The Gothic in the Cathedrals and Churches of France

Author(s): Auguste Rodin

Source: The North American Review , Feb., 1905, Vol. 180, No. 579 (Feb., 1905), pp. 219-
229
Published by: University of Northern Iowa

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25105356

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 THE GOTHIC IN THE CATHEDRALS AND
CHURCHES OE FRANCE.
BY AUGUSTE RODIN.

I.
One of the first among foreigners to understand the ancient
cathedrals and churches of France was Buskin, as was Victor
Hugo among his fellow-countrymen. Hugo had made no special
study of the subject; but he understood through his great genius:
he understood as a poet; for cathedrals are vast poems.
At the time he wrote, the Gothic art was considered in France
as something barbarian; in fact, the epithet was applied to all
that was Gothic. This error antedates the eighteenth century.
Even in the reign of Louis XIV., Fenelon, and those with
him who speak of the Gothic architecture, referred to it
in disparaging language. What was more admired in the age of
the great Louis and his successor was a town-hall of the style then
modern. Many cathedrals and churches were roughly treated
during those years, and the French Bevolution did no more than
carry on the work of destruction already begun.
If some one in authority begins to say that a thing is ugly,
nearly everybody follows his example; and it needs a strong in
telligence to uphold the contrary. Victor Hugo related to me
that, when the Bue de Bivoli was being cut, that part of it which
is beyond the arcades, between the Louvre and the Bue Saint
Antoine, had been originally designed to have another course,
commencing opposite the colonnade of the Louvre and running
from there in a straight line as far as the Place du Tr6ne. Had
this plan been carried out, the Tour Saint-Jacques, a fine speci
men of Gothic sculpture, would have been demolished. Victor
Hugo protested with such good effect that the original plan was
modified, and the Tower was preserved.

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 220 TBE WORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
I cannot say that, as a boy, though born in Paris, I paid much
attention to the architecture of Notre Dame. Children do not
know how to see. I remarked its great size, and that was all.
Only when I was in full possession of myself, at the age of
about twenty-five, did I begin to make a special study of its
beauty, which was generally decried. To some extent, indeed,
before I was twenty, my eyes had been opened while I was work
ing for a sculptor named Bies, who had a good deal to do with
the so-called "restoring" of Notre Dame. It was to him that
Viollet-le-Duc once said: " Forget all you know, and you will exe
cute something Gothic." The expression had its hidden meaning.
Profound knowledge is needed to produce the real Gothic?a form
which to-day exists only in the monuments of the past.
As I grew older and rid myself of the prejudices of my en
vironment, I acquired more assurance and dared to see for my
self. Whenever I travelled, I made it a rule to visit all the
cathedrals I could. Even in a small town there is often a real
cathedral. I used to awake early in the morning, and hasten
to visit what for me were the chief objects of interest. And I
remember that the spires and the various parts of these churches
gave me an exquisite joy. I would linger and walk round them
until I was thoroughly tired out.
II.
No architect or sculptor has ever been able properly to restore
a Gothic church or cathedral. Those who have tried, essayed a
task as vain as if one were to attempt completing a chapter of
Rabelais in which a part was wanting. The new portion would
not be like the old. Formerly, when Greek or Roman statues
were discovered, the custom was to restore them. To-day, the
custom has fallen into desuetude, and nothing is lost by it. The
Italians, it is true, continue to repair their ancient monuments;
but they only touch the parts that are falling to ruin; whereas,
when we repair, we insist on restoring, and spoil the old in order
to harmonize it with the new. In Italy, the old is still extant;
and, notwithstanding the repairing, we are able to enjoy the ad
mirable beauty of the whole.
III.
It is difficult to explain the Gothic; there is always something
that escapes definition. Consequently, ordinary ideas on the sub
ject are erroneous or incomplete. Many people talk of the Gothic

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 GOTHIC IN THE CATHEDRALS OF FRANCE. 221
as if it were nothing but the predominance of the ideal over the
material, or again of the idea over form. I consider the matter
rather from the point of view of the execution. Another opinion
is that the ogive constitutes the Gothic. This is also inexact.
We might have Gothic architecture without the ogive. This
style results from a long and careful experimentation on the ef
fects of light and shade, and from the faculty thus acquired of
giving to architecture a living, moving appearance. When I
speak of light and shade, it is without reference to painting; I
mean the rendering visible and perceptible certain geometrical
points that make the planes of sculpture.
In order to have such effects of light and shade, there must be
strongly projecting surfaces, arranged with due regard to their
position in foreground and background. These were achieved
with infinite art in the old Gothic cathedrals and churches, whose
every part invariably stands out or recedes with a fine chiaroscuro.
In the modern Gothic, however good the general design may be
in outline, there is a lack of location in foreground and back
ground, and the reliefs are shallow, holding no shadow, so that
the details seem poor and cold. The superiority of the old will
be at once apparent, if an ancient church porch is examined. It
looks like a grotto or a cavern?architecturally constructed, of
course. Certain of the figures that have been carved within it are
bathed in light, others are shrouded in darkness, and others
again show half-tints of chiaroscuro. Throughout the day, there
is a continual change. While there are never more than a few
figures in full view at the same instant, and the rest are either
partially seen or divined, the sun's procession transports the
effects from one side to the other, transposing them gradually
between morning and evening in an animated panorama. In
side the edifice, there is the same impression of light playing amid
deep recesses, but here we have candles replacing the sun's rays.
Much more than the ogive, the grotto, the cavern, is essential to
the Gothic, since by its aid is obtained a unique trituration
of light, which comes back to the eyes with mysterious soft
ness after penetrating into the abyss. Not that the architects
of the Middle Ages necessarily wrought with a desire to produce
something mysterious. This, like the other effects, was derived
from the manner of their working, a manner present architectural
sculpture is ignorant of or ignores. There is plenty of relief in

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222 TEE WORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
the modern style, but the relief has no life. Whether the buildings
be church, chapel or synagogue, they are ugly and cold to look at.

IV.
The good Gothic style appears in churches and cathedrals
built during the four or five hundred years that lie between the
eleventh and sixteenth centuries. Indeed, it can hardly be said
to terminate with the Renascence; for our Renascence is still
a Gothic style, which we wrongly call Renascence, and is, in
reality, a marriage of the Gothic with the Greek?virtually, all
is Gothic, but the details are finished in the Greek manner.
Nearly all Renascence churches are good examples of this min
gling of the two styles. In Paris, for instance, there are Saint
Eustache and Saint-Etienne du Mont. The latter, which is both
fine and beautiful, is a Renascence of Henry the Fourth's period.
Tonnerre also possesses two Renascence churches, one of which
has been restored and spoilt, while the other remains as it was
first designed. Under the Revolution it was damaged; but the
plan is, nevertheless, intact.
Among the purely Gothic edifices it is difficult to assign a
preference, except on the score of some particularity. And they
are full of such. No two are alike. At Chartres, the cathedral
has two spires; one of them soars straight up without mould
ings; the other is ornamented; and the contrast is a piece of ad
mirable artistic effect.
In fact, art exists only by oppositions, Gothic art especially.
That is to say, if you have something ornamental, you must have
beside it, as a foil, something simple. In Gothic churches, this
is always the case. Notice the towers; in the lower portions,
they are huge masses of stone, whereas, above, they flower like
plants. If Notre Dame at Paris is looked at sideways from the
proper standpoints, this can be easily verified. In the environs of
Paris, there are numbers of old churches that illustrate the Gothic,
the Abbey of Saint-Denis for one. It has been restored; but
the grand outlines have not been touched; and, at the distance
permitting them to be appreciated, they stand out splendidly.
The whole structure is like a child's drawing, a simple yet beau
tiful drawing of the kind some children know how to make. It
is a house with a steeple at the side. At Pontoise, the church
has some exquisite details. In the midst of the portal, there is a

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 GOTHIC IN THE CATHEDRALS OF FRANCE. 223
small edicule of the Greek Benascence order; it is charming. At
Btampes, Dreux, Evreux, Caen, there are edifices equally re
markable. The finest church at Caen has been restored. It was
Benascence Gothic. Now it is heavy. The churches at Troyes
were superb; but, since their restoration, the beauty has disap
peared. At Sens, there is an exceedingly fine specimen of the
Gothic. At Nevers, too, the churches are remarkable.
Our French cathedrals are superior to the English and Ger
man ones by the greater sculptural expression displayed in them.
In this respect, they are second to nothing outside antique Greek
architecture. The German Gothic is characteristically hard. The
cathedrals at Strasburg and Cologne exhibit this defect, but, like
that at Milan, more on the exterior than in the interior. The in
terior of the Cologne edifice is very fine, and yet the structure
as a whole does not possess that supreme art for lack of which
the largest cathedral appears smaller than a small church which
has it. Antwerp cathedral is very beautiful, more beautiful than
Cologne. Its spire is a veritable crown; soaring, as it does, into
the air, it is glorious to behold. At Malines, the church is like
wise beautiful; its ornamentation, however, is somewhat poor,
the depth of its relief not being sufficient.
One vantage-point from which to behold a Gothic cathedral
is, at a distance from it?two or three kilometres from the town.
At this distance it seems enormous, magnificent, imposing; all
the other buildings of the town shrink into nothingness. The
mass of the structure is in straight lines, but so ornamented that
the straight line seems to bulge and fill out, which gives to the
whole flexibility and richness.
V.
The architects who raised these edifices were endowed with a
consummate knowledge of effect They would appear, indeed, by the
works they have left to have been acquainted with every science.
It is the greatness of them all, perhaps, which has prevented their
names from coming down to posterity. There are, of course,
legends about them. Scholars claim to have discovered the
identity of some. But, in fact, while handing on to us the purest
and best of themselves, they remain anonymous. At most, we
may presume that, in the figures they have carved, there are por
traits of many designers and workers. It was only at the Be
nascence that names began to be attached to the masterpieces of

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224 TEE WORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
sculpture. At that time, Philibert Delorme, Jean Goujon, Jean
Cousin and others succeeded in perpetuating their fame. At
present, if any one travels in France and sees a fine figure
carved somewhere?on a tomb, may be?he is told that Jean
Goujon or Jean Cousin carved it, simply because nobody knows
who carved it; and as the artist's name has perished, it is these
later sculptors who get the credit.

VI.
In commencing to study the Gothic, it matters little where the
starting-point is. The chief thing is to humble one's self an
become a little child, to be content not to master all at once, to
be obedient to what Nature can teach, and to be patient through
years and years. The study grows easy enough in time. At
first, of course, the comprehension is embryonic; you visit one
and another edifice; you divine a part of their value, and with
each new experience, the comprehension increases. A mind
capable of analyzing and coordinating will ultimately succeed in
understanding. If to-day there is such a lack in this respect, the
cause lies in the neglect of those great qualities of art that are
more than originality, and are born from the love which inspires
the work.
In one direction the Gothic sculptors surpass the Greek. The
Greek temple is the same everywhere, and similarity, identity, is
not a culminating quality of art. Life is made up of strength
and grace most variously mingled, and the Gothic gives us this.
No one church resembles another. Between the churches of one
part of France and another, differences exist on a very large
scale. The cathedrals of Champagne contrast with those of Bur
gundy, those of the North still more with those of the West.
To explain why these differences are found is difficult. The
race and soil are probably a partial factor. The sky also may
have had its influence. The Romanesque style which immediate
ly precedes the Gothic is ordinarily sombre; and yet, if one goes
to the banks of the Loire, it will be seen to be as luminous as
that of the Renascence. The sombre note prevails most in the
north of France, but it is felt also in the south. This Romanesque
is the style of the first kings in the sixth and seventh centuries,
and persists to a considerably later period. The mixed Renascence
and Gothic, which at Rouen is rather hard as well as rather dark,

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 GOTHIC IN THE CATHEDRALS OF FRANCE. 225
assumes in the Loire Valley an infinite splendor. At Chambord
the Castle, which I saw before it was restored, was then a structure
of marvellous grace and full of light.
In the natural transformation of the Gothic, whatever changes
were made took place under the twofold dominating preoccupa
tion of subordinating every detail to the whole effect, and of
giving to each detail a depth of finish that produces softness in
the mass. This principle is carried out in the smallest thing as
well as in the greatest. The tiniest leaf is perfectly chiselled and
has its own importance as well as its proper place in the mass.
In the Flamboyant style, for instance,?a development that came
about during the sixteenth century,?there is none the less sim
plicity on account of these qualities. Wherever a cathedral
strikes the eye as being cold and hard, there is lack of seriation
in the details. They stand out by themselves too much on the
same plane; and then, even though the values are equal, they do
not contribute what they should to the effect of the whole.
The Gothic style itself is a natural outgrowth of the Boman.
It is the Boman raised and magnified. When once adopted, it
spread throughout Western Europe, the result being an archi
tectural aggregate, the like of which had never been seen before,
and perhaps will never be seen again. And the terrible thing is
that our restoring of cathedrals is a quick way of destroying these
masterpieces. If the Greeks, or afterwards the Bomans, in their
decadence, had destroyed the Parthenon, we should have known
nothing of the veritable grandeur of its builders. In France,
there are a considerable number of Gothic churches which have
been left alone, because they were not marked on the list, money
not being forthcoming for the work of restoration. One of the
churches at Tonnerre is an example; the cathedral at Beauvais
is another, and one of the finest. This cathedral has no steeple.
At a distance from the town the back of the structure can be
seen, looking like a living giant
It is worth noting that the architects of the Middle Ages did not
aim at regularity in their edifices, which are often dissymmetric.
Sometimes even, the nave is not in the axis. And yet the entire
building is beautiful by the very opposition of its values. The
fashion now is to speak slightingly of such productions, to apply
to them the term " naive." The word so used indicates inabil
ity to grasp the perfection of their execution. A similar affecta
tol. clxxx.?no. 579.

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 226 TEE WORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
tion is that which asserts Greek art has no life in it. On the con
trary, for those who have eyes to see, Greek art is all life, but so
naturally expressed that ordinary intelligence is apt to pass it
by unheedingly. In art we are becoming more and more ignorant,
in a century, too, which thinks it possesses great critical power.
The material out of which the ancient Gothic cathedrals and
churches were built was a stone curiously small-hewn. Its color
varies a little in the different provinces of France, but it is large
ly gray, or grayish-white. Burgundy stone shows rather more
gray, Alsace more tendency to red. In Auvergne rows of black
stones are mingled with the gray mass, which is a practice also
existing in Italy. It is possible that the kind and color of the
stone exercised a certain influence upon the construction; but,
in general, Gothic architecture does not seek effects of light by
mingling varieties of stone. More exactly, one might say that
in the Gothic everything is added for the sake of the monument.
In fact, we return to the chiaroscuro previously mentioned?the
sculptural expression being the structural expression.
The real home of the French Gothic is the centre and the
north of France. It reigns besides in the east, in Burgundy;
and it may claim to take in Belgium and even a little of Holland.
The Gothic of the south never advanced far beyond the Roman
esque. That of Brittany is a trifle heavy and not so fine. In
the direction of Poictiers and Angouleme, the style has mostly
remained Romanesque, but of a special and admirable kind. I
might, indeed, say that it is more Oriental and almost Byzantine.
To tell the truth, the Romanesque, lying as it does between the
Roman and the Gothic, frequently has in it something of one or
the other; and, in particular, there is a period in which it is dif
ficult to say whether the style is Romanesque or Early Gothic.
What is easier is to distinguish between the Greek and the Gothic.
Both possess to a superlative degree that peculiar reflection of
light and shade, due to the sculptural planes, of which I have
spoken above. But in the Greek there is more trituration of the
light; in the Gothic, more trituration of the shade; or, again, one
might put it, the Greek models light, and the Gothic models shade.
It would require a series of photographs or designs to make
these distinctions quite evident. I have them all photographed
in my memory, a method which is not very convenient for re
production. A few notes and drawings are my only graphic

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 GOTHIC IN THE CATHEDRALS OF FRANCE. 227
representations; but as I have never learned perspective, my
drawings often wobble. This defect in my education often trou
bles me in my architectural designs, for perspective is a useful
science, albeit landscape-painters sometimes neglect it In sculp
ture there is less need for it, unless in making bas-reliefs with a
distant background. What I know of perspective is by instinct.
When I was young, I had an antipathy to geometry, believing it
was a cold science that hindered enthusiasm. I have had per
force to acquaint myself with it, since all I do is based on geom
etry. Life itself is geometrical, a truth I only came to recognize
later. The geometry I practise, however, is a geometry of my
own,?which is, no doubt, pretty close to the other. I am like
the peasant that does not know arithmetic. He reckons in a way
peculiar to himself.
VII.
To say what has been my own progress in the study and com
prehension of the Gothic would be in detail impossible for me.
The study has unquestionably influenced my sculpture, giving me
more flexibility, more depth, more life in my modelling. This
can be seen in my figures, which have become more mysterious,
owing to the more perfect chiaroscuro. Not that I could point
in particular to one or another of my productions as an instance
of the modification. The influence has entered into my blood,
and has grown into my being.
VIII.
The Gothic is not the Gothic because of the period in which it
was developed, but because of the manner of seeing of the period
You enter a cathedral. You find it full of the mysterious lif
of the forest; and the reason of it is that it reproduces that life
by artistic compression, so that the rock, the tree?Nature, in
fine?is there; an epitome of Nature. It is a mistake to imagin
that the religious conceptions of the time were able to bring forth
these masterpieces, any more than the religious conceptions of to
day are responsible for the ugliness of our modern structures.
The ancient edifices gained their beauty through the faithfu
study of Nature practised by the Gothic sculptors. Their only
ideal was the vision they had of her; quite as much as the Greeks,
they drew from her all their power; and, in like manner, I find
my inspiration in my model. The charm of the subject comes
from that. I am opposed to the doctrine which holds that th

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228 THE WORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
idea leads, that it ennobles the work. I believe rather that it is
the strength resulting from labor which adds to the idea. Of
itself, our idea is poor. This theory may seem commonplace;
but, at any rate, it better explains the hundreds and hundreds
of splendidly artistic buildings?churches and abbeys as well as
cathedrals?that came into existence during the Gothic period,
many of them hidden away in country nooks which need exploring
for these treasures to be discovered. Compared with similar
Italian edifices they are much superior. In fact, the Gothic in
Italy is less developed, too, as regards the number of its buildings.
There, painting and sculpture have been more separated from
architecture, and exist more for themselves; especially worthy of
mention are the painted windows and tapestry. In France, also,
there is no lack of beautiful windows and tapestry; and what
adds to the value of them is their being really part of the Gothic
interior they adorn. Ruskin has written well on these things;
I believe it was his book which brought so many English-speaking
people to visit them. We have writers of our own to-day, Huys
mans among others^ who introduce descriptions of them into
their literature; but one does not get much benefit by reading
them. A visit to the church is more profitable, or, failing this,
to a museum like the Trocadero, where plaster reproductions of
some fine specimens of Gothic architecture may be seen. The
stained-glass windows painted in recent times make little or no
impression on us, because the tones are false. Those of the Gothic
period raise one to the heavens. They are copied from the flowers
of the field, not from imagination; and the men that painted
them pored over the tints and shades of the plants and blossoms
they had under their eyes, until they had succeeded in reproducing
them exactly as they saw them. I insist on this point, for it is
Nature that is celestial. They who give us windows now proceed
in another way. , !
In order to reform our present stereotyped methods of art, we
want a second Renascence. For a long time I hoped that in a
near future this might be; but I have ceased hoping to-day. It
would require a catastrophe capable of overturning and changing
everything. Of course, I am speaking of what is likely to hap
pen in the next twenty-five or fifty years. Life is eternal; and,
sooner or later, things must alter for the better. But so far, in
our modern architecture, I see nothing that gives encouragement

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 GOTHIC IN THE CATHEDRALS OF FRANCE. 229
We have intelligent men who are sufficiently educated. They copy
everything; they ferret out the style of Nineveh, as well as the
styles of Louis XIV and Louis XV; but what they produce is
without soul, without art, and is insignificant. They repeat, but
only as the parrot does. For long years, we have done nothing
but turn out from our colleges young men stuffed with useless
scientific lumber; and they very quickly lose it all, and there is
nothing to take its place. This is not to be wondered at when
throughout Europe there is such a neglect of art in our education.
It may be replied to me that the inventions of science compen
sate for the deficiency; but these inventions are almost exclusive
ly, if not quite, a mere increase in the power of the bodily senses
and faculties; the telegraph in that of the tongue, the telephone in
that of the ear, the railway in that of the legs, the photographic
science in that of the eye; and these inventions leave in ignorance
the more intellectual part of the individual. Your portrait can
be taken, your voice boxed up; this is extraordinary; but the
soul which commands, the god which is in the head, is forgotten.
And yet the means for altering this state of things is near at
hand, is beneath our eyes. We have still the same Nature that
inspired those anonymous sculptors to give us the Gothic; we still
have a sufficient number of Gothic masterpieces intact?so many
epitomes of Nature, as I have said?to show what can be done
by the man who starts with his vision open to her teaching.
I make no fetish of the Gothic sculpture. I do not claim for
it what it does not possess. A contrast to the Greek,?a comple
ment of it?inferior to it in some respects, superior to it in oth
ers, it is one of the most wonderful phenomena that the genius
of our race has manifested. And if we are to advance in art be
yond the stationary position we occupy at this moment, we shall
only do so by a thorough comprehension and appreciation of the
beauties and qualities that are peculiar to it*
AUGUSTE EODIN.
* Dictated by M. Rodin to a stenographic reporter, and translated
from the French by Frederick Lawton, M.A., author of the "Idfe and
Work of Auguste Rodin." (Grant Richards, London, 1904.)

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