Beauvais
The Pilgrim on Earth
Beauvais Cathedral has been noted as a “church within a church.” In other words, the centrality of the cathedral is seen through its three-story elevation and through the diaphanous screen of piers of the arcade that shows the three levels of the ambulatory and inner aisle. Three notable architectural historians have noted the choir of Beauvais as a totality of the whole structure of the cathedral: Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, Robert Branner, and Jean Bony. They remarked that Beauvais is the “Parthenon of French Gothic. (Murray 1989, pg. 4). The city of Beauvais was destroyed by firebombs in 1940 so the passage of time has not allowed Beauvais to stand. (Murray 1989, pg. 7). The bishop-count Miles of Nanteuil had managed the building of Beauvais for eight years when the cathedral burned in 1225. He wanted a synthesis of structural elements considered never attempted called Rayonnant. This is defined as the way the stone surfaces are handled. Formulas for windows and surfaces of buttresses became the solution for the whole structure to be employed as a unit in full gravity. (Murray 1989, pg. 103-108).
Name: Cathedral of St. Peter of Beauvais
Artist: Enguerrand Le Riche, Martin Chambiges, Bishop Miles of Nanteuil, Bishop William of Grez, Bishop Robert of Cressonsac et al
Material: Stone, iron, mortar, marble, glass, wood
Date: 1225 – 1272 AD
Culture: French Gothic
Scale: Length: 72.5m (238 ft); Width: 67.2m (220 ft); Height (max): 48.5m (159 ft)
Current Location: Beauvais, France
At Beauvais Cathedral, Gothic art becomes a kind of flight. Beauvais Cathedral collapsed twice. It has been called an “Icarus flight” and Wilhelm Worringer gave it the Dionysian phrase: “vertical ecstacy”. (Ball 2009, pg. 49). Viollet-le-Duc attributed the collapse of 1284 of Beauvais to inferior workmanship in the masonry. No traces of the foundation of the Gothic choir have ever been found and especially since the excavation in the thirteenth century led to their total destruction. Extreme height at Beauvais is understood as the light that is desired to come from the basin of the surrounding city. The orders might have seemed like madness but it was based on geometric and iconographic principles which were paramount to the builders. The Beauvais choir is the only Gothic monument to surpass the Pantheon in height. The prototypes of Ancient and Biblical sources played a role. The perfect proportion is envisioned in the square schematicism, partly derived from the Ark of the Covenant. If we translate Biblical cubits to the royal feet, we get 46.8 meters, the same height as Beauvais. The keystone of the vaults of the Beauvais choir are placed 46.75 meters above the pavement. This image of the celestial city was made at a time when traditional church doctrines were challenged by the doctrines of mendicants. In this context, it was not only important that Beauvais mimicked the traditional “values” of great ecclesiastical functions but also make expression the spectacle of intrinsic creation.
The greatest master who directed work on the transept is Martin Chambiges. As noted, Beauvais is seen through her choir and work on the transept allowed a thematic unity of the cathedral to emerge. At Amiens, the triforium marks the half way point of the elevation contrary to at Beauvais where the triforium is well below the mid-point, giving a very high clerestory. The Beauvais workshop was subject to influence from Amiens. The capital and transverse arches and diagonal rib has profile similar to that at Amiens. On the south side, an arrangement of molding and square frames with spandrels that are decorated with trefoils echo that of the central rose of the west façade of Notre Dame in Paris. The tracery of the roses with trilobed arches were also found. This style is very much characteristic of the Gothic age in 1230s. This influence is not so much from the fact that Notre-Dame has few comparisons in the compelling architectural programs, but rather from the growing prestige of Paris. Workshops are Paris had been around for a long time. Political controversy with the greatest leaders of the new orders, Saint Bonaventure and Saint Thomas Aquinas while the choir was being built, caused constant strain of order. However, realization of the cathedral as the New Jerusalem was enabled by the resources of the mendicant orders and Beauvais has been described as an “intellectual exercise of Saint Bonaventure”. (Murray 1989, 110).