Marc Chagall window, Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Reims

It is easy to forget, but I am here in France for work.

And on day two I had to visit a construction site, then drive for two hours to Reims to be in place for Wednesday's activities.

To add to the fun, there was thick fog and mist, though in truth, wasn't quite as bad as I'd feared.

Up at six and time to lay and ponder before getting up and having a shower and getting dressed.

Breakfast was half seven, though it seems earlier than that today, as half the buffet had already been eaten. I had fruit, fresh bread, soft creamy butter and apricot jam along with two large coffees.

I paid the bill, loaded the car and programmed the maps app on the phone, and so out into the mist I lurched, back onto the motorway then turning east to near where I went last year, on an altogether sunnier day than today.

The motorway carried on east, going through rolling countryside, with banks of fog to keep me on my toes, then turning off into the freshly ploughed countryside, and through small towns filled with faded and crumbling mansions.

I reached the village the wing farm is named after. And due to fog, I see no turbines. It takes some thick fog to hide wind turbines some 95m tall.

I try to triangulate between three map apps, and think I needed to drive through the crumbling village, its wattle and daub walls falling apart.

I drove three miles, then the first of the turbines materialised from the fog. And then a second, but no offices.

I parked outside one of the turbines, sent a message saying I was beside E09, and they sent someone to guide me over the fields along a deeply rutted track.

The conjoined shipping containers made the offices, I was greeted warmly, and lead up to the project office in the upper container, and plied with fresh coffee.

I do three hours auditing, and am done. A good result, could be better, but could have been a lot worse.

I decline lunch as I have a three hour drive through the mist and fog, and wanted to get there before darkness fell, so was eager to set off.

I drove to the country lane, then heading west, back towards Amiens, and with each turn, the road got a little larger, until I came back to the motorway.

I cruised at 60 mph, taking it easy. I had all afternoon, so just concentrated on not getting into an accident.

I stopped at a service station, had a baguette filled with salami and pickles, a coffee and an apricot crumbly cake thing.

I ate both.

Lovely.

Then back on the road for the last hours drive into the outskirts of Reims, turning off as I left the motorway, and stuck between an Aldi and McDonalds on one side, and poor condos the other, was the hotel. Surrounded by a chain link fence, and access was with a code.

I walked into the compound, checked in, was given the code so I could get the car in, unload that and dump it in my ground floor room, then set about ordering a coffee.

Many French cities are introducing low emission zones, Reims has, and there was warnings of fines if you entered the city without the certificate on display. I got a taxi just in case, and just gone half two, the cab pulled up taking me through the ever denser housing, dropping me off at the east end of the cathedral, buttresses towering above the car.

I walk round and find the entrance is via an apparently small wicket door in the north door of the west façade, in truth it was huge.

Inside, it was free to enter, and just a single security guard who seemed more concerned in keeping his stash of pamphlets neat and tidy.,

It is another huge building, built to represent the glory of God her on earth, to shock and awe. It does that very well.

Actually, it has very few memorials, and two global disagreements caused lots of damage, so that very little glass could have survived.

In 90 minutes i did two circuits of the church, one for the nifty and the other for the mobile. Oddly, lights in the east end of the church was switched off, so detail was soon lost in shadows.

Another surprise was a chapel with three panels of Marc Chagal glass depicting Biblical scenes.

I retired to a nearby bar/pub, and found they had Leffe on draft. 33 or 50CL? Fifty obviously.

So I nursed a small goldfish bowl of golden strong beer, until light faded outside, so I went back out to take more shots, on the streets this time.

Fabian called, he would meet me at the cathedral, so I waited, people watched and took more shots from outside.

Fabian arrived, we went back inside the cathedral, as he'd never been inside. I then took him to see the great north door and its carvings surrounding it.

Then back to the bar for another beer and dinner of big burgers and a mountain of fries. We talked, ate, as the bar filled up, Fabian had the best seat in the place, looking out to the illuminated west façade of the cathedral.

After eating, we walked back to his hotel, as he offered to drive me back to mine, a short 9 minute blast through the suburbs to the compound.

Now I'm inside, and already Norwich are two down.

Sigh.

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Notre-Dame de Reims (/ˌnɒtrə ˈdɑːm, ˌnoʊtrə ˈdeɪm, ˌnoʊtrə ˈdɑːm/;[2][3][4] French: [nɔtʁə dam də ʁɛ̃s] ⓘ; meaning "Our Lady of Reims"),[a] known in English as Reims Cathedral, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in the French city of the same name, the archiepiscopal see of the Archdiocese of Reims. The cathedral was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and was the traditional location for the coronation of the kings of France. Reims Cathedral is considered to be one of the most important pieces of Gothic architecture.[5] The cathedral, a major tourist destination, receives about one million visitors annually.[6] It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1991.[7]

The cathedral church is thought to have been founded by the bishop Nicasius in the early 5th century. Clovis was baptized a Christian here by Saint Remigius, the bishop of Reims, about a century later. He was the first Frankish king to receive this sacrament. Construction of the present Reims Cathedral began in the 13th century and concluded in the 14th century. A prominent example of High Gothic architecture, it was built to replace an earlier church destroyed by fire in 1210. Although little damaged during the French Revolution, the present cathedral saw extensive restoration in the 19th century. It was severely damaged during World War I and the church was again restored in the 20th century.

Since the 1905 law on the separation of church and state, the cathedral has been owned by the French state, while the Catholic church has an agreement for its exclusive use. The French state pays for its restoration and upkeep.

On 6 May 1210,[28][29] the partly Carolingian and partly Early Gothic cathedral was destroyed by fire, allegedly due to "carelessness."[16] One year to the day afterwards, archbishop Aubrey laid the first stone of the new cathedral's chevet.[20][28] The work on the new cathedral moved with exceptional speed, because Reims was one of the first buildings to use stones and other materials of standardised sizes, so each stone did not have to be cut to measure.[18] In July 1221, the chapel at the east end of the cathedral entered use.[29] In 1230, work began on the west front, indicating that the nave was nearly complete.[30]

In 1233, a long-running dispute between the cathedral chapter and the townsfolk (regarding issues of taxation and legal jurisdiction) boiled over into open revolt.[31] Several clerics were killed or injured during the resulting violence and the entire cathedral chapter fled the city, leaving it under an interdict (effectively banning all public worship and sacraments).[32] Work on the new cathedral was suspended for three years, only resuming in 1236 after the clergy returned to the city and the interdict was lifted following mediation by the king and the pope. Construction then continued more slowly.

In 1241, the members of the Chapter were able to meet in the choir, showing that the vaults of the apse and the five last traverses of the nave on the east, where the stalls were located, were finished,[33] but the nave was not roofed until 1299 (when the French king lifted the tax on lead used for that purpose). Work on the western façade did even not begin until 1252, and the portals were not completed until after 1260. Thereafter work moved from the west to the east, with the completion of the nave; the level of the rose windows was completed between 1275 and 1280. The roof of the nave and upper galleries were finished in 1299.[34] A comparison of the roses of the western façade to the roses of the transepts demonstrates the temporal stylistic progress: the rose windows of the transepts are decorated by bar tracery, but all glass is inside the round frames -- that is, a mix between Classic Gothic and High Gothic. In the rose windows of the western façade, however, the glass exceeds the round frames to fill the whole pointed-arched areas available (i.e. Rayonnant, an advanced form of High Gothic).

Unusually, the names of the cathedral's successive architects, succeededing each other until the completion of the cathedral's structural work in 1275, are known. A labyrinth built into floor of the nave at the time of construction or shortly after (similar to examples at Chartres and Amiens) included the names of these four master masons (Jean d'Orbais, Jean-le-Loup, Gaucher of Reims and Bernard de Soissons) and the number of years they worked there, though art historians still disagree over who was responsible for which parts of the building.[35] The labyrinth itself was destroyed in 1779, but its details and inscriptions are known from 18th-century drawings. The clear association here between a labyrinth and master masons adds weight to the argument that such patterns were an allusion to the emerging status of the architect (through their association with the mythical architect Daedalus, who built the Cretan labyrinth of Minos). The cathedral also contains further evidence of the rising status of the architect in the tomb of Hugues Libergier (d. 1268, architect of the now-destroyed Reims church of St-Nicaise). Not only is he given the honour of an engraved slab; he is shown holding a miniature model of his church (an honour formerly reserved for noble donors) and wearing the academic garb befitting an intellectual.

Even after the structural work had been completed in 1275, a lot of work remained to be done. The Gallery of Kings on the west front, and the octagonal upper towers were not finished until the 1460s. Documentary records show the acquisition of land to the west of the site in 1218, suggesting the new cathedral was substantially larger than its predecessors, the lengthening of the nave presumably being an adaptation to afford room for the crowds that attended the coronations.[36]

The towers, 81 m (266 ft) tall, were originally designed to rise 120 m (390 ft). The south tower holds just two great bells; one of them, named "Charlotte" by Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine in 1570, weighs more than 10,000 kg (10 t).

Following the death of the infant King John I, his uncle Philip was hurriedly crowned at Reims, 9 January 1317.[37]

During the Hundred Years' War's Reims campaign the city was under siege by the English from 1359 to 1360, but the siege failed.[38] In 1380, Reims Cathedral was the location of Charles VI's coronation and eight years later Charles called a council at Reims in 1388 to take personal rule from the control of his uncles.

After Henry V of England defeated Charles VI's army at the Battle of Agincourt on 25 October 1415, most of northern France including Reims fell to the English.[40] They held Reims and the cathedral until 1429, when it was captured by Joan of Arc, allowing the dauphin Charles to be crowned king on 17 July 1429.[41] For her feat -- a turning point in the Hundred Years' War -- Joan is memorialized at Reims Cathedral with two statues: an equestrian statue outside the church and another within the church.

On 24 July 1481, a fire caused by the negligence of workers covering the high wood-and-lead flèche (spire) that was being constructed over the transept[34] destroyed the part of the spire's framework, the cathedral's central bell tower, and the galleries at the base of the cathedral roof, while dripping molten roofing lead caused further damage. However, recovery was quick with kings Charles VIII and Louis XII making donations to the cathedral's reconstruction. In particular, they granted the cathedral an octroi of the Gabelle salt tax. In gratitude, the new roof was adorned by fleur-de-lis and the royal coat of arms "affixed to the top of the façade". However, this work was suspended before the arrows were completed in 1516.[42] The upper galleries of the nave were completed in 1505. These were so expensive that the remaining planned projects, including a 170 meter tall bell tower over the transept, spires on the west front and the planned upper towers flanking the transept, were never built.[34]

Following the death of Francis I, Henry II was crowned King of France on 25 July 1547 in Reims Cathedral.

The 18th century saw the first major reconstruction inside the cathedral. Between 1741 and 1749, the lower windows and the medieval furniture, the principal altar, the choir stalls, and the choir screen were all replaced with furnishings more in keeping with the theological requirements and taste of the era. The sculpture of the portals was also restored.[44]

In 1793, during the French Revolution, the cathedral was closed and briefly turned into a storehouse for grain, and then for a time into a Temple of Reason. Most of the remaining furniture and funeral monuments were destroyed, the reliquaries in the treasury melted down for the gold, and the bells melted down to make cannon. Mobs hammered much of the sculpture of the grand portal and the more evident symbols of royalty, such as the fleur-de-lis emblems, and the royal Hand of Justice were burned.[45] However, most of the medieval sculpture survived relatively intact.

With the restoration of the French monarchy after the downfall of Napoleon, the practice of royal coronations at Reims resumed, but only briefly. The last king of France to be crowned there was Charles X in 1825. His reign was deeply unpopular, and he was overthrown in the Revolution of 1830 and replaced by a constitutional monarch, Louis Philippe I, who was sworn in at the Parliament in Paris rather than crowned in Reims.[46]

A series of restoration projects were carried out in the later 19th century, focusing first on the gables and statues on the west front (1826–30), and then the upper galleries, windows and towers (1845–60), under Jean-Jacques Arveuf. In 1860 He was replaced by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, who modified the gallery of the choir and the apse closer to their original medieval appearance.[47] He was succeeded by two more architects, Eugene Millet and Victor Ruprich-Robert, who took considerable liberties in remaking the galleries of the nave in a more imaginative 13th-century Gothic style. In 1888. they were followed by Denis Darcy and Paul Gout, who followed more closely the historic architecture, particularly in the restoration of the west rose window.

On the outbreak of the First World War, the cathedral was commissioned as a hospital, and troops and arms were removed from its immediate vicinity.[48][49][50] On 4 September 1914, the XII Saxon corps arrived at the city and later that day the Imperial German Army began shelling the city.[b] The guns, located 7 km (4.3 mi) away in Les Mesneux, ceased firing when the XII Saxon Corps sent two officers and a city employee to ask them to stop shelling the city.[53]

On 12 September, the occupying German Army decided to place their wounded in the cathedral over the protests of the Abbe Maurice Landrieux,[54] and spread 15,000 bales of straw on the floor of the cathedral for this purpose. The next day French soldiers under General Franchet d'Esperey re-entered the city, but German wounded were left in the cathedral.[55]

Six days later, a shell exploded in the bishop's palace, killing three and injuring 15.[56] On 18 September a prolonged bombardment began and on the 19th shells struck the "forest" of wooden timbers under the lead-covered roof, setting it on fire, and completely destroying the roof. The bells melted, windows were blown out, and the sculpture and parts of the walls were damaged. The lead in the roofing melted and poured through the mouths of the stone gargoyles, damaging, in turn, the adjoining bishop's palace. Images of the cathedral in ruins were shown during the war by the indignant French, accusing the Germans of the deliberate destruction of buildings rich in national and cultural heritage,[57] while German propaganda blamed the deaths of prisoners on the French, who at gunpoint prevented them fleeing the fire.[58] Single shells continued to strike the ruined building for several years, despite repeated pleas by Pope Benedict XV.[59]

At the end of the war, it was proposed to keep the cathedral in its damaged state as a monument to victims of the war, but this idea was finally rejected. A major restoration project began in 1919, led by Henri Deneux, chief architect of the service of French historic monuments. The restoration received major funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, and sometimes made use of modern techniques and materials, including prefabricated reinforced concrete, to strengthen the structure. In the 1920s, the foundations of the earlier church from the Carolingian period were discovered under the cathedral and excavated. The work was completed and the cathedral was reopened in 1938.

Restoration work on the church has continued since 1938, repairing the damage caused by the war and by pollution. In 1955 Georges Saupique made a copy of the Coronation of the Virgin, which can be seen above the cathedral entrance and with Louis Leygue copied many of the other sculptures on the cathedral façade. He also executed a statue of St Thomas for the north tower.

Beginning in 1967, many of the statues from the exterior, such as the smiling angel, were moved to the interior of the Tau Palace for protection, and replaced by copies.[7]

The Franco-German reconciliation was symbolically formalized in July 1962 by French president Charles de Gaulle and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, where, in 1914, the Imperial German Army deliberately shelled the cathedral in order to shake French morale.[60]

The cathedral, former Abbey of Saint-Remi, and the Palace of Tau were added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1991.[61]

On his 74th Pastoral Visit, Pope John Paul II visited Reims on 26 September 1996 for the 1500th anniversary of the baptism of Clovis.[62] While there, the Pope prayed at the same chapel where Jean-Baptiste de La Salle celebrated his first Mass in 1678.[63]

On 8 October 2016, a plaque bearing the names of the 31 kings crowned in Reims was placed in the cathedral in the presence of the archbishop Thierry Jordan and Prince Louis-Alphonse, Duke of Anjou, one of many pretenders to the French throne.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reims_Cathedral

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Marc Chagall[a] (born Moishe Shagal; 6 July [O.S. 24 June] 1887 – 28 March 1985[b]) was a Russian and French artist.[c] An early modernist, he was associated with the École de Paris as well as several major artistic styles and created works in a wide range of artistic formats, including painting, drawings, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramics, tapestries and fine art prints.

Chagall was born in 1887, into a Jewish family near Vitebsk, today in Belarus, but at that time in the Pale of Settlement of the Russian Empire. Before World War I, he travelled between Saint Petersburg, Paris, and Berlin. During that period, he created his own mixture and style of modern art, based on his ideas of Eastern European and Jewish folklore. He spent the wartime years in his native Belarus, becoming one of the country's most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avant-garde, founding the Vitebsk Arts College. He later worked in and near Moscow in difficult conditions during hard times in Russia following the Bolshevik Revolution, before leaving again for Paris in 1923. During World War II, he escaped occupied France to the United States, where he lived in New York City for seven years before returning to France in 1948.

Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century". According to art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered to be "the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists". For decades, he "had also been respected as the world's pre-eminent Jewish artist".[15] Using the medium of stained glass, he produced windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz as well as the Fraumünster in Zürich, windows for the UN and the Art Institute of Chicago and the Jerusalem Windows in Israel. He also did large-scale paintings, including part of the ceiling of the Paris Opéra. He experienced modernism's "golden age" in Paris, where "he synthesized the art forms of Cubism, Symbolism, and Fauvism, and the influence of Fauvism gave rise to Surrealism". Yet throughout these phases of his style "he remained most emphatically a Jewish artist, whose work was one long dreamy reverie of life in his native village of Vitebsk."[16] "When Matisse dies", Pablo Picasso remarked in the 1950s, "Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is".

One of Chagall's major contributions to art has been his work with stained glass. This medium allowed him further to express his desire to create intense and fresh colors and had the added benefit of natural light and refraction interacting and constantly changing: everything from the position where the viewer stood to the weather outside would alter the visual effect (though this is not the case with his Hadassah windows). It was not until 1956, when he was nearly 70 years of age, that he designed windows[citation needed] for the Église Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce du Plateau d'Assy, his first major project. Then, from 1958 to 1960, he created windows for Metz Cathedral.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Chagall

Taken on: November 28, 2024

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