Vitrail is stained glass, and it’s amply on display in Paris, but nowhere more beautifully than in Sainte-Chapelle, a 13th century chapel reserved for French royalty. As Wikipedia notes,
Construction begun some time after 1238 and consecrated on 26 April 1248,the Sainte-Chapelle is considered among the highest achievements of the Rayonnant period of Gothic architecture. It was commissioned by King Louis IX of France to house his collection of Passion relics, including Christ’s Crown of Thorns—one of the most important relics in medieval Christendom, now hosted in Notre-Dame Cathedral.
Along with the Conciergerie, the Sainte-Chapelle is one of the earliest surviving buildings of the Capetian royal palace on the Île de la Cité. Although damaged during the French Revolution, and restored in the 19th century, it has one of the most extensive 13th-century stained glass collections anywhere in the world.
. . . The most famous features of the chapel, among the finest of their type in the world, are the great stained glass windows, for whose benefit the stone wall surface is reduced to little more than a delicate framework. Fifteen huge mid-13th-century windows fill the nave and apse, while a large rose window with Flamboyant tracery (added to the upper chapel c. 1490) dominates the western wall.
Sainte-Chapelle is enclosed by what was the Royal Palace, but is now largely government offices, including the Palais de Justice. Here’s a view of the very small chapel from the outside:
Okay, forget the crown of thorns (there must be dozens throughout the world), and ignore the fact that much of the upper chapel (the good part) was reconstructed after extensive damage during the French Revolution. The stained-glass windows are almost all original, and, like all stained glass windows of that age, tell Biblical stories in a coherent sequence, meant to inculcate religion (and fear) in a largely illiterate populace.
The next two photos show the same wall, the eastern edge of the chapel. The changing light emphasizes different colors
I’m astounded that the chapel could be supported when most of it is stained glass. Those architects knew what they were doing!
Closer views of the stained glass. The windows were taken down, cleaned, and fixed between 2008 and 2015, an immense job. Then clear windows were placed on the outside to protect the stained glass and prevent it from getting dirty.
Perhaps Biblically-informed readers can identify the panels in the two pictures below.
The rose window on the western wall, taken with an iPhone:
And the lower chapel, now the entry and a shop, with PCC(E) on view (another iPhone photo):
Of course Notre Dame has stained glass windows as well, though they take second place to those of Sainte-Chapelle. Here’s the obligatory vanity photo of me standing by “Point Zéro“, 50 m from the entrance to Notre Dame. This point, marked with a brass plaque, is the place in Paris from which all distances to other French cities are measured. That is, if you’re on a road and it says “Paris, 65 km”, that 65 km ends at Point Zéro.
Here’s the plaque (photo from Wikipedia):
And one of the great rose windows of Notre Dame:
When an atheist like me contemplates, admires, and is stirred by this kind of stuff, I always wonder, “Well, I guess religion did do some good stuff. What about all that religious music, art, and architecture?” I think that had humans not had religion, the artistic impulse for music and painting would have found some other representational outlet, as with the nonreligious Dutch paintings of the 16th and 17th centuries, and there wouldn’t have been so many paintings about Jesus. We’ll never know.
But I’m pretty sure that humanism wouldn’t move people to spend centuries building structures like Notre Dame. What you’d get is stuff like this “humanist temple” in the Marais: the Chapelle de l’Humanité, Built in the 17th century, the building was converted to a “positivist” humanist chapel in the earl 20th century. It’s not often open, and I didn’t go in.
The inscription, which reads “Love as a principle and order as a basis, progress as a goal.” This is okay, but it ain’t no Notre Dame.
One would be foolish to claim that religion didn’t inspire great works of art and great buildings. But one would be equally foolish to claim that because of things like Bach’s great religious music, the Sistine Chapel, and Notre Dame, religion must have been a net good for a humanity.
Enough lucubration. On Sunday it’s a trip to the Cathedral of Chartres, home of the best stained glass in France.
