Cathédrale de Chartres; Civilization, Medieval; Mont-Saint-Michel (Abbey : France)
First and most important as record is the stone Virgin on the south
door of the western portal, which we studied, with her Byzantine
Court; and the second, also in stone, is of the same period, on one
of the carved capitals of the portal, representing the Adoration of
the Magi. The third is the glass Virgin at the top of the central
lancet. All three are undoubted twelfth-century work; and you can
see another at Paris, on the same door of Notre Dame, and still more
on Abbe Suger's window at Saint-Denis, and, later, within a
beautiful grisaille at Auxerre; but all represent the same figure; a
Queen, enthroned, crowned, with the symbols of royal power, holding
in her lap the infant King whose guardian she is. Without pretending
to know what special crown she bears, we can assume, till corrected,
that it is the Carlovingian imperial, not the Byzantine. The Trinity
nowhere appears except as implied in the Christ. At the utmost, a
mystic hand may symbolize the Father. The Virgin as represented by
the artists of the twelfth century in the Ile de France and at
Chartres seems to be wholly French in spite of the Greek atmosphere
of her workmanship. One might almost insist that she is blonde, full
in face, large in figure, dazzlingly beautiful, and not more than
thirty years of age. The Child never seems to be more than five.
You are equally free to see a Southern or Eastern type in her face,
and perhaps the glass suggests a dark type, but the face of the
Virgin on the central lancet is a fourteenth-century restoration
which may or may not reproduce the original, while all the other
Virgins represented in glass, except one, belong to the thirteenth
century. The possible exception is a well-known figure called Notre-
Dame-de-la-Belle-Verriere in the choir next the south transept. A
strange, almost uncanny feeling seems to haunt this window,
heightened by the veneration in which it was long held as a shrine,
though it is now deserted for Notre-Dame-du-Pilier on the opposite
side of the choir. The charm is partly due to the beauty of the
scheme of the angels, supporting, saluting, and incensing the Virgin
and Child with singular grace and exquisite feeling, but rather that
of the thirteenth than of the twelfth century. Here, too, the face
of the Virgin is not ancient. Apparently the original glass was
injured by time or accident, and the colours were covered or renewed
by a simple drawing in oil. Elsewhere the colour is thought to be
particularly good, and the window is a favourite mine of motives for
artists to exploit, but to us its chief interest is its singular
depth of feeling. The Empress Mother sits full-face, on a rich
throne and dais, with the Child on her lap, repeating her attitude
except that her hands support His shoulders. She wears her crown;
her feet rest on a stool, and both stool, rug, robe, and throne are
as rich as colour and decoration can make them. At last a dove
appears, with the rays of the Holy Ghost. Imperial as the Virgin is,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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