Chartres Cathedral has been a pilgrimage destination since the 12 th century; perched upon a hill, you can see it for two of the five-day walk from the French capital. For me, Chartres has always represented a beacon of art history. My favourite cathedral, aesthetically, has always been Reims. But Chartes is where I had something of an epiphany. When I was about 13 years old, we did one of his regular group tours. This encounter, this cathedral, was instrumental in my decision to study art history.
Would a return 30 years later be a disappointment, or would I love this place as much as before? We were blessed by cool weather after the heatwave earlier this summer, and the temperature and clear skies made everything just marvelous. In short, I loved it. Thanks to the presence of an important relic of the Virgin, Chartres became a centre of pilgrimage as well one of the top religious schools on the continent.
The growing crowds required larger and larger buildings — the current Cathedral is the fifth iteration, while fires took down the earlier ones. The crypt that one can still visit is the foundation of the version from , destroyed by fire in The west facade dates to and the rest of the present cathedral from to Most of the windows are from around this date, though they worked bottom up, and there are some chapels with later windows.
Recently, someone counted the number of figures represented in the windows and came up with the number not unique figures, of course, since some, like Mary, are repeated many times , plus another or so for the sculptures. A private tour was of course in order. Most of his customers are return ones, often after forty years. He says some have become art historians, others priests. His tenet is that the cathedral is a book with numerous chapters that tell the story of the universe from its certain creation to an uncertain end.
Some are stories we know, others are less common. Isadore of Seville as prefiguring the saviour. Moving to the outside of the building, we focus on the sculptures outside the north portal which have recently been cleaned. Just as I did when I was 13, I marvelled at how complete his study of the cathedral is. Having the luxury of time to come back and explore the building further on my own, I found myself wondering about many aspects that Mr. While iconography is his thing, the style and decoration of the works, as well as the social aspects of their creation, are not.
