Cathedral of Amiens

“ Under its triforium runs a deeply carved band of foliage broken only at the triumphal arches of the transept-crossing. Only there does the ascending line rise unobstructed from pavement to vault. And yet no church ever soared more confidently. The very hall-mark of genius is Amiens’ strong horizontal leaf garland—just the needed touch to give variety to regularity as grandiose as this. In the nave the frieze was cut before the posing of the stones, but in the choir the sculpture was done in situ.
The fenestration of this cathedral of St. Louis’ reign shows the national art in its prime. ”

“ It stood where we now stand, companion mine, whoever you may be; and the monument where- with it has been honoured is this—chimney, whose gonfalon of smoke overshadows us—the latest effort of modern art in Amiens, the chimney of St. Acheul.
The first cathedral, you observe, of the French nation; more accurately, the first germ of cathedral for the French nation—who are not yet here; only this grave of a martyr is here, and this church of Our Lady of Martyrs, abiding on the hillside, till the Roman power pass away. ”

“ Let us consider the cathedral of Amiens in the department of the Somme, about sixty miles north of Paris. This we may take as being the accepted representative of French Gothic churches, lacking indeed some features which others of its own time{97} have retained, but completely typical in its plan and structure. Plate XXVII gives the interior looking westward from the choir and shows the nave in steep perspective so that its seven bays are much foreshortened, and with this a part of the north aisle and a part of the choir in which we stand. ”

“ We go round under their shadows, past the sacristies, past the southern transept, only glancing just now at the sculpture there, past the chapels of the nave, and enter the church by the small door hard by the west front, with that figure of huge St. Christopher quite close over our heads; thereby we enter the church, as I said, and are in its western bay. I think I felt inclined to shout when I first entered Amiens cathedral; it is so free and vast and noble, I did not feel in the least awe-struck, or humbled by its size and grandeur. ”

“ The glazed triforium is a kind of pedestal for the clearstory, with which it is bound in a single composition by means of continuous mullions. The original glass was of the Sainte-Chapelle type, made by the Paris school which led in the second half of the XIII century, and were it still in existence the interior of Amiens would be a gorgeous sight. Only vestiges have survived; in some of the choir chapels are patchwork panels of ancient fragments. No one denies that the light enters this cathedral too profusely for the mystic seclusion beloved of the soul. ”

“ The great front has neither the awful majesty of that of Reims, pierced as it is with tracery, nor the dull melancholy of Notre Dame de Paris, nor the gigantic grace of Amiens, nor the massive solemnity of Bourges; but it is full of imposing simplicity, a lightness, a spring, which no other cathedral has attained to.
"The nave of Amiens alone grows beautifully less as it rises with as eager a spring from the earth; but the body of the Amiens church is light and uncomforting, and that of Chartres is mysterious and hushed ”

“ The soil is thin, the trees are slender, and one sees not much luxury or comfort. Still, one does not usually see much of either on a flying train. We spent a night at Amiens, and had several hours for the old cathedral, the sunset light on its noble front and towers and spire and flying buttresses, and the morning rays bathing its rich stone. As one stands near it in front, it seems to tower away into heaven, a mass of carving and sculpture,—figures of saints and martyrs who have stood in the sun and storm for ages, as they stood in their lifetime, with a patient waiting. ”

“ For this reason a building like the cathedral of Amiens, where a structural system is put through consistently, is far from representing mediæval art in its full and ideal essence; it is rather an incidental achievement, a sport in which an adventitious interest is, for a moment, emphasised overwhelmingly. ”

“ At the western doors of Amiens is an Annunciation group in which the Virgin is the prototype of the gentle Ancilla Domini at Rheims. The St. Elizabeth of the Visitation group is a noble aged woman; the St. Simeon of the Presentation has been called the Nunc dimittis in person. Local saints are in a position of honor at the right-hand door, the chief here being St. Firman, the first bishop of Amiens, and the pioneer who preached the Word in Picardy, where he was martyred in 289. On his tomb rose the first cathedral of the city. His statue at the trumeau is a masterpiece of its period. ”

“ He rises enthroned, almost sorrowful in His triumph, unamazed as He blesses, with pathetic resignation, the generations of sinners who for seven centuries have gazed up at Him with inquisitive, unloving eyes as they cross the square; and all turn their back on Him, caring little enough for this Saviour unlike the head familiar to them, recognizing Him only with sheep-like features and a pleasing expression; such, in short, as the foppish image at the cathedral at Amiens before which the lovers of a softer type go into ecstasies. ”

“ The history of architecture proves that without a right-minded national pride, ready to make sacrifices in order that it may transmit its high deeds to the future, no mighty monuments rise. In 1214 Bouvines’ victory was won and French unity demonstrated. In 1220, not far away, was laid the foundation stone of Amiens Cathedral, the crowning achievement of the national art. A hazard, such juxtaposition? Ah, no. Nothing happens by chance in this science of the builder whose basic forces are long at work in silence. Architecture is the truthteller of history. ”

“ It has nothing like the artful pointing and moulding of the arcades of Salisbury—nothing of the might of Durham;—no Dædalian inlaying like Florence, no glow of mythic fantasy like Verona. And yet, in all, and more than these, ways, outshone or overpowered, the cathedral of Amiens deserves the name given it by M. Viollet le Duc—
"The Parthenon of Gothic Architecture." [4-1]
2. ”

“ To Amiens therefore we passed on, passing again, toward sunset, into a more broken country, with lights just beginning to gleam through the windows of the charming duck-pond villages, and tall black crucifixes rising ghostly at the cross-roads; and night was obliterating the mighty silhouette of the cathedral as we came upon it at length by a long descent.
AMIENS: WEST FRONT OF THE CATHEDRAL
It is always a loss to arrive in a strange town after dark, and miss those preliminary stages of acquaintance that are so much more likely to be interesting in towns than in people ”

“ It was not with monastic artists and artisans that the sheds and workshops around Amiens Cathedral were filled, [119] as it rose from its foundations through fifty years; and those lay schools of art, with their communistic sentiment, to which in the thirteenth century the great episcopal builders must needs resort, would in the natural course of things tend towards naturalism. The subordinate arts also were no longer at the monastic stage, borrowing inspiration exclusively from the experiences of the cloister, but belonged to guilds of laymen—smiths, painters, sculptors. ”

“ Like its contemporary at Laon in the north, and more particularly after the manner of the papal palace at Avignon and the archbishop's palace at Albi, this structure combined the functions of a domestic and official establishment with those of a stronghold or a fortified place of no mean pretence.
Dating from 1272, the cathedral of St. Just de Narbonne suggests comparison with, or at least the influence of, Amiens.
It is strong, hardy, and rich, with a directness of purpose with respect to its various attributes that in a less lofty structure is wanting. ”

“ At Longpré is another church with a steeple of some pretension, but not satisfactory. It has a perforated spire of stone much too small for the size of the tower, and ungraceful in the extreme.
At Amiens one always longs to stop again and again to feast one’s eyes upon its glorious cathedral, perhaps after Chartres and the Parthenon the noblest and most masculine piece of architecture in the world. ”

“ I have said nothing of the Cathedral, yet there we have passed the greater portion of our time; and for its sake remain three days at Amiens. Its foundations were laid in 1220, when Everard was Bishop of Amiens, and Louis the Eighth King of France. Excepting its towers, it was finished about 1288.
415 feet long within, 132 in height, its proportions are so perfect, that its size fails to strike, except by comparison. I was made 27 aware of it only by looking at a human figure in the aisle. ”

“ The cathedral at Amiens made ample amends for the country we passed through to see it; the Nef d'Amiens deserves the fame of a first-rate structure: and the ornaments of its high altar seem particularly well chosen, of an excellent taste, and very capital execution. The vineyards from thence hither shew, that either the climate, or season, or both, improve upon one: the grapes climbing up some not very tall golden-pippin trees, and mingling their fruits at the top, have a mighty pleasing effect ”

“ The interior proportions of Rheims are harmonious; the side aisles are relatively right with the central vessel, and the nave leads up well to the sanctuary, which, inside and out, is beyond criticism. As a whole, however, the interior of this cathedral has not the slender upwardness of Amiens nor the ascetic holiness of Chartres. It stands more than it soars. It praises the deity in another fashion than does the mystic cathedral. The keynote here is a right-minded human splendor. ”

“ Previous to the year 1755, the choir of Amiens cathedral had retained its ancient and magnificent fittings,—altar, sedilia, jubé, all were perfect; but at that fatal period, Mons. de la Mothe, a pious and well-intentioned bishop, but a man of execrable taste, and devoid of all feeling for true ecclesiastical architecture, conceived the unfortunate project of modernizing this glorious choir: and, at an enormous expense, the ancient works were demolished, to be replaced by the incongruous masses of marble clouding and meretricious decorations that so wofully disfigure this noble church. ”

“ If from beneath the apse of Amiens Cathedral we take the street leading due south, leaving the railroad station on the left, it brings us to the foot of a gradually ascending hill, some half a mile long—a pleasant and quiet walk enough, terminating on the level of the highest land near Amiens; whence, looking back, the Cathedral is seen beneath us, all but the flêche, our gained hill-top being on a level with its roof-ridge: and, to the south, the plain of France. ”

“ Stephen has told us that the Gothic cathedral and the granite cliffs have many properties in common, and that 'one might venture to predict from a man's taste in human buildings whether he preferred the delicate grace of lowland scenery or the more startling effects only to be seen in the heart of the mountains.' Coryat's avowal therefore that Amiens Cathedral is 'the Queen of all the churches in France and the fairest that ever I saw till then,' seems to promise well for his taste in mountains. ”

“ Whatever you wish to see, or are forced to leave unseen, at Amiens, if the overwhelming responsibilities of your existence, and the inevitable necessities of precipitate locomotion in their fulfilment, have left you so much as one quarter of an hour, not out of breath—for the contemplation of the capital of Picardy, give it wholly to the cathedral choir. Aisles and porches, lancet windows and roses, you can see elsewhere as well as here—but such carpenter's work, you cannot. ”

“ The field embraced all that existed, or might have existed, or could never exist. The immense structure rested on Aristotle and Saint Augustine at the last, but as a work of art it stood alone, like Rheims or Amiens Cathedral, as though it had no antecedents. Then, although, like Rheims, its style was never meant to suit modern housekeeping and is ill-seen by the Ecole des Beaux Arts, it reveals itself in its great mass and intelligence as a work of extraordinary genius; a system as admirably proportioned as any cathedral and as complete; a success not universal either in art or science. ”

“ What modern architect was ever accorded such prominence as was allowed by the bishops of Amiens and Rheims to their masters-of-works when they inscribe those laymen names in the labyrinth designs of the cathedral pavements? The monks of Marmoutier and of St. Germain-des-Prés were proud to bury in their abbey-churches their architects Étienne de Mortagne and Pierre de Montereau. In Rheims, the architects Hugues Libergier and Robert de Coucy were likewise honored.
By digging in old archives, the modern student is ever adding new names to the nation’s honor roll. ”

“ In the 19th century, beginning in 1845, important restorations, principally by Viollet-le-Duc, were carried out with regularity.
The Cathedral's approximate measurements are 480 feet long (it is the longest church in France) , and 160 feet wide at the intersection of the transept. The vaulting, less lofty than that at Beauvais (156 feet) and Amiens (143 feet) , is 123 feet in height. The towers are six in number (as in the cathedral at Laon) , of which the four situated at the extremities of the transept have never had more than one storey. ”