(bright classical music) - [Narrator] We're in
the town of Chartres, about an hour's train ride from Paris, looking at the great Medieval cathedral Notre Dame de Chartres. - [Narrator] It's easy to
think about this church

as a day trip from Paris, but back in the 11th, 12th, 13th centuries the town of Chartres was a
major destination unto itself. - [Narrator] But it's important that we understand it
within the orbit of Paris,

because Gothic as a style
developed in Ile de France, that is the area around Paris that was ruled by the king of France. We think now of France as a
nation with stable borders, but in the Medieval Period
the king only controlled

the area immediately around Paris. And it was in this area that the architectural style
of Gothic first developed. - [Narrator] Chartres was a destination for a very particular reason. It had, and still has, the
tunic that the Virgin Mary wore,

it was believed, when
she gave birth to Christ. - [Narrator] As the Virgin
Mary's importance grew during the Medieval Period, the importance of this church, and specifically this relic, grew. - [Narrator] We're looking
at the cathedral today

with apartments and cafes around it, but this was once part
of a complex of buildings that included a school,
a palace for the bishop, a hospital, and in fact,
the School of Chartres, an educational institution
very much akin to a university,

was very important and famous
during the Gothic Period. - [Narrator] Many other people associated with The School of Chartres believe that the pursuit of knowledge, learning about the world around us, was the pathway to
understanding the divine.

- [Narrator] And they
were studying the texts of the ancient Greeks and Romans, of Aristotle and Plato. - [Narrator] In fact,
we can see the impact of The School of Chartres
in some of the sculpture that adorns the west doorway.

- [Narrator] The west facade of Chartres dates to the mid 12th Century and so we see it as an
early Gothic facade. That's obvious when we compare it to a High Gothic 13th
century church like Amiens

where the portal is pierced everywhere and there's almost no sense of masonry, no sense of the stone. But here the windows on
either side of the doorway are quite small. - [Narrator] In fact, the
first story of the towers

still recalls the Romanesque. The windows are actually rounded. And very little of the wall
is given over to openings. The architects were still nervous about supporting the enormous weight that was to be piled above. - [Narrator] And that's
because stone vaulting,

the ceiling of these churches,
are enormously heavy. - [Narrator] This is all solid limestone. - [Narrator] And they
exert tremendous pressure downward and outward, and so you need these very
strong walls and piers

to support the weight
of that stone vaulting. - [Narrator] The facade is fairly simple. From left to right, there
are basically three parts: a tower on the left, the central area, and the tower on the right.

If we go from bottom to top, we also have a division of three. - [Narrator] At the very top we see what's known as a Kings Gallery, Old Testament royal figures. Below that, the beautiful
round rose window.

These are very typical
of Gothic architecture. This is using something
called plate tracery. We have primarily a sense of the stone and then openings within that, as opposed to bar tracery, where we have just these thin bars that separate the panes of
the stained glass windows.

- [Narrator] We'll see that
especially in later windows in places like Amiens. Now below the rose window
are three large lancets and these vertical windows
reflect the portals below them. - [Narrator] The three portals
are covered with sculpture.

Anyone walking into this church would read something in the pictures. Let's talk about the parts
of the Gothic portal. At the very top we see
sculptures within the archivolts and the archway that
is framed by archivolts

is known as a tympanum. - [Narrator] Below that,
supporting each of the tympana is a lintel. That is a kind of crossbeam of stone. Those are supported by
small engaged columns known as colonettes that line
each side of the three doors.

Those are really door jambs and attached to those are figures which are known therefore as jamb figures. - [Narrator] What's interesting is that they're angled inward, and so we're invited to enter the church. - [Narrator] For this front porch is quite shallow

compared to what will happen at, say, Amiens. - [Narrator] For the doorways become almost funnels into the church. - [Narrator] The archivolts protrude outward, creating canopies.

Overall, this front is really fairly modest compared to what happens in the Gothic. Nevertheless, it is one of the most important and one of the earliest fully-conceived sculptural programs. Let's get close and take a look.

When I was in school, the three tympana were taught to me as follows. The tympanum on the left showed the Ascension of Christ. The largest of the three, the tympanum in the middle, showed the Second Coming of Christ.

The tympanum on the right showed scenes that related to the life of the Virgin Mary. But things have changed. - [Narrator] We have a new interpretation and that is that the portal on the left, instead of depicting the ascension,

depicts Christ before he takes on physical form. - [Narrator] That is, a Christ out of time. - [Narrator] Before the incarnation, before God has made flesh. Below, we see four angels. - [Narrator] And probably my favorite part of this

is the way that the angels
try to reach below the barrier that separates them from the prophets. Some of the prophets don't
seem to have any idea that there's anything above them, although a few have cocked
their heads with some interest.

- [Narrator] Well, they're prophets. They begin to see the future, they begin to understand
God's plan for mankind, but they can't see it entirely. - [Narrator] In order to see that, we have to go to the right tympanum,

the tympanum devoted to the Virgin Mary. - [Narrator] Who makes possible
God taking on physical form and entering the world
so that we can be saved. - [Narrator] Let's start with the lintel. We can make out a winged figure.

This is archangel Gabriel
announcing to the Virgin Mary that she will bear Christ. - [Narrator] And next
to this we see a scene known as The Visitation where Mary is visited
by her cousin Elizabeth. Mary is pregnant with the Christ child,

and her cousin Elizabeth is pregnant with Saint John the Baptist. - [Narrator] Then the most
important scene in the lintel, the center. Here we see Mary in the manger having just given birth
to the Christ child who's swaddled just above her.

- [Narrator] And just to the right, a scene of the Adoration
of the Three Shepherds who have come to honor the Christ child. - [Narrator] Above this, we
see the presentation of Christ in the temple.

- [Narrator] Mary and Joseph
have brought the Christ child to the temple. - [Narrator] And then above
that, in the tympanum, we see the Virgin Mary enthroned with the Christ child on her
lap, with angels on either side.

This represents the Throne of Wisdom. - [Narrator] When Christ is
shown seated on Mary's lap, Mary's body is understood
as the Throne of Wisdom. Christ is understood as the
personification of wisdom. - [Narrator] And Mary,
in turn, is understood

as that throne, but also
as the church itself. - [Narrator] Both Mary and
Christ are shown frontally, very symmetrically, and
Mary is enthroned here as the queen of heaven. On the left, we had an image of Christ

before the incarnation,
before taking human form. On the right we have the moment when Christ enters the
world in order to save it. Then in the center we have
the Second Coming of Christ, when the dead rise from their graves and all of mankind is judged.

- [Narrator] What's important, though, is that that is the end of time. So a period before time,
a period of human time, and a period at the end of time. - [Narrator] Christ is surrounded by symbols of the four evangelists.

- [Narrator] The four
writers of the gospels and is shown in the center
larger than any other figure. This is called hieratic scale emphasizing His relative importance. He is shown seated on the throne of heaven surrounded by a mandorla.

- [Narrator] A large, full-bodied halo. Below him we see 12 figures. These are the 12 apostles. Now, the jamb figures are especially beautiful here at Chartres. These represent Old Testament
prophets and kings and queens,

and by association, the
kings and queens of France. - [Narrator] The jambs of the west work are my favorite figures at Chartres. They're so long and attenuated. They're so solid and so elegant. - [Narrator] You'll
notice that each figure

is attached to a column and each figure resembles a column. And so there's a interdependence
between the architecture and the sculpture that adorns it. - [Narrator] It seems natural to wonder why the figures have been so abstracted,

why they're so absurdly long. Or even why their feet seem
to be dangling down a bit. - [Narrator] These are
heavenly, divine figures. They're not meant to look
physical and on this earth.

They're meant to look transcendent. If you look at the drapery, the falls are indicated by lines. - [Narrator] There's a
very little sense of mass. Instead, there's a real
emphasis on the linear.

- [Narrator] By the time
of the High Gothic Period, and, in fact, on other
later sculpted portals here at Chartres, we'll see figures who have much more volume,
figures become more human. - [Narrator] Another important attribute

is their sense of isolation. Each figure seems isolated
from the figures beside it. - [Narrator] That, too, will change on the later sculpted portals at Chartres and at other High Gothic cathedrals. - [Narrator] But we've been
talking about the portals.

I think we oughta use the doors. Let's go in. We've walked into the cathedral and we're entering into this long space, which was based on a basilica plan. - [Narrator] A basilica
is a type of building

that Christians borrowed
from the ancient Romans. It's longitudinal. It has an entrance on one end, opposite that is the apse, the
holiest part of the church. - [Narrator] And if you
were to look at the church

from a bird's eye view, you
would see that the church sketches the shape of a cross because it is the long hallway, the nave, that is crossed by something
called the transept. - [Narrator] Here at Chartres,
the north and south transept

also have doorways that are sculpted. - [Narrator] This church is
a little more complicated because on either side of the nave, there are auxiliary
hallways known as aisles. This was so that pilgrims,
that is religious visitors,

could enter the church and
move through to the apse and around the other side without disturbing a mass
that might be taking place. - [Narrator] Those pilgrims
were primarily here to see the famous relic of
the tunic of the Virgin,

and later another relic that
was acquired by the cathedral, the head of Saint Anne,
the Virgin Mary's mother. - [Narrator] And, in fact, the most famous relic of this church, the tunic of the Virgin Mary, 

played a very important role in the church that we're now sitting in. We were looking at the west front and that was part of a
church that dated to 1145. But in 1194, there was a terrible fire and most of the church
burned to the ground. 

- [Narrator] But miraculously, two priests saved the
tunic of the Virgin Mary. When the people of Chartres
saw that the tunic was saved, they interpreted this as a
miracle, one with a message. 

That the Virgin Mary wanted
an even more beautiful and grander church to house her relic. - [Narrator] And that's the
church that we're in now. - [Narrator] The west front of the church that survived the fire is
decidedly Early Gothic. 

The church that we're sitting in now that was built after the fire is clearly the beginning
of the High Gothic style. - [Narrator] That's probably most clear if we look at the interior elevation, because unlike earlier
Gothic churches like at Paris 

where there was a four-part elevation, here we have a three-part elevation. - [Narrator] The three-part elevation consists of a nave arcade, these very tall, pointed arches that are very slender and graceful. - [Narrator] That's the lowest level. 

- [Narrator] On top of
that, we see an arcade standing in front of a wall. And that area is called the triforium. Above that, we see very
tall clerestory windows. In this case, each bay of the nave

we see two lancet windows
topped by an oculus. - [Narrator] The three
segments of the elevation are united by the piers and the colonettes that
are attached to the piers. You can see them soaring
from the pavement below

all the way up. - [Narrator] We have that
interest in linearity and these lines that draw our eye upward that are so typical of
Gothic architecture. As we follow those colonettes up, we see that they divide into ribs

that form the four-part
ribbed groin vaults that constitute the ceiling,
the vaulting of this church. - [Narrator] The pointed rib groin vault allowed for greater height
than a round arch would, and that's because a
pointed ribbed groin vault

pushes its thrust more down than out. - [Narrator] And as a result,
it can rest on smaller piers and not as much buttressing is required. We should say that one
of the primary goals of the Gothic architect was to open up the walls
to the stained glass,

glass that helped to make the interior a space that recalled the divine, that gave one a sense
of heaven here on earth. One of the ways you could do that was with a flying buttress essentially supporting the
building from the outside.

- [Narrator] Instead of having massive walls within the church, much of the weight is supported by flying buttresses that help support the lateral thrust of the building. While the flying buttresses are beautiful architectural elements in their own right,

they were really subservient to the idea of allowing the walls to open up to allow for more glass, for more light to enter into the church. But this wasn't aesthetic. The idea was that light itself was an expression of the divine and nowhere is this more evident than in Chartres

where more of the original glass survives from the Medieval Era. - [Narrator] That glass has largely this lovely deep blue color that's especially associated with Chartres. There's also reds and golds creating a space that makes you feel

as though you're almost inside of a jewel with light refracting in all different ways. - [Narrator] It is still stunning. It's still spectacular. One can only imagine the impression this glass would have made in the 12th century

when most people's clothing was earth colors, where painting was rare. - [Narrator] Where windows in your houses were very small and so coming into this space was a transcendent experience. And we're so fortunate to be here today

when so much of the restoration work on the interior has been completed and we can see that the walls have been cleaned. They used to be a dark brownish gray. The conservators here have painted the stone the way that it was painted in the 12th and 13th century.

- [Narrator] Somewhat unexpectedly, the stone was covered with
a thin layer of plaster and then painted onto that
was this light ochre color with white lines painted on top of it to mimic the joinery of the stones below,

but not accurately. That layer of plaster and paint
obscures the true masonry. - [Narrator] 19th and 20th
century visitors to Chartres talked about how dark it was, but they were seeing it
with centuries of grime

and we are fortunate today to begin to see it the way that it looked in the 13th century. - [Narrator] Let's walk
down towards the apse and take a look at one particularly famous stained glass window. - [Narrator] One that dates
from the Early Gothic Period

from before the fire. - [Narrator] This tall window is sometimes known as the
Virgin of the Beautiful Window. The blue contrast against
the red is extraordinary. It looks like the window is made out of rubies and sapphires.

Mary is frontal. Here, again, we see Mary
as the throne of wisdom. - [Narrator] Mary is elongated. Both of the figures are strictly frontal. We're clearly looking at a heavenly image and not an earthly image, but
a projection of the divine.

- [Narrator] At the end
of the north transept is an enormous rose window
on top of five lancets. This is a much bigger rose than what we've seen in
the earlier west front. - [Narrator] This was paid
for by Blanche of Castile,

the mother of Saint Louis, King Louis IX, who was a major patron of Gothic art. - [Narrator] We can see fleur-de-lis throughout this window, a reference to the French monarchy. - [Narrator] In the center of the rose,

we once again see the Virgin Mary holding the Christ child. Surrounding Mary we see doves and angels and then prophets and kings. - [Narrator] For example, in the 12 o'clock position we see King David. - [Narrator] When we look at the five lancets below,

we see in the center Saint Anne, Mary's mother. Remember that the cathedral acquired the relic of the head of Saint Anne, so it's appropriate that she's honored here in this window. - [Narrator] And she's holding the infant Mary.

- [Narrator] And then the two lancet windows on either side, we see these interesting pairings of virtuous and villainous kings, and also Old Testament priests. - [Narrator] For example, the lancet just to the left of Anna shows King David,

and the smaller figure, Saul, who is shown with a sword through his chest. We've walked out the south transept. Porch is so different from the west front. - [Narrator] Here we're about 80 or so years

after the sculpture on the west facade and things are really different for Gothic architecture and Gothic sculpture. - [Narrator] The porch projects much more than the west front did, which is a characteristic of the High Gothic, but the jamb figures have changed so so much.

- [Narrator] Well, before we saw a real interdependence between the figure and the architecture. The figure looked like a column, and it was in front of a column. Here the figures are still in front of columns,

but they have an independence from the architecture, which is entirely new. - [Narrator] The most famous figure on the south porch is the Saint Theodore, and you can see why. - [Narrator] Well, he looks almost like an ancient Greek or a Roman figure.

We see that the body has movement. The jamb figures on the west portal were so elongated and static. - [Narrator] They were columnar. - [Narrator] And they had no sense of liveliness to them.

Theodore seems almost as though he could walk off the porch and greet us. - [Narrator] His right hip juts out and it creates this Gothic sway. Just look at the feet. His feet are firmly planted, whereas the figures on the west front

seem to dangle, somehow, in midair. - [Narrator] In his right hand he carries a spear with a banner, and we see much more than on the west front a sense of volume to the drapery,

especially when we look to the hem of the garment where we see real three-dimensional folds. - [Narrator] Theodore is still attached to the column. - [Narrator] We can't call him free-standing. - [Narrator] But he does seem animated.

- [Narrator] In his belt,
we see the hilt of a sword, and his left hand rests on a shield, which is pressed against his thigh. There's a naturalism to his movement and the way he carries himself that tells us we're now
in the High Gothic Period.

- [Narrator] The Cathedral at Chartres is remarkable for so many reasons. But what I love about it, especially, is the way that it represents the evolution of the Gothic style, from the columnar jamb
figures on the west facade,

to the High Gothic representations that we see on the south porch. - [Narrator] I'm so glad we decided to spend the day at Chartres. (bright classical music)

Chartres Cathedral

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