Statuary Evolution

The exterior was pretty satisfyingly solid and covoluted... 3 sets of 3 archways, north, south, and west. I much prefer Notre Dame where the arches look like they're carved back into the mass of the walls - the entrance of Chartres was like that, but the side entrances were oviously just overhangs. much less mysterious and awe-inducing i thought.

It's pretty easy to glaze over all the statuary and carvings after you get used to it... just more frills - but it's been pretty interesting to pay real attention to the styles and expressions when possible. Especially after seeing Michelangelo's sculptures, the David and the Pieta (i have to go back and write that into St. Peter's, i think i forgot somehow), that were even bigger then life with there emotions, seeing sculptures and paintings of the earlier centuries with Byzantine abstractions is creepy. They are abstracted and mild and so much less human - the idea behind saints and apostles I guess, harder to relate to them though.

Sat 04 Mar 06 - Heavy Chartres

so... I got my weekend day to go check out Chartres... was looking forward to it being absolutely beautiful, 'best Gothic church in the world' and all that... it was cool, not quite up to the hype though.

The main elevation was fun - very obviously built in three different sections, one big massy Romanesque tower, and the taller frilly High Gothic tower on the other side.... think I kind of captured them both in the sketch pretty well. This wasn't a hyper-restored brilliant white church like many of the major ones in Paris and Rome were, it had blackness on the stones, and a generally grey hue... not how it was meant to be seen, but more real somehow then blindingness.

The weather was quite bleak grey, so my pictures aren't as fascinating as they could be... it was dark, really dark out and so the interior was almost scary. There was a good deal of glass, but it was mostly very dark blue, and very detailed so a good percentage of the pane was lead... exactly flush with the interior wall, it did nothing to lighten up the walls on the first level - a little better up in the clerestory, but still obviously a massive amount of stone. Felt more like being underground then almost any church I've been too. Obviously Baroque statue at the end of the nave felt very out of place - stonework around the choir stalls was breathtaking delicate... and had consequences, it was in pretty bad shape. sigh.... i didn't leave with a terribly high opinion of the interior.