http://www.artandwork.us/2010/01/art-workers-wont-kiss-ass/
On 15 November 2010 17:01, Dennis Claxton <ddclaxton at earthlink.net> wrote:
> At 01:38 PM 11/15/2010, Chuck Grimes wrote:
>
> It is in effect what Victor Hugo called a universe: theology-philosophy in
>> stone.
>>
>
>
> J.K. Huysman's The Cathedral is on my holiday reading list. Here's an
> excerpt:
>
> http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_%28Huysmans%29/Chapter_V
>
>
> This indeed was the idea put into words by the Synod of Arras in 1025:
> 'That which the illiterate cannot apprehend from writing shall be shown to
> them in pictures.'
>
> "The Middle Ages, in short, translated the Bible and Theology, the lives of
> the Saints, the apocryphal and legendary Gospels into carved or painted
> images, bringing them within reach of all, and epitomizing them in figures
> which remained as the permanent marrow, the concentrated extract of all its
> teaching."
>
> "It taught the grown-up children the catechism by means of the stone
> sentences of the porches," exclaimed Durtal.
>
> "Yes, it did that too. But now," the Abbé went on, after a pause, "before
> entering on the subject of architectural symbolism, we must first establish
> a distinct notion of what Our Lord Himself did in creating it, when, in the
> second chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John, He speaks of the
> Temple at Jerusalem, and says that if the Jews destroy it He will rebuild it
> in three days, expressly prefiguring by that parable His own Body. This set
> forth to all generations the form which the new temples were thenceforth to
> take after His death on the Cross.
>
> "This sufficiently accounts for the cruciform plan of our churches. But we
> will study the inside of the church later; for the present we must consider
> the meanings of the external parts of a cathedral.
>
> "The towers and belfries, according to the theory of Durand, Archbishop of
> Mende in the thirteenth century, are to be regarded as preachers and
> prelates, and the lofty spire is symbolical of the perfection to which their
> souls strive to rise. According to other interpreters of the same period,
> such as Saint Melito, Bishop of Sardis, and Cardinal Pietro of Capua, the
> towers represent the Virgin Mary, or the Church watching over the salvation
> of the Flock.
>
> "It is a certain fact," the Abbé went on, "that the position of the towers
> was never rigidly laid down once for all in mediæval times; thus different
> interpretations are admissible according to their position in the structure.
> Still, perhaps the most ingeniously refined, the most exquisite idea is that
> which occurred to the architects of Saint Maclou at Rouen, of Notre Dame at
> Dijon, and of the Cathedral at Laon, for example, who built rising from the
> centre of the transeptsthat is above the very spot where, on the Cross, the
> breast of Christ would lie, a lantern higher than the rest of the roof,
> often finishing outside in a tall and slender spire, starting as it were
> from the Heart of Christ to leap with one spring to the Father, to soar as
> if shot up from the bow of the vaulting in a sharp dart to reach the sky.
>
> "The towers, like the buildings they overshadow, are almost always placed
> on a height that commands the town, and they shed around them like seed into
> the soil of the soul, the swarming notes of their bells, reminding all
> Christians by this aerial proclamation, this bead-telling of sound, of the
> prayers they are commanded to use and the duties they must fulfil; nay, at
> need, they may atone before God for man's apathy by testifying that at least
> they have not forgotten Him, beseeching Him with uplifted arms and brazen
> tongues, taking the place as best they may of so many human prayers, more
> vocal perhaps than they."
>
> "With its ship-like character," said Durtal, who had thoughtfully
> approached the window, "this Cathedral strikes me as amazingly like a
> motionless vessel with spires for masts and the clouds for sails, spread or
> furled by the wind as the weather changes; it remains the eternal image of
> Peter's boat which Jesus guided through the storm."
>
> "And likewise of Noah's Arkthe Ark outside which there is no safety,"
> added the Abbé.
>
> "Now consider the church in all its parts. Its roof is the symbol of
> Charity, which covereth a multitude of sins; its slates or tiles are the
> soldiers and knights who defend the sanctuary against the heathen,
> represented by the storm, its stones, all joined, are, according to Saint
> Nilus, emblematic of the union of souls, or, as the Rationale of Durand of
> Mende has it, of the multitude of the faithful; the stronger stones figuring
> the souls that are most advanced in the way of perfection and hinder the
> weaker brethren, represented by the smaller stones, from slipping and
> falling. However, to Hugues de Saint Victor, a monk of the abbey of that
> name in the twelfth century, this collection of stones is merely the mingled
> assembly of the clerks and the laity.
>
> "Again, these blocks of stone of various shapes are bound and held together
> by mortar, of which Durand of Mende will tell you the meaning. 'Mortar,'
> saith he, 'is compounded of lime and sand and water; lime is the burning
> quality of charity, and it combines by the aid of water, which is the
> Spirit, with the sand, of the earth earthy.'
>
>
>
>
>
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In tyrannos