bookshelves: published-2007, summer-2013, e-book, under-20, nonfiction, paris, france, art-forms, architecture, history, medieval5c-16c, reference-book, cults-societies-brotherhoods, ghosties-ghoulies, gothic, anti-semitic, mythology, philosophy, racism
Read from July 25 to 26, 2013

Opening: There are many churches dedicated to Notre Dame but only one Notre-Dame de Paris. Located on the east end of the Île-de-la-Cité, the cathedral is the spiritual and geographic center not only of Paris, but of the whole of France. Built between 1163 and 1250, it remains one of the first and most innovative Gothic structures in Europe.

Le Stryge: the unique and the single most memorable creation of the nineteenth-century restorer and architectural theorist Viollet-le-Duc. Though not a gargoyle in the proper sense of the term (since he does not serve as a drainpipe) he has nonetheless become the very essence of gargoyleness, the quintessence of the modern idea of the medieval.

Charles Méryon Le Stryge.

Gargoyles remove 'all the body, filth, and foulness that is ejected from the edifice'

'Romanesque architecture died. . . . From now on, the cathedral itself, formerly so dogmatic an edifice, was invaded by the bourgeoisie, by the commons, by liberty; it escaped from the priest and came under the sway of the artist. The artist built to his own fancy. Farewell mystery, myth and law. Now it was fantasy and caprice. . . . The book of architecture no longer belonged to the priesthood, to religion and to Rome; it belonged to the imagination, to poetry and to the people. . . . Now architects took unimaginable liberties, even towards the Church. Monks and nuns coupled shamefully on capitals, as
in the Hall of Chimneys in the Palais de Justice in Paris. The story of Noah was carved in full, as beneath the great portal of Bourges. A bacchic monk with asses’ ears and glass in hand laughed a whole community to scorn, as above the lavabo in the Abbey of Boscherville. At that time, the thought that was inscribed in stone enjoyed a pivilege entirely comparable to our present freedom of the press. This was the freedom of architecture.' Victor Hugo ( )

This unfortunately posthumous publication wonderfully examines the re-imagination and re-discovery of the past. After the enlightenment, the romantic 19th century re-discovered the artistic merits of the medieval, Gothic world, re-creating it and re-interpreting it according to the 19th century customs. Many of the famous gargoyles and chimeras of Notre Dame de Paris don't happen to be authentic from medieval times but have been designed and commissioned by the French equivalent to Ruskin, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, whose own spleen had a major influence on the new old Notre Dame. He in turn was inspired by Victor Hugo and Jules Michelet. Every era creates its own image of the past - the out-of-date past is most visible in old museums which have failed to keep up with the times.

Notre Dame de Paris is unfortunately too modern. At the beginning of the new millennium, some of the chimeras became a new Disneyfied face lift, removing the psychological depth and turning them into family-friendly mascots ideal to sell merchandise. The author couldn't complain though, as he had marred his upper arm with unaesthetic tattoo versions of the chimeras. While I found his homosexual interpretation of the chimeras fascinating, I think it is too subjective, a case of the eyes of the beholder. What is missing is a chapter of those modern chimeras, the superheroes. Batman and Spider-Man on their perches looking down on the city below. The author was still alive when the vampire boom started. An obvious Gothic connection missed.

Overall, though, this is a great publication linking art history, medieval history and architecture which makes one dream about Paris. ( )