of Mary holding the Christ child,
supporting him on her hips with that sway of drapery.
- [Steven] And as a reminder that this church
was closely associated with the Capetian monarchy,
she wears a large crown.
So there is this immediate association
between temporal and divine power.
- [Beth] And as we stand in this doorway
about to walk into the church,
I'm reminded of the medieval visitors
who would have looked up and seen figures
that they were familiar with.
They would have heard sermons about these figures.
They were have heard chants and songs.
And in many ways these figures were alive for them
as we enter the church.
- [Steven] We've entered into the cathedral.
We've walked past the nave to the side aisle.
And we're looking now across at the interior elevation.
- [Beth] This is a very typical elevation
for a Gothic cathedral.
We have the nave arcade,
the row of arches that we see on either side of the nave,
and we notice that they're pointed
which is a very typical feature of Gothic architecture.
And then above that we see a triforium.
- [Steven] Now above that is the clerestory,
these soaring windows.
In this case two very tall lancet windows.
And above the lancets, a small lobed window
that looks like a small rose.
- [Beth] Sometimes called an oculus.
And here even in the spaces between the lancets,
even there we have glass.
So this idea of opening up as much of the walls
as possible to the glass,
now that's a really difficult feat
when you have a stone vaulted ceiling.
- [Steven] Which weighs a tremendous amount,
and which exerts tremendous pressure downward and out
and all that needs to be supported.
Part of the brilliance of the Gothic
is the understanding that that weight can be born
not entirely inside the church with massive piers,
but much of that weight can be drawn outside
and supported by flying buttresses
that allow for light to come into the church unobstructed.
- [Beth] If we go back to the Romanesque,
those stone vaulted ceilings were carried
by these massive heavy walls.
And along with the flying buttress
that allows Gothic architects to open up the walls
to allow for this light
is the use of the ribbed groin vault.
- [Steven] Let's start at the bottom.
We have large piers visually made lighter
by the addition of these engaged columns,
what are called colonnettes,
that rise delicately up
and that continue the entire length of the elevation,
all the way up to the center of the vaulting.
A groin vault is the intersection of two barrel vaults.
The Romanesque was in love with the idea
of taking a Roman arch and extending it in space
to create a barrel vault.
But what happens when you intersect
at 90 degrees, two barrel vaults?
You get a curved X shape that's known as a groin vault.
- [Beth] One of the benefits of the groin vault
is that it allows the weight to come down on two points,
instead of continuous walls,
and that allows one to open up the space.
- [Steven] In this case, the vaulting is four-part.
And at the intersection of those four parts,
we have ribbing
that was an important architectural innovation
that allows for much of the work of holding up the building
to be taken by that ribbing
rather than the webbing in between.
Gothic architects often used a type of stone
that was lighter for that in-between space.
- [Beth] And as we look down the aisle at the ribbing,
we see this lovely pattern creating linear decoration.
- [Steven] The linear is seen everywhere in the interior,
but we also have it interrupted
by beautiful decorative passages that are foliate,
that is that show foliage, leaves.
We see it at the top of columns.
And we also see it separating some of the sculpture
on the interior west wall.
The fact that architecture is purposefully using light
as a symbolic expression of the divine
is quite extraordinary.
Light can pass through glass.
It is magical substance.
And here architects are weaving it
into the very fabric of the building.
- [Beth] To give us a sense of the heavenly.
One of the things that distinguishes this cathedral
from others from this period
is that we're missing so much of the original stained glass.
This city was heavily bombed during World War I
and the cathedral sustained real damage
that took decades to rebuild.
- [Steven] That's most evident in the destruction
of some of the sculpture on the exterior of the building,
but also in the loss of the original glass
in the clerestory, in the nave.
What the destruction of World War I
afforded the church was the opportunity though
for modern artists, most notably Mark Chagall,
to create new windows for the church.
And we see a set of gorgeous lancet windows
in the axial chapel,
the back most chapel in the church.
- [Beth] We've walked back down toward the west end
toward the entrance,
and we're immediately faced by this unusual
and fabulously beautiful sculpted wall.
We're looking at dozens of figures in small niches
that surround the rose window.
- [Steven] And this screen frames each of the three portals.
And it's interesting to note that the subjects
that are represented on the interior west front,
reflect the subjects on the exterior portals.
- [Beth] One can imagine the king
after the coronation ceremony,
after the King is imbued with divine power,
turning around to process out of this doorway
and looking at the very scenes we're looking at today.
- [Steven] And two of the most prominent niches,
just to the right of the main portal,
reflect the relationship
between the church and the king.
We have two Old Testament figures,
Melchizedek and Abraham.
- [Beth] Both are dressed in the garb of the Middle Ages,
so we might not immediately recognize Abraham
because he's dressed as a knight.
- [Steven] And although Melchizedek and Abraham were kings,
here in his knightly garb,
Abraham represents the monarchy.
- [Beth] And to his left,
Melchizedek from the Old Testament
who is both a king and a priest
and he's administering bread and wine to Abraham.
- [Steven] And it's a reminder
that in the 12th and 13th centuries,
in fact for the entire medieval period,
there is a complex relationship
between the church and the king,
between spiritual and temporal power.
- [Beth] You have a king
coming here to be anointed,
to be crowned as king-- - By the church.
- [Beth] By the Archbishop.
So there's that sense in which
the Archbishop is empowering the king.
On the other hand, the king once he's anointed
during the coronation ceremony
becomes God's vehicle on earth
to protect and care for his kingdom.
So you do have this almost coequal powers
during the Middle Ages.
Here I think exemplified by the pair of figures
of Melchizedek and Abraham.
- [Steven] Melchizedek reaches towards Abraham.
Abraham, his hands together in prayer,
bends forward towards Melchizedek
and it's almost as if the architectural frame
that surrounds each disappears.
- [Beth] And yet, we're drawn
to that beautiful foliage pattern
that surrounds each of these niches.
A reminder of how important the natural world
was becoming during the Gothic period.
This is a time of renewed interest
in the philosophy of Aristotle,
but also renewed interest in nature.
- [Steven] Make no mistake, this is not the Renaissance,
but there are focused moments of naturalism
in medieval sculpture and we see that here
in the representation of the oak,
of some of the vines, as a framing motif.
- [Beth] All of this in the service
of understanding the world,
the universe that God created for us,
and the vehicle of the church for our salvation.
- [Steven] The church is still breathtaking.
One can only imagine how miraculous
it must've seemed to somebody in the 13th century.