Notre-Dame: A Gothic Icon

During the evening of 15th April 2019, many of us would have watched the horrifying spectacle of Notre-Dame being destroyed by fire.  As firefighters fought to control the spread of the blaze that had started in the roof, brought down the spire and was threatening one of the bell towers, we went to bed wondering what would be left by the morning. Incredibly, through the heroic efforts of the fire crew and perhaps also the enduring resilience of the cathedral itself, much of the structure was spared including the decorated west façade, towers and the three stained-glass Rose windows.  These features encapsulate the style of the Medieval period and the era of the great cathedrals.

Gothic tales

Notre-Dame was built in a style that subsequently became known as Gothic, but it embodies much wider Gothic meanings and iconography, that have influenced how later generations have perceived the cathedral and which have an enduring cultural significance, still relevant today.  Much of our modern understanding of the term Gothic comes from a genre of fiction that became popular in the late eighteenth century.  With origins in Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764), the style was developed and popularised in the 1790’s by a series of novels by Ann Radcliffe, along with works by authors including Clara Reeve and Matthew Lewis.  The stories are typically dark in character, combining suspense, horror, imprisonment, death, the supernatural and romance, while emphasising heightened emotions such as fear, helplessness and irrationality.  The settings are medieval Gothic buildings and include castles, convents and abbeys, which are presented as shadowy and gloomy places steeped in superstition and Catholic imagery and the backdrop to dark deeds. 

Victor Hugo the hero

The correlation between medieval Gothic buildings and horror continued in the nineteenth century, famously by Victor Hugo who decided to place the cathedral of Notre-Dame at the centre of his novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame(1831), originally published in French as Notre-Dame de Paris (Our Lady of Paris).  Hugo was interested in the medieval past and wanted to celebrate the beauty of the cathedral which at the time was in a poor state of repair.  In 1789 it had been ransacked during the French Revolution because of its association with the church and monarchy.  The heads were broken off from the twenty-eight statues in the Gallery of Kings over the main doorway, mistakenly thought to represent royal lineage.  Reliquaries and artifacts were confiscated.  Lead from the roof was taken for bullets and the bronze bells melted down for cannon.  The Cathedral was de-Christianized and dedicated by Robespierre to the cult of the Supreme Being.^[1]Fuentes, 2019  In 1801 Napoleon Bonaparte signed it over to the Catholic church and it was patched up a bit.  He was crowned there as emperor in 1804.  

During the nineteenth century an interest in the Gothic Revival in architecture gained momentum and Hugo’s was a prominent voice in the support of medieval buildings.  His passion is evident when writing about the poor state of Notre Dame:

‘It is difficult not to wax indignant, before the numberless degradations and mutilations which time and man have both caused the venerable monument to suffer’.^[2]Fuentes, 2019

Victor Hugo

In 1844 the architect Eugene Viollet-le-Duc began the restoration of Notre Dame.  It took twenty-five years, during which he restored the west façade including the Gallery of Kings and added a new spire.  He replaced the gargoyle rain spouts, the strixes (birds of ill omen)(fig. 3) and chimeras (creatures with multiple animal parts) (fig. 4).  However, Hugo’s novel about monsters, violence, revenge and superstition, reinforced the idea that however beautiful they appeared, Gothic buildings were inextricably linked with drama and dark forces.

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Sugar and light

This was not how the Gothic style was first experienced.  Indeed, it wasn’t even called Gothic, rather it was the ‘new style’, later the ‘French style’, which focussed on light filled spaces and which heralded a golden age of great cathedrals.  A key figure in the development of the style was Abbot Sugar (c.1081-1151) who in c.1135 began to rebuild the church of Saint-Denis, north of the centre of Paris (fig. 5).  Sugar’s writings reveal that he particularly valued light, believing an idea popular at the time that the power of light symbolised spiritual enlightenment.^[3]West, 2012, p. 57.  He knew what he wanted, but it was up to his master masons to work out how to let more light in.  Their structural solution was to change the traditional round arches to pointed.  The length and degree of an arch could be varied and meant the space between the ribs could be larger, which allowed for thinner walls and left more openings for windows and doors.  Flying buttresses (exterior braces) were developed to support the walls and roof from the outside. Decoration was incorporated including stained glass windows, elaborate tracery and sculpture.  Compared to the older Romanesque churches which had thick walls, massive pillars, small windows and dark interiors, the new light filled cathedral with its soaring ceiling was a revelation.  It was admired by many, including Maurice de Sully the Bishop of Paris, who commissioned a new Cathedral in the heart of Paris dedicated to the Virgin Mary. 

The people’s cathedral

The first stone of Notre-Dame was laid in 1163 but not completed until 1345. During this time the design evolved, incorporating and developing the main Gothic elements of St Denis.  The transept towers featured two of the largest rose windows, helping to illuminate the elegant and spacious interior (fig. 6).  Notre-Dame was not a royal cathedral built for coronations and funerals; its central position meant it served the local community, not only as a place of worship but as a backdrop to daily life.  The sculptures covering the exterior of the cathedral illustrate stories from the bible, including the Last Judgement (fig. 7). Positioned above the central doorway on the west facade, originally it would have been coloured and gilded.  All decoration would have helped to teach the illiterate parishioners the story of Christ.  The sculptures of Strixes on the balustrade were symbols of evil and a warning to worshipers who did not follow the church.  The cathedral witnessed trials, executions, gatherings as well as hosting festivals, including the annual Feast of Fools, in which a ‘false’ bishop or Pope was elected to preside over the raucous festivities.  This festival is featured in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, with Quasimodo made the Pope of Fools.  For the people living and working in wooden buildings nearby, the Cathedral would have been magnificent and awe inspiring.  They would have been proud of it.

Ugly buildings

Not all subsequent generations appreciated the ‘new style’.  Sixteenth century Italian commentators were the first to use the term Gothic, because they viewed the pointed arches, elongated proportions and intricate decoration, as ugly and barbaric in comparison with the orders of the ancient classical style they favoured.  Writing in 1568, the painter, architect and writer Giorgio Vasari was scathing of the ‘confusion and disorder’^[4]Vasari, 2012 [1568], p. 36. he found in the buildings.  He believed the columns looked weak and the decoration made the structure appear unstable as if made of paper. The proportions were wrong, with things piled on top of each other and the doors were so tall they almost touched the roof.  He declared ‘[t]hey are deformities in comparison with the beauty of our buildings’^[5]Vasari, 2012 [1568], p. 36. and resembled the pointed German style of the barbarous Goths, hence Gothic.  

So who were the Goths and was their architecture that bad?  The Goths along with other Teutonic tribes swept through Europe in the period known as the Dark Ages, approximately 400 -1000CE, which followed the collapse of the Roman empire.  There is little surviving architecture from that period and it is unclear which buildings Vasari was referring to in his comparison.  One notable structure which he may have seen is in Ravenna in Italy, a place where the Ostrogoths established a kingdom in the 5^th Century.  The Mausoleum of Theodoric the Great (fig. 8) was built in 520CE with materials from Roman buildings.  The structure was formed into two storeys from huge blocks of stone, the lower a decagonal and the upper circular and topped with a limestone monolithic dome.  It features both round and square arches and some abstract surface decoration.  Its appearance suggests both Roman and Byzantine influences, which are also evident in a later building, the Palatine Chapel in Aachen, (fig. 9 ) completed in 805CE by Charlemagne, King of the Franks.  It is arguable whether these buildings could be considered monstrous or barbaric and they appear to have little in common with the style of Notre-Dame.  However, it was the Goths who played a major role in bringing down the Roman Empire and for Vasari and others in Renaissance Italy, who valued the revival of the antique, anything that deviated from the perceived perfection of the classical style, was associated with the ‘barbarians’.  Once an insult, the term Gothic subsequently became a convenient style label and Gothic architecture and art as highly revered as that of the Renaissance.

A special building

Witnessing Notre-Dame being ravaged by fire may have felt like a scene from a Gothic story, but it was real and the sadness of the Parisians who could do nothing but quietly stand by and watch was palpable.  It is their cathedral and it remains a backdrop to daily life but it is also a glorious building that we can all appreciate.  For all of us who value history, art and human achievement, the cathedral is much more than a Gothic icon.  Whether one is religious or not, in its presence we can experience awe, wonder, and enlightenment or some other sensation that we can’t explain but makes us feel good.  That’s why Notre-Dame is special and why it should be restored.

Bibliography

Encyclopedia Britannica [online] available at https://www.britannica.com accessed 10^th December 2020

Fuentes, J. L. C., (2019) Updated, [online] ‘An 800 year history of Paris’s Notre-Dame Cathedral’, National Geographic History Magazine, available at National Geographic subscription only. Accessed 10^th December 2020.

Gombrich, E. H., (1978), The Story of Art, Oxford, Phaidon Press

West, S. (2012), ‘Sacred architecture, Gothic architecture’, in Woods, K. W. (ed) (2012) Art & Visual Culture 1100-1600, London, Tate Publishing / Milton Keynes, The Open University.

Vasari, G., (2012[1568]) ‘German Work (the Gothic Style)’, in Lymberopoulou, A., Bracewell-Homer, P., and Robinson, J. (eds.) (2012) Art and Visual Culture: A Reader, London, Tate Publishing / Milton Keynes, The Open University.