To orient ourselves, we enter slightly north of west. The plan reveals exactly how the walls have been turned at right angles to the body of the building. Their depth provided support for their height, with each pier acting as a buttress. A pier is more than a column, usually – in the simplest of words – not a circular or square shape, but something more.
The interior is taller than any church thus far described. The nave rises to a height of 42.3 meters (138.78'). I believe this figure is only exceeded by the Cathedral of Saint-Pierre in Beauvais, which reaches a height of 48 meters (158'); see below. Robert de Luzarches is credited with the nave design beginning in 1220, and with the resultant visually dramatic effect based in great part on height. Being taller than earlier churches, and keeping relatively similar nave widths, the ratio of height to width is therefore greater here – a 3:1 proportion, contrasted to that of Chartres at 2.6:1. Another element which adds to the extreme vertical effect is the following: most French cathedrals from Notre Dame onward, kept the height from above the nave arcade to the ceiling vaults relatively constant, varying from 18.3 to 19.8 meters (60' to 65').
What changed, as churches grew taller, was the height of the nave floor arcade – 9.8 meters (32') at Notre Dame, 14 meters (46') at Chartres, 15.9 meters (52') at Reims, and 19.8 meters (65') here at Amiens. What you are looking at are arches rising as high as a six story building.
With the height of the arcade alone equal to about a six story building, and being almost half the entire nave height, the impression is quite intense; ‘awesome’ is a popular but appropriate word.
There are 126 columns in this cathedral, most of them quite thin, very skeletal, minimal in their diameters. All construction is quite slender, and this, of course, adds to the almost surrealistic nature of the design, to the mystical ecstasy evoked. Amiens is often described as the climax of medieval sculptural architecture. Luzarches is credited with a major innovation here in Amiens. His column design evolved in three stages, as follows:
First, the main ribs begin on the nave floor, and can be traced quite clearly by the eye to the ceiling above, going over the vault, and down the other side of the nave.
Second, another set of ribs rises from the arcade capitals, and form the diagonals crisscrossing the nave vaults, giving us quadripartite vaults.
The third set of ribs rises from the triforium level and frame the gothic arches of the clerestory windows.
It is all clarified in this view of the vaulting above the focal point of the apse, the center semi-circle, in line with the nave. A microcosm of the vaulting, in which every vertical goes up, over, around, and down. Again, the structure is a visible skeleton of stone members.
The stained glass at this eastern most end of the church is dominated by the color blue, which dominates to some extent the interior of Notre Dame in Paris, and Marc Chagall's windows in St. Stephen's in Mainz. Blue is a most spiritual color, especially when it is lit from behind.
As in many churches, there is a maze (in the fourth bay of the nave in this church), created to serve as an initiation journey for the faithful, who follow the black stripe for 234 feet (71.3 m.).
The central slab contains drawings and names of the builders of the church – something which contemporary building owners might note, because more often than not there is no indication anywhere of who designed a contemporary building. Equally disturbing in much of the United States is that no one working in the building knows either.
The oak choir stalls date from the early 16th century, 1508-1522 to be exact. There are 110 stalls built for the church canons.
Here, detailed elements contain over 3,650 sculpted figures in 400 scenes relating to biblical as well as secular activities. These latter are of everyday life of Amiens at the time of their design; local genre, in other words. The scene on the right depicts a worker who carved a self portrait hammering away. Craftsmen used to be proud of their product.
History books have long referred to the “Bible of Amiens” as something created in art form in order to convey biblical tales to illiterate townsfolk. Personally, my thoughts were always of words handed down by my Professors: the stained glass windows. Further investigation has some texts referring to these stalls as the bible. Comments have alluded to the choir stalls – though these would have been essentially out of bounds for normal citizenry.
A book review by John Gross, June 5, 1987 printed in the New York Times, had this to say:
Prefaces to La Bible d'Amiens and Sesame et les Lys with Selections from the Notes to the Translated Texts. By Marcel Proust. Translated and Edited by Jean Autret, William Burford and Phillip J. Wolfe, with an introduction by Richard Macksey. Illustrated. 173 pages. Yale University Press.
“In 1885 John Ruskin, already deep in the last tragic phase of his career, published The Bible of Amiens, an account of the French cathedral, and more particularly of its West Porch, with its intricate lacework of biblical figures carved in stone. He also singled out for praise, among the cathedral's other splendors, the set of sculptures portraying the story of St. Honore, ''little talked of now in the faubourg in Paris that bears his name.”
Ruskin also had this to say about the Gothic Architecture of Amiens:
"Gothic, clear of Roman tradition and of Arabian taint, Gothic pure, authoritative, unsurpassable, and unaccusable... not only the best, but the very first thing done perfectly in its manner by northern Christendom."
Certainly we can add: “or by Western Architecture.” We shall see a modern day transformation of the exterior statuary, which was referred to by Ruskin, resurrected in brilliant color, through the marvel of computerized projections.
A rather graphic depiction of the beheading of John the Baptist, located on the exterior of the north choir screen. Sculpted in 1531, its special significance lies in the fact that the church professes to have the actual head of John, which is produced every year on the 24th of June.
This is the actual head, set on a silver tray. So many medieval churches and their surrounding towns were financed by pilgrims, what today we would call “tourists,” who came to venerate religious relics. Their donations and business brought relative wealth to a community, and the greater the attraction – church-wise – the more popular a venue became, here using the word “venue” based on its Old French, “a coming,” from the Latin 'venire.'
The “Weeping Angel” is by Nicolas Blasset, sculpted in 1628, sits atop the tomb of a church canon. It is very much in the manner of Michelangelo's Medici Chapel tombs' sculptures, completed a century before in 1524, in that it dimensionalizes its composition, projecting into and out of the frontal plane of the arch. The sculptor was sued by the family of the canon, who were pleased with the work, but not the invoice. The case was settled when Blasset added the angel to the composition as a”gift” to the family, and the statue is possibly in tears because of the legal action.
Now to explore the Cathedral a bit further.
The rose window of the western or entrance facade.
A view into the southern side aisle, looking towards the transept. The space is a church unto itself. Often wondering why so many churches used black and white floor tiles in an alternating checkerboard or in some pattern. One explanation of an unrelated floor was found in reading Dan Brown's “The Lost Symbol,” in which he describes a black and white floor as representing “the living and the dead....” This could be applicable in a religious structure.
Looking at the rose window in the South Transept. Every inch of wall surface has been carved, etched, and detailed, or glazed. The intricacies more than define the expression: “integration of art with architecture.”
The Baroque high altar was installed in 1751, and while beyond the scope of Gothic development, it is, never-the-less, an integral part of the church, and needs some small explanation. Designed by the Architect Pierre-Joseph Christophle and sculpted by Jean-Baptist Dupuis, it involves swirling clouds surrounded by a halo of light in shafts of gold. Lots of symoblism, but at the same time, seriously criticized by one author who it hides the chapels surrounding the apse from view.
A view of the construction immediately above the altar, so fundamental in its structural honesty. Note the triforium gallery, and the clerestory windows above.
A detail of the triforium gallery, shown here in a bifurcated pattern.
A view towards the west, through the choir and its wrought iron screen, and the main entrance situated beneath the organ.
The intricately patterned floor, with perfectly inlaid marble.
As we exit, the central portal, and its tympanum above, shown here to illustrate the absolute lack of remaining color, but also to illustrate the total integration of art with architecture.
Welcome to: Amiens, a Cathedral in Colours. People gather after sunset, sitting on steps opposite the cathedral, on the stone floor of the Place immediately in front of the cathedral. In the Middle Ages the sculpted portals of the cathedral were painted in bright colors. Now thanks to the “magic” of computerized projections, a polychromatic light show is about to unfold.
First the blackened image of the entire face, lit only by its rose window, and then the portals appear.
All three portals illuminated and colored, with a white outline tracing an outline of the structure.
The central portal of the west facade.
A detail of the central portal, showing the trumeau (middle post), described above, but now manifested in brilliant color. Projectors cast images from near and far, and on both sides of the Place, thus colorizing all visible surfaces, and in perfect focus. This has to be the “Bible of Amiens.”
The band of figures on the left stand atop quatrefoil relief on the socle, or extended platform projections, and are described as being among the most accomplished at Amiens, and in this central portal describe the Virtues winning over the Vices. These are sculptural picture books, for congregants who could not read, and even if they could, the richness of the color certainly reinforced each depiction. On the right are two figures showing the remarkable amount of detailing which went into the projections.
Illustrated figures of the central tympanum, as arches soar upward to reach a central point.
St. Fermin, the first preacher to evangelize Amiens, is shown on the left portal, while Mary is featured on the right or south portal. Details and explicit information is available online. Apparently examples of biblical histories were taken from work already completed at Notre Dame in Paris.
And lastly, a touch of the ethereal, as wispy clouds are portrayed crossing over the building.
Amiens became a model for other Gothic cathedrals in Frnace, and also for the cathedral of Cologne (Koln) in Germany.
Writing in a pamphlet distributed within the church “The cathedral of AMIENS,” Jacques Brandicourt (as translated by Mrs. Geffray, and printed by Cathedral Amiens, 2006), lamented the misuse of Gothic design in the modern period, and also ascribed a testament to the Cathedral of Amiens:
“Today, it is after said: “We are not in the Middle Age.” It is true. It is distressing to see the copy of a gothic cathedral right in the middle of New York (St. Patrick's Cathedral, begun in 1858, located across from Rockefeller Center) overpowered by modern buildings. Just as the language changed, there was a revolutionary evolution in architecture, as Ronchamps (the chapel by leCorbusier) and Coventry Cathedral (a new modern church built on site of bombed ruin, by Basil Spence) . The gothic style was also a revolution after the roman style.
With the aid of stone or concrete, cathedral builders have to express the faith of a people. Time will show the value of their method. The number of visitors keeps on testifying to the perfection achieved by the builders of the “Great Church” of Amiens. Standing raised in the heart of town, it has imparted her a soul for more than seven centuries.”