How France Built Her Cathedrals: A Study in the Twelfth and Thirteenth CenturiesO'Reilly, Elizabeth Boyle
History
How France Built Her Cathedrals: A Study in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
O'Reilly, Elizabeth Boyle
Architecture, Gothic; Cathedrals -- France
In the church of St. Pantaléon, where Lyénin II worked, the windows are
in one or two tones, gray-brown with silver-stain yellow and flesh
color, a style better suited to domestic interiors or to civic halls
than to churches. The church boasts a statue of St. James and a Charité
by Domenico Florentino, and a St. Crespin group by a son of Troyes,
François Gentil, influenced by the Italian. To Gentil is attributed the
Christ at the column and the Christ bearing the Cross in the church of
St. Nicolas, where are also images of St. Anne and St. Joachim from the
Juliot studio, a St. Bonaventure from the same source whence emanated
the adorable statue of St. Martha, and more of the grisaille
picture-glass. In St. Martin-ès-Vignes the window of St. Anne (1623) is
attributed to Linard Gontier; in Ste. Sabine are some painted wood
panels, and a carved keystone of great beauty; in the hall of the
library of Troyes are thirty panels by Linard Gontier, made in
commemoration of Henry IV's visit in 1598.
CHÂLONS CATHEDRAL[150]
It so happens that in most of our communes the church remains the only
witness of the olden times and of departed generations. It thus becomes
a symbol, legible for the humblest, of the duration of our race, of the
persistence, through the dead, of a special group of French families on
a special corner of French soil. The village church gives the lesson of
lineage, of the solidarity of efforts, of the communion of men.--EDMOND
BLANQUERON, Inspecteur de l'Académie de la Haute-Marne, in the crusade
to save the churches of Champagne, notably Vignory, one of the oldest in
France (c. 1050).
The cathedral of Troyes and the church of St. Urbain belong to the
Champagne school of Gothic, to which we have devoted no separate chapter
because some of its monuments, such as St. Remi at Rheims and Notre Dame
at Châlons, we grouped with the Primary Gothic churches, and the
cathedral of Rheims with the Great Cathedrals, classifications used
solely for greater clarity.
From its inception, the Gothic of Champagne kept pace with the
Ile-de-France Picard school, and in certain characteristics even took
the lead of its neighbor. Gerson, Racine, La Fontaine, Gaston Paris, are
among the sons of this province whose Gothic art, formulated centuries
before them, displays qualities which embody aspiration, sublimity,
sanity always and just measure, a singular ease and grace, patience, and
science.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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