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
What might seem an overreasonableness in the architecture of Tours
metropolitan church is offset by the glory of its jeweled windows.
Between 1260 and 1270 the choir's upper lights were placed, and
considering their date, they are exceptional in still being of the
legend-medallions type rather than large single figures. Blue is set in
greenish white with good effect, contrasting happily with certain
contemporary windows at Paris, where the juxtaposition of blue and red
produced melancholy purple. The joyous sparkling tone of Tours' lights
proves a skillful use of pot-metal yellow. More care was taken to tell
the legends plainly than to put borders round each medallion.
The glass of Tours belongs to the Paris school, though made, doubtless,
by local workers. Were a floor laid below the triforium of the choir,
its fifteen upper windows, composing a veritable pavilion of glass,
would be almost a replica of the Sainte-Chapelle, and one recalls that
it was Archbishop Odo of Tours who on April 25, 1248, dedicated for St.
Louis his new shrine at Paris. The donors of Tours' great windows were
churchmen and laymen, the lowly and the mighty. Bishop Geoffrey de
Loudon, builder of Le Mans' glorious choir, presented a light, as did
Tours' own prelate and a group of parish priests. Small craftsmen were
donors, drapers, and day laborers, and of course Queen Blanche's donjons
of Castile are to be seen. Her window, devoted to St. James, the patron
of Spain, is splendid in hue.
The fourth clearstory window on the north excels in color harmony. They
call it the Adam window, after the first tiller of the soil. It was
presented by plowmen, and relates their field labors as well as the
story of Genesis. On one side of the central light of the clearstory is
a dazzling Tree of Jesse, the gift of a furrier and his wife. Next to it
is a window devoted to St. Martin, whose story is told again, in the
late XIII-century glass of an apse chapel. More French churches have
been dedicated to St. Martin than to any other patron save Notre Dame.
The windows of the sanctuary north of the axis chapel, though mixed in
design, excel all others in exquisite color, being composed of fragments
from St. Martin's abbatial reset here. The New Alliance window in the
Lady chapel has medallions of Christ bearing His Cross and the
Crucifixion accompanied by such symbols and prefigurings as Elisha
resuscitating the child, Jonah issuing from the whale's jaws, the brazen
serpent, and Moses striking the rock.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account