Art and Politics in the Sainte Chapelle of Paris
Sainte Chapelle Upper Chapel.
Note the skeletal framework property
up the walls of stained drinking glass. ane of
the great masterpieces of medieval fine art
from the 13th century.
Sainte Chapelle, Paris (1241-48)
Palais de la Cite, Paris
Contents
• Sainte-Chapelle: Introduction
• History
• Acquisition of the Holy Relics
• Construction
• Architecture of Sainte-Chapelle
• Steeple
• Western Facade
• Lower Chapel
• Upper Chapel
• Sainte-Chapelle's Stained Glass
• Iconography
• Stained Glass Artists
• Sculpture
For more most the evolution of building designs,
run into: History of Compages (3,000 BCE - present).
Exterior of Sainte-Chapelle, Paris.
Due west Facade. Notice the vertical
piers supporting the walls and vault.
Gothic pointed arches making up
the vault of the lower chapel at
Sainte-Chapelle, Paris.
Introduction
Sainte-Chapelle, the ultimate expression of French Gothic compages, was a imperial chapel within the complex of the Palais de la Cite, in Paris. It ranks alongside Notre-Dame Cathedral (1163-1345) and Chartres Cathedral (c.1194-1250) as one of the greatest sites of Gothic art in France, although it exceeds both in the quality of its stained glass art and the style in which its stone walls have been transformed into shimmering walls of light. Built by Male monarch Louis 9 betwixt 1241 and 1248 in order to firm the Holy Relics of the Passion (he was later made a saint by the Catholic Church), Sainte-Chapelle was an clear statement of the devotional piety and secular prestige of the French monarchy, expressed in the new course of Rayonnant Gothic architecture (c.1200-1350). Richly decorated with a variety of Christian art, including sculpture, a wealth of decorative fine art and stained drinking glass, this palatine reliquary chapel - whose gloomy catacomb-like lower section served equally the parish church for the inhabitants of the palace - became the model for all holy chapels built past Louis and his descendants. (The two-story chapel has clear similarities to Charlemagne'southward palatine chapel at Aachen - something that Louis would have been anxious to exploit in offering himself every bit a worthy successor to the first Holy Roman Emperor. See Carolingian Art for more.) The translucent beauty of Sainte-Chapelle's stained drinking glass windows amazed its thirteenth century visitors who imagined themselves "introduced into one of Heaven'due south about cute rooms". Later damaged during the French Revolution, the chapel was the object of an exemplary restoration between 1840 and 1868 involving the greatest architects and principal craftsmen in France. Following the advice of the restoration specialist Eugene Viollet-le-Duc (1814-79), the architects, guided by archeological research, restored the building to its thirteenth century appearance, eliminating the subsequently additions to its structure. The chapel retains one of the nigh extensive on-site collections of thirteenth-century stained glass anywhere in the world.
History: Paris and the Kingdom of France (1230)
King Louis Nine was merely twelve years one-time when he succeeded his father Louis 8 every bit king in 1226. The Regency was ensured by his mother, Blanche de Castille, until his coming of age and matrimony with Marguerite de Provence in 1234.
Paris, which it is reckoned had a population of two hundred thousand inhabitants, was the political capital of the kingdom and the seat of the Chancery, Parliament and Audit Chamber; the king too had his palace there, in which the Chartes treasury housed the archives and master royal deeds. Paris was equally the intellectual capital, with an internationally renowned University, equally well as an creative centre where courtly arts were practiced - goldsmithing and silverish working, tapestry art, miniature ivory carving and illuminated manuscripts - and with building sites as prestigious as Notre-Dame Cathedral (1163-1345), which was still in the process of construction. For more, see: Medieval Christian Art (c.600-1200).
At the heart of the city, on the likely site of the former residence of the Roman prefects, Philippe Auguste had congenital a palace (the Palais de la Cite) that his grandson, Louis Nine, altered and enlarged. Information technology was here that he resided when he was not at Vincennes. It is very likely that besides the Sainte-Chapelle and the adjoining Chartes treasury, the future St Louis was responsible for the building of the arcade that was later to be known equally the Galerie des Merciers, (connecting the chapel to the rex's appartments), three houses for the canons of the Chapelle, as well every bit the erection of the tour Bonbec and the adjoining hall, known as the Salle St Louis, which today no longer exists.
The Sainte-Chapelle and part of the tour Bonbec are all that remain of St Louis' palace, which served as the residence of the kings of France until 1417; it remained, still, the seat of the kingdom'southward judicial and financial administration.
Contradistinct at the end of the thirteenth century by Philippe the Off-white, the palace too underwent a few modifications in the mode of Renaissance architecture during the fifteenth century, before being heavily damaged by the burn down of 1776 which destroyed the Galerie des Merciers and led to the demolition of the Chartes treasury. Restorations undertaken during the nineteenth century and the new buildings put up mostly nether the 2nd Empire gave the primary buildings their present day appearance.
Conquering of the Holy Relics
During the thirteenth century, the kingdom of France was rich and powerful. Information technology maintained privileged relationships with the Middle East, and particularly with Constantinople afterward the boondocks'south capture by the Crusaders in 1204. In 1237, the new Franc Emperor of the East, Baudoin Ii de Courtenay, was faced past heavy expenses of a mainly military nature; he tried to meet these by selling the Relics of the Passion that were preserved in Constantinople and which he had already partly pledged to the Venetians. In 1239, Louis IX bought from him the Crown of Thorns worn by Christ during the Passion, for the huge sum of 135,000 livres. For the very pious Louis 9, who was the model for all the Christian kings, this was the opportunity to assert his devotion to Christ, brand his kingdom the beacon of western Christianity and support the endangered Franc Empire. Buying the relics was both a religious and a political act.
On 18 August 1239, the king deposited the Crown of Thorns with great ceremony in the former palatine chapel of St Nicholas, built in the mid-twelfth century close to the Palais de la Cite. Two years later, Louis Nine bought a fragment of the True Cross from Baudoin II as well as other relics connected with the Passion, the Virgin and the saints; these arrived in Paris on 14 September 1241.
It is probable that from this date onwards the rex thought of building a monumental reliquary to business firm the precious relics in a dignified style within the palace precincts, in a similar way to the Christian Emperors of the East. It was to take the function and form of a reliquary, as well equally the sumptuous interior decoration which gives it the appearance of a awe-inspiring piece of jewellery.
Transfer of the Holy Relics
The Crown of Thorns and the fragment of the Truthful Cantankerous are the most precious of all the relics bought by Louis Nine from emperor Baudoin II. In 1239, wishing to greet the Crown of Thorns immediately on its arrival on his territory, the king, accompanied by his brother Robert d'Artois, bishop of Puy, the queen and Gautier Cornut, the archbishop of Sens, went to Villeneuve-l'Archeveque (today part of the Yonne), where the relic had been conveyed by two Dominican friars Jacques and Andre de Longjumeau. The royal train escorted the Crown forth the waterways equally far as Paris. From 1248 onwards, on Good Fridays, the 24-hour interval commemorating Christ'south sacrifice, the king undertook the solemn display of the True Cross. The nigh precious relics were displayed in the Sainte-Chapelle in the "Grand-Chasse", a big reliquary aureate in silvery and copper, which cost 100,000 livres to build. Initially placed above the altar, the Large Reliquary was raised onto a platform built between 1264 and 1267. The Large Reliquary and all the relics were melted downward during the Revolution. The Crown of Thorns, deposited in 1793 in the cabinet of Antiques, was handed over to the archbishop of Paris in 1804 and is however preserved in the treasury of Notre-Dame in Paris.
Construction of Sainte-Chapelle
The Sainte-Chapelle is the Gothic expression of Carolingian palatine chapels, of which the best known is the nowadays cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle, in Germany, built around the year 800 as an oratory for Charlemagne. In 1238, St Louis had already founded a palatine chapel adjoining the chateau of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (Yvelines), with but one storey, on which the program of the upper chapel of the palais de la Cite is possibly based. The Sainte-Chapelle in Paris is composed of two stories of identical surface area but differing elevation, each with a precise function: the upper floor, on the same level every bit the royal appartments, housed the relics and was reserved for the male monarch, his closest entourage and his distinguished guests; the lower flooring was the palace parish, open up to the king'southward soldiers and servants as well as to courtiers in residence. Other double chapels were built elsewhere in France, for instance those at Laon, Reims or Meaux, for castle or episcopal use and are considered every bit jewels of Gothic art. The Sainte-Chapelle exceedes them all by its size and the daring of its conception. Its surface expanse is 56 anxiety wide by 118 anxiety long. Information technology is 139 feet high, excluding the steeple, which places information technology at the forefront of Gothic cathedrals in France.
The exact dates of the foundation also as the first of building are unknown, just documents specifying dates enable united states to follow the progress of the site. A bull from pope Innocent IV implies that work on the Chapelle had already begun in May 1244. In January 1246, the king founded, past an human action of 'first foundation', a college of master chaplains each assisted by a priest, a clerk, a deacon and a sub-deacon, for the protection of the relics, the commemoration of worship in the Chapelle, the arrangement of the display and the budget of the stained glass windows.
The Chapelle was formally consecrated on 26 April 1248 in the presence of the papal Legate, Eudes de Chateauroux, who dedicated the upper chapel to the Holy Cantankerous, and of Pierre Berruyer, archbishop of Bourges, who consecrated the lower chapel to the Virgin. In August 1248, the king signed the second foundation human action, at Aigues-Mortes, before embarking on the seventh cause, confirming and completing the clauses of 1246.
Piece of work must therefore have begun between the autumn of 1241 and the bound of 1244 and been completed by 26 Apr 1248. It took between four and vi years to erect this masterpiece whose construction cost was evaluated at about forty thou livres, according to the accounts and documents assembled for the canonization process of Louis Ix.
Chief Architect
No document mentions the proper name of the primary architect of the royal building site. An oral tradition that goes back to the sixteenth century, attributes the building of the Sainte-Chapelle and of the Chartes treasury to Pierre de Montreuil (1200-66), primary stonemason at the abbey of St Denis and chief architect of the transept at Notre-Dame in Paris. The presence of elaborate gables to a higher place the windows and the architectural relationship recorded betwixt the Parisian palatine chapel and the chapel of the Virgin in the cathedral of Amiens, suggest that we should consider a main from Northern France. The fine art historian Robert Branner has attributed the Sainte-Chapelle to the master mason Thomas de Cormont, while others favour Jean de Chelles or Robert de Luzarches. Whoever the builder was, information technology is certain that he possessed exceptional power and a perfect mastery of monumental perspective.
Architecture of Sainte-Chapelle (Rayonnant Gothic Style)
Sainte-Chapelle is a typical example of Rayonnant Gothic style architecture, a style characterized past extreme degrees of illumination along with the appearance of structural lightness. In addition, decorative elements are given much greater importance in Rayonnant structures. For another renowned case, meet: Cologne Cathedral (1248-1880).
At Sainte-Chapelle, the mass of the upper chapel, with its steeple dominating the administrative buildings of the palais de Justice, can be admired from the Boulevard du Palais, through the railings which enclose the cour du Mai. A passage leads to the courtyard of the Sainte-Chapelle enabling a showtime view of the apse before skirting the south side to enter it.
The elevation reflects the structure of the building. The massive appearance of the lower walls, whose openings are their just decoration, is opposed to the slender structure of the upper storey. The thick glacis emphasized by a relief sculpture frieze of foliage, that encircles walls and buttresses, corresponds to the flooring level of the upper chapel.
An overall feeling of balance is given by the strongly salient vertical support elements of the buttresses, which lend dynamism and rhythm to the entire building. Their unpolished, bare surfaces contrast with the fragmented ones of the stained glass windows which reflect the sunday's light. Above the protruding gables that top the windows, behind the pyramidial cappings of the buttresses busy with gargoyles, the nineteenth century restorers placed a ballustrade, restored from preserved fragments of the original.
The last eastern bay of the nave is filled past the royal oratory, incorrectly known as the 'St Louis oratory', added during the fourteenth century between two buttresses. Simply the basis floor is in adept condition. All the sculpted decoration has been renovated: the great gable and the upper balustrade, decorated with monumental fleurs de lis and the large crowned L of Louis XII, are additions from the early sixteenth century; the statues of the king to the left, the bishop to the right and the Virgin and Child engagement from the nineteenth century.
Steeple
The steeple that we admire today, 108 feet high, is the fifth to rise to a higher place the Chapelle since the thirteenth century. The original pattern remains unknown, but the second steeple, rebuilt in 1383 under the reign of Charles V, figures in a miniature painting in the Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (1413), past Limbourg Brothers (fl.1390-1416). The steeple that replaced it effectually 1460, known through several drawings and prints, was burnt in 1630; a fourth structure was in its turn destroyed in 1793. Aiming at archeological accurateness and working without any before documents, Lassus had the present twenty-four hours steeple congenital in the mode of the fifteenth century. Begun in 1853, the work is a real technical feat executed in cedar forest past the carpenter Bellu. The forest carving that decorates the steeple as well every bit the apse angel were completed around 1855 in the workshop of Adolphe Geoffroy-Dechaume. The architect Lassus and the painter on glass Louis Steinheil figure amongst the apostles sculpted at the base of operations: the first as St Thomas, recognizable by his attribution of the square which here bears the builder'due south name, the second every bit St Philip. Above the hollowed-out ornamental gables, angels acquit the instruments of the Passion and give trumpet calls.
Western Facade
The western facade is preceded by a strongly salient two storeyed porch, comprising a large central bay with 2 narrower ones on each side. The porch is overlooked by the groovy rose window of the upper chapel, dating from the end of the fifteenth century. At the base of the gable, a balustrade with fleurs de lis bears the initials of Charles VIII who is carried by two kneeling angels. The western mass is enclosed by the staircase turrets, whose departure is cleverly concealed in the commencement buttresses of the nave. Their pyramidial elevation is busy with the imperial crown of France and the crown of Thorns, sculpted in the fifteenth century and restored in 1845 past Geoffroy-Dechaume.
The lower chapel was reached on pes from outside, whilst the king and his guests reached the upper chapel, placed on the same level every bit the regal appartments, by the palace arcades.
The rock sculpture around the portal was destroyed at the Revolution and the nowadays day decoration is a restoration by Geoffroy-Dechaume that dates from the middle of the nineteenth century. For another exquisite case of French architecture, see: Eiffel Tower (1887-89).
The Lower Chapel
With its height beneath the vault of just 21 anxiety, the chapel resembles a crypt. Information technology is composed of a cardinal nave 20 anxiety broad and very narrow side aisles seven feet wide which grade the ambulatory of the apse.
The thrusts of the central vault are buttressed by elegant, small interior flight buttresses, the braces, a particularity of the structure. The vaults of the apse are held in place by a metallic structure dating from the time of construction, hidden nether plaster and paint, that follows the curve of the ribs. The openings of the nave, which resemble curved pierced tympana lined with rose windows and trifoils, have an unusual form which Robert Branner has likened to the western bays of the side aisles in the cathedral of Amiens.
The flooding of the Seine during the winter of 1689-1690, acquired of import damage to the lower chapel. Information technology particularly damaged the original paintwork and required the taking upwardly of the flooring and funerary slabs, moving of the altars and taking down of the stained glass windows. The use of the chapel as a grain store, during the Revolution, was less devastating.
We practise not know annihilation most the stained glass windows of the lower chapel. Taken downwards after the flood, they were replaced shortly after 1690 by colourless stained drinking glass windows The present day windows, devoted to the life of the Virgin, were drawn by Steinheil during the nineteenth century. In the nave, pocket-size scenes are inscribed in a decorative grisaille. In the apse, the 2 lancet windows accept full coloured glass. In the axial window we find The Coronation of the Virgin between The Adoration of the Magi to the left and, The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, Joseph and the Prophetess Anne and The Visitation to the right. In the left lateral bay, a door led to the sacristy situated on the ground flooring of the Chartes treasury. Unable to contain whatsoever drinking glass, this bay was decorated in the thirteenth century past a mural painting of The Proclamation painted directly on the wall. The painting, discovered in 1849, was restored by Steinheil. Encounter besides: French Painting (c.1400-1900).
The Upper Chapel
The upper chapel, which is reached today by the narrow corkscrew staircases leading to the roof, amazes us by its dimensions, elevated structure, sumptuous decoration and the multi-coloured sparkling light that streams through its stained glass windows. Congenital co-ordinate to an extremely uncomplicated design, freeing a infinite 34 feet wide by 108 feet long, information technology is composed of a single nave with 4 trophy, finishing in a seven-sided alcove.
The walls are not-existent, replaced by surfaces of glass that appear to be of an astonishing lightness. The drinking glass surface, half-dozen,458 square feet without the rose window, is marked past elegant stonework supports which hold upwards the ribbed vaulting. Their slimness is a cause for wonder, but a cluster of nine pillars cleverly disguises their real thickness. The architect has, every bit much every bit possible, transferred the supporting elements to the exterior then as to liberate a huge interior space. This architectural daring, defying the laws of balance, relies upon optical illusion and employs strategems that demonstrate the primary architect'south ability: 2 metallic clamps ensure the coherence of the stonework and the glass' resistance to the wind, encircling the upper chapel halfway up the trophy at the pinnacle of the lancets, where the eye mistakes them for the saddle confined of the stained drinking glass windows; other metal elements subconscious in attics ensure that everything is held in place; the difference in height between the windows of the nave (51 feet) and those of the apse (45 feet), although their lancets are the same size; the narrowness of the bays of the apse and the hardly visible salience of the supports enhance the extreme lightness and summit of the chapel, 67 feet below its vault.
Sainte-Chapelle's Stained Glass
The upper chapel owes its reputation to its homogeneous group of stained glass windows. The 15 thirteenth-century stained glass windows and the western rose window, replaced in the fifteenth century, give a coloured low-cal whose intensity has ever been the crusade of admiration. The space fracturing of the colours produces a multi-coloured lite whose general tone, predominently blue and carmine, changes from hour to hour. These stained glass windows, composed of 1,113 figurative panels, nearly two thirds of which are original, constitute one of the nifty treasures of stained drinking glass religious art in Europe.
The windows of the nave, 50 feet high and xv feet wide, are divided into four lancets, joined together nether a tympana equanimous of a rose window with vi foils and ii quadrifoils. The windows of the apse, 44 feet loftier and vii anxiety wide, only have two lancets topped by three trifoils. The considerable homogeneity of the whole results from its overall narrative composition. The space is divided into small, well-defined scenes, held in place by saddle bars, wrought co-ordinate to the various forms of the pannels: quadrifoil, diamond, medallion, trifoil or oval. Compositions partitioned in this style were generally reserved for the stained glass of low windows, like those of the side aisles of Chartres cathedral. Here, the summit of the windows and the reduced calibration of the characters makes reading of a 3rd of the scenes practically impossible by the naked eye.
The illuminated scenes are separated on an ornamental background known as the mosaic, simple squaring or oblique lattice mainly in scarlet and blue, concerning eight of the 15 windows. The groundwork is also sometimes decorated with heraldic elements, the towers of Castille and the fleurs de lis of the French crown, as is the case with seven bays and the edging of three of the stained glass windows. Curiously, Queen Marguerite of Provence, the wife of Louis Ix, is hardly evoked in the edifice.
Iconography
Unlike the low windows of cathedrals, which generally illustrate hagiographical cycles, the windows of the Sainte-Chapelle are destined to glorify the relics of the Crown of Thorns and the Truthful Cantankerous.
Madame Francoise Perrot, specialist in stained drinking glass windows, has demonstrated that the iconographical program of the stained glass windows belongs to two separate but interdependent cycles, each corresponding to a part of the Chapelle. A first historical cycle illustrates the life of the Jewish people according to biblical accounts from Genesis to the Book of Revelations. It includes the account of the transferral of the relics, a major event during the reign of St Louis, which originated the construction of the chapel: the king of France is placed in the continuity of the kings of State of israel, which makes the French royalty heirs to biblical royalty. This narrative wheel of Erstwhile Testament Biblical art is adult in the stained glass windows of the nave, the office of the Chapelle intended for the laity. The stained glass windows of the liturgical choir, reserved for the rex and canons, illustrate the babyhood and Passion of Christ surrounded by stained glass windows devoted to the two important St Johns: St John the Baptist, considered equally the last of the prophets, and St John the Evangelist, visionary of the Revelation. The illustration of the books of the 4 cracking prophets (Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Daniel) consummate this prophetic wheel.
Meeting the requirements of the royal commission, the Chapelle'south stained glass windows are studded with allusions to royalty: the heraldic motifs on the backgrounds or edging, the numerous representations of coronation scenes, the presence of Louis IX wearing the Christ's crown. This contemporary historical event is completed by numerous boxing and idolatory scenes, which evoke the mission which drove the king to leave for the crusades, later on the consecration of the Sainte-Chapelle.
Although we owe St Louis the overall conception of the edifice, there is no doubt that the king surrounded himself with theologians for the elaboration of such a complex iconographical plan. Comparisons with the moralized Bible (1230-1240) suggest that the team of scholars could accept supplied the pieces of data necessary for the realization of both the illuminations and the stained glass windows.
For more on illuminations, see: Gothic Illuminated Manuscripts (upward to 1350) and International Gothic Illuminations (c.1375-1450).
Stained Glass Artists
The execution of the stained drinking glass windows required the assistance of numerous contributors who have remained bearding. Stylistic differences would lead to suppose that the fifteen stained glass windows were executed by 3 different workshops, each grouping together several artists.
To the similarities of composition noted between the stained drinking glass windows of the Sainte-Chapelle, the cathedral of Notre-Matriarch in Chartres and the church building of Saint Germain-des-Pres in Paris, are opposed stylistic differences that make information technology unlikely that the same workshops were involved. Royal commissions dominated contemporary production: the glass used was of very expert quality, the ornamentation splendid, the quickly drawn figures executed with much verve and freedom. The striking likenesses betwixt these stained drinking glass windows and those of the ambulatory of the cathedral St Gervais St Protais in Soissons lead us to suppose that artists from the Sainte-Chapelle site worked on the windows of the Soissons cathedral in the middle of the century. The rare panels preserved attributable to the artists in stained glass of the Sainte-Chapelle are today grouped together in the centric window. For more, please see: Stained Drinking glass Art: Materials and Methods.
Sculpture
Although Sainte-Chapelle is dominated past its stained glass, information technology is decorated throughout with a diversity of Gothic sculpture, in a range of materials and colours. Above the dado level in the Upper Chapel, for instance, there are 12 life-size stone figures depicting the 12 Apostles (vi of which are replicas - the originals being in the Musee du Moyen Age), mounted on the shafts that dissever the great windows. Meet as well: Romanesque Sculpture (one thousand-1200).
Articles about Gothic Fine art and Architecture
• Medieval Artists (c.1100-1450) From Gislebertus onwards.
• High german Gothic Art (1200-1450) Architecture, sculpture, wood-carving.
• Gothic Sculpture in England (1150-1250) Wells, Westminster cathedrals.
• German Gothic Sculpture (c.1150-1400) Stone and wood carving.
• International Gothic Fine art (1375-1450) Sculpture, illuminations, painting.
• For more than about French Rayonnant Gothic architecture, come across: Homepage.
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