Chartres Cathedral: A Stalwart Survivor That Evaded Destruction Three Times
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Editor’s Note: While Fort Worth Friday columnist Eric Prokesh is in France soaking up the art and architecture, he filed this dispatch on one of the most incredible historic sites in the country, Chartres Cathedral. Enjoy!
During the French Revolution, a mob attacked Chartres Cathedral and began to destroy the sculpture on the north porch, but was stopped by a larger crowd of townspeople. The local Revolutionary Committee decided to demolish the cathedral and asked a local architect to locate the most efficacious places to set explosives. He saved the building with the clever ruse that the vast amount of rubble created from demolishing the church would so clog the streets, that it would take years to clear away.
One can only imagine what might have been lost to us if the vandals had succeeded at only having a good go at the sculpture, as they had in other places in France Like St. Chapelle, where the lower part of the upper chapel is almost entirely a 19th-century reconstruction.
The headless figures of Chartres would have been rhapsodized as studies in the revival of antique drapery like some Gothic versions of the Winged Victory of Samothrace. And we would have lost something irretrievable — one of those moments like the Arena Chapel in Padua, where art, indeed history itself, suddenly leaps forward. For as stunning as the interior of the glass curtained edifice is, it’s the exterior sculpture where the action’s at.
Comparing the east portal to the north, we are struck by a profound change. Impressive as the East Portal is the figures are types though as drapery studies they have made an advance. But, in the end, they are types familiar to us from such sites as Reims Cathedral.
Now take in this 13th-century beauty. First, it is female and more importantly, it conveys a sense of interior life and intelligence that elevates the status of women, which parallels the esteem and reverence of the cult of the virgin. The figure fairly dances with elegant twists or contropposti, which on short notice would become stereotypical, but here have a captivating freshness.
It is generally believed, because of the delicate drapery among other things, that the sculptors of Chartres had seen and observed Roman sculpture.
Chartres Ablaze
On Saturday, June 4, 1836, sparks sprang from the stove of the plumbers who had come to weld in the attics of Chartres, sparking a great fire that would devour the cathedral’s roof frame and the lead tiles of the roof, ravaging the interior of the two bell towers, and melting the bells before it could be brought under control.
Rescued from destruction on the morning of June 5, by the resolute and determined efforts of the firefighters and residents, the smoking ruin of what then remained of the Gothic Cathedral presented dilemmas that parallel the problems that beset the restoration of Notre Dame.
Should it be restored with timber framing like the original, or should the advances in iron construction be employed speeding up the process and ensuring a more fire-resistant skeleton?
By this time, churches had passed from ownership of the Catholic Church to the state. The former inspector general of historical monuments, Ludovic Vitet, then deputy and rapporteur of the commission, was charged with rebuilding Chartres. It was quickly decided to employ modern iron framing, in part, to decrease combustibility. Work began in 1837 and was completed four short years later in 1841 echoing present-day ambitions for the restoration of Notre Dame, where, the roof will be framed as originally executed: in a forest of timber now being milled and transported by an extensive network throughout France.
Like the current restoration of Chartres, the choice of metal framing had its contemporary critics. Victor Hugo wrote:
“We will make an iron roof, sad expedient, which, fortunately at least, will not be seen from the outside”
Chartres Imperiled by War
At the end of World War II, as the Americans approached Chartres, they believed that the cathedral was being used by the Germans, especially for sniper and artillery fire from the steeples, and plans were made to raze it. It had already been stripped of its glass before the occupation for safe keeping. Colonel Welborn Griffith was ordered to enter the building to confirm the presence of the enemy. It was found to be unoccupied and was thus saved a third time from destruction.
Chartres is Again The Subject of Controversy
The ongoing restoration is still controversial, with many feeling something has been lost and that the new aspect appears garish and gaudy. It has been known for centuries that gothic churches, including their statues, were painted and restorers aver that they have merely brought to the surface 80 percent of the original colors by removing later accretions of grime, soot, and plaster.
Similar conclusions and conforming restorations are occurring in gothic shrines in France and in Germany. it was partly to inspect the restoration in progress that I made a pilgrimage after many years to this sacred site.
I discovered a rather subtle shift resulting from scrubbing the interior of its centuries-old grime and reintroducing a feeling of light and jubilance. Seen in person, the introduction of color is a rather subtle affair with the walls reading a soft biscuit color rather than the deeper mustard impression given by some photography. And contrary to the press, the work is ongoing — far from finished with perhaps only half completed at this stage.
