Cathédrale de Chartres; Civilization, Medieval; Mont-Saint-Michel (Abbey : France)
The southern lancet represents the Passion of Christ. Granting to
Viollet-le-Duc that the unbroken vertical colour-scheme of the Tree
of Jesse made the more effective window, one might still ask whether
the medallion-scheme is not the more interesting. Once past the
workshop, there can be no question about it; the Tree of Jesse has
the least interest of all the three windows. A genealogical tree has
little value, artistic or other, except to those who belong in its
branches, and the Tree of Jesse was put there, not to please us, but
to please the Virgin. The Passion window was also put there to
please her, but it tells a story, and does it in a way that has more
novelty than the subject. The draughtsman who chalked out the design
on the whitened table that served for his sketch-board was either a
Greek, or had before him a Byzantine missal, or enamel or ivory. The
first medallion on these legendary windows is the lower left-hand
one, which begins the story or legend; here it represents Christ
after the manner of the Greek Church. In the next medallion is the
Last Supper; the fish on the dish is Greek. In the middle of the
window, with the help of the binocle, you will see a Crucifixion, or
even two, for on the left is Christ on the Cross, and on the right a
Descent from the Cross; in this is the figure of man pulling out
with pincers the nails which fasten Christ's feet; a figure unknown
to Western religious art. The Noli Me Tangere, on the right, near
the top, has a sort of Greek character. All the critics, especially
M. Paul Durand, have noticed this Byzantine look, which is even more
marked in the Suger window at Saint-Denis, so as to suggest that
both are by the same hand, and that the hand of a Greek. If the
artist was really a Greek, he has done work more beautiful than any
left at Byzantium, and very far finer than anything in the beautiful
work at Cairo, but although the figures and subjects are more or
less Greek, like the sculptures on the portal, the art seems to be
French.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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