The Gothic Cathedral was perhaps the highest achievement of the period. There was significance in the whole structure, in them all of Gothic thought came together under one roof, giving perfect expression to a distinctly Gothic vision of man and the cosmos. A vision of the cosmos interpenetrated by the splendour veritatis, radiance of truth, where all its parts are bound together in perfect harmony and accord. Driven by a religious longing awesomely expressed in the soaring verticality.
The Gothic style first appears around 1140 in the Abbey of St Denis, in the Ile-de-France. St Denis occupied a position of unparalleled power and prestige, and has been referred to as the foremost of all French if not European abbeys. During the 12th century it was the shrine of the patron saint of France and of the Royal house as well as the burial place of French kings. It was also one of the royal abbeys exempt from all feudal and eccleseastical domination, subject only to the king. The new Gothic abbey designed under the Abbot Suger not only represented a splendid theology of light but one upheld and championed by the French crown.
To the Gothic mind beauty was the radiance of truth, a manifestation of Divinity.
"To say that the appetite desires the good, and peace, and the beautiful, is not to say that it desires different things". Aquinas.
It was an eternal reality, true in the spiritual and physical world, governing and being reflected throughout. Pseudo Dionysius, a 6th century mystic, in The Divine Names wrote:
"The Superessential Beautiful is called ‘Beauty’ because of that quality which it imparts to all things severally according to their nature. And because it is the Cause of the harmony and splendour in all things, flashing forth upon them all, like light. ... and because it draws all things together in a state of mutual interpenetration."
Beauty was a quality of things that reflects their origin and greater or lesser participation in God, as Hugh of St Victor stated; "visible beauty is an image of invisible beauty." Beauty being inseparable from God, was a way of participating in divinity. Thus to create or contemplate a cathedral was to participate not only in its aesthetic beauty, but to commune with God, Beauty itself.
Beauty being an attribute of God meant that any formula or definition of Beauty was an attempt to describe the qualities of God itself. The cathedral was, in effect, imitating the qualities of God as the Gothic mind perceived them, most notably during this period in the form of light and proportion.
Gothic thinkers who differ as widely as Hugh of St Victor and Thomas Aquinas both ascribe to the beautiful two main characteristics; consonance of parts/ proportion and luminosity. These two ideas seemed to fascinate the Gothic mind throughout all of its culture, the cathedral is perhaps the ultimate expression of this love of proportion and light.
A good example of this synthesis can be seen in the Franciscan Robert Grosseteste, where he describes beauty as, "a concordance and fittingness of a thing to itself and all its individual parts to themselves and to each other and to the whole, and of that whole to all things". Later in life he took up the notion of light. Defining light as the greatest and best of all proportions:
"Light is beautiful in itself, for its nature is simple and all things are like to it. Wherefore it is integrated in the highest degree and most harmoniously proportioned and equal to itself: for beauty is a harmony of proportions"
These ideas were not new to the Gothic era, but developed from ancient notions of beauty. Proportion has always been used as a way of defining beauty and light as a metaphor for divinity. What the Gothic did do was bring the two together and express it in a new form, appropriate to their time. The cathedral combined the two, with its structure based on sacred geometry and the laws of biblical revelation it conveyed the effect of matter flooded with light.
Proportion thought of, as an aspect of beauty, was also transcendent like beauty. As was stated in the Wisdom of Solomon, God had created all form based upon a proper harmony of proportion. "Thou has’t ordered all things in measure and number and weight". Aquinas took up this idea defining beauty as integrity, proportion and clarity, and peace as the tranquility of order. In physical forms St Augustine asked; "What is beauty of the body? A harmony of its parts with a certain pleasing colour." The concept of "the music of the spheres" developed on these ideas of proportion, defining the geometry and number that governed the cycles of the universe, from planets to biological life. We even see throughout the period God being depicted compass in hand designing the cosmos based on sacred geometry. Proportion and order brought harmony and justice throughout the cosmos.
Order even gave evil and ugliness a place. Not only did evil serve as a contrast to beauty, but also it was justified and dignified in its place. St Bonaventure stated that "an image of the devil can be called beautiful if it is a good representation of his foulness and thus foul itself". It was also thought that when confronted with ugliness, the soul is unable to be content, but is instead freed from the beauty of physical form or lack of it, thus it is led naturally to desire true and eternal beauty, beyond the physical world.
The Gothic architect applied the very laws that were said to order heaven and earth to the building of a cathedral. Application of this perfect proportion was determined by strict geometry, and was seen not only as aesthetically beautiful but also as technically necessary if a cathedral was to stand. After all the indissoluble stability of the universe was based upon these geometric laws, why not a cathedral.
We can see here that the cathedral was more than an image or symbol of the universe, it was a true model of the universe, a microcosm reflecting the macrocosm. The Gothic architect didn’t base the cathedral on Plato’s solids and biblical numbers, as a symbol of some distant heavenly reality, but because he thought he had too for it too exist at all. Just as "the world is man writ large and man is the world writ small" (Macrobius), so was the cathedral both man and the world combined.
The gothic architect drew much of their mathematical inspiration from biblical sources, the 12 supporting columns for each the ambulatory and choir of St Denis, make manifest Suger’s statement that they were "building spiritually... upon the foundation of Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ being the keystone that joins one wall to the other."
Together with order philosophers and mystics alike were enthralled by luminosity throughout the Gothic period, they lived in a world suffused with "the divine light". If anything was to be equated with beauty it was light, it wasn’t a formula as such for beauty, but more to the point it was "beauty itself", God itself.
"One God, one Goodness, one light, diffused in all things so that they may exist fully, shining in all things so that all people may know and love his beauty. Dominating all things so that they may flourish in their full perfection, and so that all may be one in Him. Thus the light of all lights comes from the Father." John Scotus Eriugena. Super Hierarchiam Caelestem.
Dante stated in the Paradiso, "the divine light penetrates the universe according to its dignity", it interpenetrated all matter, radiating God’s beauty and harmony. Most apparently in the heavens and least in earthly substances, but still evident in them, as St Bonaventure says: "even stones and metals shine when we polish them, and fire comes from black coal."
The cathedrals aim was literally to manifest this radiance, both physically and spiritually. The church becoming transparent bathed and interpenetrated by "the Light of the Father".
"The whole church shines with its middle part brightened.
For bright is that which is brightly coupled with the bright,
And bright is the noble edifice which is pervaded by the new light." Abbot Suger
Lux nova, "new light", having a double meaning as either light or Christ. The cathedral as a vision of light can be first seen in the vision of the Celestial City, which was of "pure gold, like to clear glass" as described in the Book of Revelation.
Much of the inspiration during the Gothic period for a theology of light was drawn from Pseudo Dionysius, an eastern mystic of the 5th or 6th century AD. He blended Platonism, in which light is identified with the Good and the magnificent theology of light in the Gospel of St John, where the Word is compared "to a light that shineth in the darkness, by which all things were made, and that enlighteneth every man. Pseudo Dionysius described a world infused with divine light:
"Inspired by the Father, each procession of the Light spreads itself generously towards us, and, in its power to unify, it stirs us by lifting us up. It returns us back to the oneness and deifying simplicity of the Father who gathers us in... Jesus, the Light of the Father, the ‘true light enlightening every man coming into the world,’ ‘through whom we have obtained access’ to the Father, the light which is the source of all light. ... We must lift up the immaterial and steady eyes of our minds to that outpouring of Light which is so primal, indeed much more so, and which comes from that source of divinity, I mean the Father. This is the Light which, by way of representative symbols, makes known to us the most blessed hierarchies among the angels. But we need to rise from this outpouring of illumination so as to come to the simple ray of Light itself.
Of course this ray never abandons its own proper nature, or its own interior unity. Even though it works itself outward to multiplicity and proceeds outside of itself as befits its generosity, doing so to lift upward and to unify those beings for which it has a providential responsibility, nevertheless it remains inherently stable and it is forever one with its own unchanging identity."
It is known that Dionysius’s writing was studied by Suger of St Denis, Grosseteste, Hugh of Saint Victor, John Scotus, Gilbert of Poiters at Chatres, Thomas Aquinas, and St Bonaventure who described him as "the prince of mystics", among many other key Gothic figures.
St Denis was also major centre of Greek studies as well as the patron saint Denis being mistakenly associated with Dionysius (Denis). The portrayal of this theology of light was one of Suger’s main aims with the construction of the Abbey.
This theology of light was seen as a physical reality, it was viewed as the most noble of natural phenomena, the least material and the closest approximation to divinity. It was the basis of order and value.
"Every form is more ugly due to the obstruction of matter, and more beautiful the more it possesses this light due to its elevation above matter." Ulrich of Strasbourg. Summa de Summo Bono
The value of an object being determined by the degree to which it partakes in light, thus the medieval love of gold and precious stones.
Light was beauty pure and simple, immediately perceptible with no need of relationship or consonance; in fact proportion was lights own natural order.
"Corpororeity, therefore, is either light itself or the agent which performs the aforementioned operation and introduces dimensions into matter in virtue of its participation in light, and acts through the power of this same light." Grosseteste.
It seems the two aspects of beauty represent two sides of God, order, the form of God, light, God’s formless unknowable aspect, "hidden even amid the revelation", as Pseudo-Dionysius puts it.
The most succinct and obvious manifestation of this theology of light in the cathedral is the stainglass window. Stained glass was a predominantly French practice, existing for some time however it hadn’t flourished like it did in the 12th century.
The development of the stained glass window was moved by the idea of replacing opaque walls by transparent ones, conveying the effect of light erupting through an open fretwork. The windows not wall openings but translucent sacred paintings. Suger referred to them as "most sacred", the "continued light" they admitted "miraculous". These translucent panels "vested" with sacred symbols were to him like veils at once shrouding and revealing the Divine light. Like Dionysius’ theology were the entire cosmos appears like a veil illuminated by the divine light.
The architectural system worked in harmony with the windows, the reduced surface and bulk of the columns and outer walls adding to the effect of luminosity. As if manifesting Dante’s exclamation;
"And lo! All around me, equal in all its parts, a splendour dawned above the splendour there like a horizon when the new day starts"
Il Paradiso
The inscription placed on the gilded bronze doors of St Denis
illustrate the intention to manifest light, and urges the viewer beyond
the physical beauty to "the true light":
"All you who seek to honour these doors, Marvel not at the gold
and expense but at the craftsmanship of the work. The noble work is bright, but, being nobly bright, the work should brighten the minds, allowing them to travel through the lights, to the true light, where Christ is the true door. The golden door defines how it is imminent in these things. The dull mind rises to the truth through material things, and is resurrected from its former submersion when the light is seen."
Throughout the description light is the means and the end of
Contemplation, drawing and tempting the soul from form to formless Beauty, to God.
The essential intention of the cathedral was this ascent, its form and object of contemplation and an aid for the participation in divinity. As Maximus the Confessor stated "symbolic contemplation" was the practice of grasping invisible reality behind the world of visual phenomena, the cathedral being the noblest subject for this. Suger describes his own participation in "that higher world" through "worthy meditation" on the beauty of the abbey.
"Thus, when, out of my delight in the beauty of the house of God, the loveliness of many coloured gems has called me away from external cares, and worthy meditation has induced me to reflect. Transferring that which is material to that which is immaterial, on the diversity of the sacred virtues. Then it seems to me that I see myself dwelling, as it were, in some stranger region of the universe, which neither exits entirely in the slime of the earth, nor entirely in the purity of Heaven. And that, by grace of God, I can be transported from this inferior to that higher world in an anagogical manner."
This actual participation in divinity was integral to the practice of art and architecture, indeed it was the initial purpose of the cathedral. Thus the architect sought to reveal to the viewer the state of soul, the act of divine illumination, that enabled the architect to create his work. That was of much greater importance than the work, the image of that illumination itself could ever be. More important than the churches unfolding of a tremendous theology of light and proportion was the viewer’s own gradual illumination, until finally the soul is united with God, as St Bernard describes it, an "immersion in the infinite ocean of eternal light and luminous eternity."
The cathedrals entrance was to be understood as a thresh hold leading from the life in this world to eternity beyond, the gate to the participation in God. On the door jams of St Denis the story of the foolish and wise versions is told amongst the depiction of the last judgement. The foolish virgin arrives at the door to paradise and finds it locked, while the wise virgin is shown enthroned in the Celestial City. To be inside the cathedral was literally to be in Heavenly Jerusalem.
It was integral to the cathedral and the act of contemplation, that the designing and building was not only conceptually based on laws of geometry and ideas of divine light, but that the designers be "moved by divine inspiration ". St Augustine directs the vision from the visible beauty of the church to "beauty of the inner man from which it had proceeded", of which the proportion and form of the church are a manifestation. Suger describes the act of building as a sacred act, when writing on the completion of the Gothic choir:
"Which joins one wall to the other; in whom all the building-whether spiritual or material-groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord. In whom ye also are taught to be builded together for an habitation of God through the Holy Spirit by ourselves in a spiritual way, the more loftily and aptly we strive to build in a material way."
To achieve its objective, the participation in God, the whole project of building had to be taken on as a religious practice. To take on the concepts of beauty was to begin this practice.
Suger’s Booklet on the Consecration of the Church of St Denis puts forward the cathedral as an act of God, with mankind participating in this. The booklet begins with a description of the individuals inner process of contemplation, an ascent to the divine:
"The admirable power of one unique and supreme reason equalises by proper composition the disparity between things human and divine; and what seems mutually to conflict ... is conjoined by the single, delightful concordance of one superior, well tempered harmony... . Those who seek to be glorified by a participation in this supreme and eternal reason, as if their penetrating mind were seated in a kind of judgement seat, strive continuously to accord the similar with the dissimilar and to render justice between conflicting things. With the aid of charity they draw from the source of eternal reason the means by which they may withstand internal strife and inner sedition: preferring the spiritual to the corporeal and the eternal to the perishable. They set aside the vexations and grievous anxieties caused by sensuality and the exterior senses; emancipating themselves from their oppression and focusing the undivided vision of their minds upon the hope of eternal reward, they seek jealously only that which is enduring. They forget carnal desire rapt in the admiration of other sights; and they rejoice to be united one day, through the merit of a glorious consciousness, to supreme reason and everlasting bliss."
By describing this act of contemplation at the beginning of the booklet it places the church in this context. Not only as an aid to the process of contemplation for the viewer, but it also portrays the very act of building as a product of this process. The description draws little distinction between Gods "supreme reason" and the individual’s "participation in this". It begins with a description of God’s "supreme reason" which is soon followed by a participation in this supreme and eternal reason by the individuals "penetrating mind". In effect the cathedral was viewed as an act of God’s creative power, mankind being an agent in this.
The builders of the Gothic cathedral where attempting to participate in divinity, to partake of God’s eternal radiance and order. The cathedral was built in praise of this and an aid to all to understand this radiance. Why did they make it beautiful, (in the Gothic sense), because "Beauty bids all things to itself (whence it is called beauty) and gathers everything into itself... Beauty unites all things and is the source of all things." Pseudo Dionysius
Jonah Cacioppe
2001
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