Chapter 17 Notre Dame de Paris (2) Volume 3 Notre Dame de Paris (2)

Recall that Robert Sennaly compared Notre-Dame de Paris to the famous temple of Diana at Ephesus—deified by the ancient pagans and immortalized the name of Herostratus— —, think that Notre Dame, the Gaul cathedral, "is far superior in length, width, height and structure" ⑥.Looking back at the present and recalling the past, what a world of difference! ① Vignol: Italian formerly known as Giacomo Barozzi de Vignola (1507-1573), an Italian architect.Here it represents the Renaissance style. ②The Vandals were a branch of the ancient Germanic race. They invaded Gaul, Spain and Africa successively in the 5th century, and played an important role in the spread of the Gothic culture.This represents the Etek style.However, the Vandals had vigorously persecuted Catholics, so they were also extended to destroy cultural relics. The reference to the Vandals in Chapter 2 of this volume refers to the latter meaning.

③The Parthenon is a temple dedicated to Athena in Athens.Here represents the ancient Greek style. ④ Ephesus is an ancient city in the west of the Asia Minor peninsula, which is now in Turkey.Diana is a goddess in Italian and Roman mythology and is considered to be Athena in Greek mythology from the fifth century onwards.The Temple of Diana in Ephesus was originally hailed as one of the wonders of the world. ⑤Erostratus: The people of Ephesus Island, in order to leave their name forever in the world, set fire to the Temple of Diana in 356 BC.He was sentenced to be burned at the stake. ⑥ See the first page of the 130th printed sheet of the third part of the second volume of "History of Gaul". —— Hugo original note

Moreover, Notre Dame de Paris is by no means a monumental building that can be called complete in form, definite in style, and classified into a certain type of architectural art.It no longer belongs to the Roman style①, and it is not yet the Gothic style②.The whole building is hardly typical.Notre-Dame de Paris is not like the Temple of Tourneu, it is not a building with open vaults as the frame, there is no dignified and thick soffit, round and wide vault, cold and naked appearance, solemn and simple style.Notre Dame Cathedral is not like Bourges Cathedral, it is not the kind of pointed and vaulted building, magnificent, light, varied, lush, full of pointed ornaments, like flowers blooming.Neither can Notre-Dame be included in that ancient family of dark, mysterious, low churches, which seem to be crushed by circular arches; which, except for the flat roof, are almost Egyptian; all are pictographic. The textual ones are all used for sacrifices and are all symbolic; in terms of decoration, rhombus and zigzag shapes are more common than flower patterns; but flower patterns are more than animal patterns, and animal patterns are more than human figure patterns; Rather than being created by architects, it is better to say that they were built by bishops; this type of church is an early metamorphosis of architectural art, all imprinted with the Romanesque style, that is, the style of ancient Roman architectural art. , popular in Western Europe from the ninth to the thirteenth century.Its characteristics are: the masonry wall is thick and solid; the arch is semicircular; the door frame decoration is concave inward layer by layer; the vault is a cross structure; and beam columns are used. ②The Ethic style is an architectural style following the Roman style, with towering spires as the basic form.The use of pointed arches, flying buttresses, slender columns or cluster columns, and inlaid stained glass forms the momentum of soaring, giving people the illusion of heaven and mystery.There are three styles of architectural form: vertical, radial and flame.Hugo has a brief description in the novel. ③Tourneu: the capital of the Saône-Loire department in France.There is St. Philibert's Church, the oldest monastery rebuilt in the eleventh century, and is considered to be the most distinctive example of Romanesque art in Burgundy. ④ Byzantine Empire: It is called Daqin in Chinese historical records.Also known as the Eastern Roman Empire.In 395, the Roman Empire was split into two parts, east and west, and the east was the Byzantine Empire (395-1453).traces of the theocratic military discipline of Guillaume the Conqueror.Nor can our Notre-Dame be included in the family of churches that are tall, clear, decorated with stained glass windows and various sculptures; this type of church is sharp in shape, bold in posture, and as a political symbol, it has the color of the village community and citizens, As a work of art, it has the characteristics of freedom, willfulness and wildness; this is the metamorphosis of the second stage of architectural art. It is artistic, evolving, popular, from the return of the Crusades to the end of Louis XI.All in all, Notre Dame is neither of the first category of pure Romance nor of the second category of pure Arab blood.

① Conqueror Guillaume, that is, Guillaume I (1027 or 1028-1087), Duke of Normandy (1035-1087) and King of England (1066-1087). ② Louis XI (1423-1483), King of France (1461-1483). Notre Dame de Paris is a transitional building.When the Saxon architects were about to finish erecting the initial pillars of the nave, the pointed arch style brought back by the Crusaders had already occupied the Romanesque wide bucket arches that were only used to support the round arch in the posture of conquerors. .The pointed arch has since risen to form the rest of the main church.However, as a fledgling, it is always a little timid, so it sometimes appears to be enlarged, sometimes widened, and sometimes restrained. It does not dare to pierce the sky like an arrow like a spear as shown in many wonderful cathedrals in the future.This is probably because it feels that there is a Romanesque column next to it.

Besides, this kind of transitional buildings from Romanesque style to Gothic style is also worthy of careful study, no less than that pure architectural type.The subtlety of this transitional architecture would be nothing without these buildings.This is a style in which pointed arches are grafted onto open vaults Notre-Dame de Paris in particular is a curious specimen of this new breed, a monument of admiration which, in every side and in every stone, is a page not only of our country's history, but of the history of science and art. .Therefore, it may be advisable to briefly mention the main details here to prove that the little red door has almost reached the peak of Gothic art in the fifteenth century, while the columns in the nave, because of their bulkiness and solemnity, can be traced back to the Carolingian era. Saint-Germain-des-Prés Church.There is a distance of about six hundred years between the small red gate and the pillars in the nave.Even the alchemists thought that they had found a satisfactory compendium of alchemy from the various symbols of the great arch, and believed that the Church of St. James the Slaughterhouse was the most complete pictographic symbol of alchemy.Thus Romanesque churches, alchemical churches, Gothic art, Saxon art recall the heavy columns of the time of Gregory VII, and that of Nicolas Flamel preceded Luther. A symbol of alchemy, the unity of the Pope's empire, the schism of sects, the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the church of Saint-Jacques in the slaughterhouse, all of which Notre-Dame de Paris embraces, casts, combines, kneads them in its architecture. middle.This Center, the Church of the Fathers, is, of all the old churches of Paris, a mythical monster, with a head of one church, limbs of another, buttocks of another; Churches learn something.

① Gregory VII, Pope from 1073 to 1085. ② Brutal stone architecture refers to the huge architectural styles of the Mycenaean era in ancient Greece. For example, the Mycenaean palace site excavated in modern times has a circumference of 900 meters and a wall width of 5 meters. We repeat, artists, archaeologists, and historians are still interested in this hybrid architecture.From this one can appreciate how primitive architecture is, and from the facts shown by this mixed building, as shown by the remains of barbaric buildings, the pyramids of Egypt, and the giant towers of India, how the art of architecture is the most primitive. Great achievements are not purely personal creations, but the crystallization of social creations; it is not so much the work of geniuses, but rather the Ning Xiner conceived by the working people; it is the sediment left by a nation, the long history The formed accumulation is the crystallization of the continuous sublimation of human society, in short, it is a variety of formation layers.Every wave of time piles up its alluvium, every race lays its deposits on relics, every man adds a stone.Beavers do it, bees do it, and men do it.The Tower of Barbita, known as the great symbol of architectural art, is a beehive.

Great buildings, like towering mountains, take centuries to form.It is often the case that the art changes and the building remains: a pause begets an interruption; the building continues calmly and calmly according to the changed art.Once the new art has found a building, it takes hold of it, clings to it, assimilates it, develops it as it pleases, and puts an end to it whenever possible.Governed by some peaceful law of nature, the process causes no confusion, requires no effort, and is free of any reaction.This is a kind of sudden transplantation, a kind of vitality that circulates endlessly, and a kind of regeneration that goes round and round.It is true that many different arts are welded on the same building successively at many different heights, and there must be a lot of material for writing a great book, and often even a general history of mankind.Human beings, artists, and individuals all disappear on these huge monsters without author names, only human wisdom is summarized and summarized in them.Time is the architect, the people are the plasterers.

① The original text is Latin. Here one only needs to consider the European Christian architectural art, the sister of the great Eastern art of construction, and it will be clear at a glance that it is like a vast generative layer, divided into three distinct and overlapping crystal zones: the Roman zone ①, the Gothic zone, and the Renaissance ② The belt - we'd rather call it the Greco-Roman belt.The oldest and deepest layer of the Roman zone is occupied by semicircular vaults which, through Greek columns, reappear in the uppermost modern layer, the Renaissance zone.The pointed vault is in between.Each of the buildings belonging to any one of these three zones is clearly defined, unified and complete.The Abbey of Jumierge is an example, the Cathedral of Reims is an example, and the Church of Sainte-Croix-Orleans is an example.However, the respective edges of these three bands intermingle and interpenetrate, like the colors of the solar spectrum.From this arises complex buildings, transitional, nuanced buildings.One of them has Roman feet, Gothic body, and Greco-Roman head.The reason for this is that it took six hundred years to build.Such changes are rare.The main tower of the Chateau d'Etampes is a sample.But more common are buildings with a combination of both spawns.That is Notre-Dame de Paris, pointed arches, but with its early columns, deeply rooted in the Roman belt, as is the front of Saint-Denis and the nave of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.This is also the case with the charming half-Gothic church hall of Bocheville, with the Roman layer up to its half-waist; and the cathedral of Rouen, if the top of its central steeple is not steeped in literary art. If it is a revival belt, it will be completely Gothic.

① "Depending on the region, climate and race, it can also be called the Lombard belt, the Saxon belt or the Byzantine belt. These are four parallel sister arts, each with its own characteristics, but derived from the same principle, that is, the semicircular arch. "—— Hugo original note ②Renaissance architecture boldly broke through the Gothic architectural style, adopting Roman columns, arch circles, and vaults, and strived to use religious architecture to express the reality of the world. ③ "The spire part of this wooden frame structure is the part that was burned by the fire in 1823." - Hugo original note

After all, all these subtleties, all this great difference, touch only the surface of the building, and it is the art that sheds its skin.The structure of the Christian church itself was not damaged by it.The internal skeleton is always the same, and the logical layout of the parts is always the same.No matter how the appearance of a main church is carved and decorated, underneath the appearance is always a Romanesque rectangular nave, at least in the embryonic and embryonic state.This form of nave always follows the same rule to spread and expand on the ground.The nave is always divided into two halls, crossed into a cross shape, and the arc-shaped apse at the upper end is where the choir is trained; both sides of the lower end are always used for viewing ceremonies in the church. Some kind of place for walking, the main hall is connected with such walking places on both sides by colonnades.After this assumption, the number of altars, arches, bell towers, and minarets varies infinitely according to the whims of generations, peoples, and arts.As long as everything needed for the ritual of worship is secured, the art of architecture is left to itself.Statues, stained-glass windows, petal lattices, arabesques, dentitions, arches, reliefs, and the like, architecture can give free rein to its imagination and arrange them in whatever logarithms it sees fit.Therefore, the appearance of these buildings is infinitely varied, but the interior is orderly and seamless.The trunk is always the same, but the branches and leaves are changeable.