Susan Kerr wrote:

[>>pardon my density, but how, specifically, do you mean "Chartres and
[>>Gothic cathedrals play with this image..." ?
[>>christopher

>Christopher, and others interested,
>It was you who replied to my question about psalm imagery in Christian art

well, i did, yeahbut, this is the nineties isn't it? and i never dreamed that
anyone would take me seriously.

meo grosso culpo, as they say.

>with an anecdote about being in Chartes at twilight

mid-autumn day, actually, with the typically raking (twilight-like, if
you wish) afternoon red light common in those lattitudes washing the windows,
the doors of perception pharmaceutically enhanced and, at least partially,
cleansed, as was the custom of the epoch, en ces temps la (c. 1970).

>..when the stained glass windows appeared to be trellises with glowing images
woven into their living fabric.

mmm....

something like that, best i can recall.

and i can see it now.

or, morebetter, i *wish* i could see it now.

a vision, if not beatific, at least beautifical (probably not the same thing,
alas).

>And you have company in this vision.

glad to hear it.

would like to think that we've had *lots* of company, over the years.

maybe even amongst the middleevils themselves.

though not enough, it would seem.

>In Gothic architecture, the church is visibly Paradise.

an interesting 20th c. construct, which you and i think we *know* to be true,
and *might* even be a reflection of some kind of 12-13th c.
reality;

but, the universe being essentially unfair, there's probably a coupla old
curmudgeons on this list who would expect such a subjective supposition to be
*proven*, beyond the valleys of the shadows of doubt, a way up
there in the sun-lit uplands, bless their pointed little, tenure-seeking,
heads.

(say, not just "gothic", btw)

>See in the building the Garden with vines and flowers carved above
capitals...

"above"? and within capitals.

>and fiddlehead ferns

an image familiar to anyone who's pulled off the road in the late-summer/early
fall in the "berceau" of the "Gothic" (the Soissonais) to have lunch in the
calm of one of the domainal forests of this
beautiful region of the Northen "Ile-de-France", confronted with the
floor of the forest carpeted with suchlike ferns (rust-red, in the fall), and
their life-affirming, eternally re-created unfoldings, below the "canopy" of
the trees.

>lined up above arches,

don't know what you are thinking of here, literally.

not @ Chartres, nor any other "high Gothic" building i can think of
immediately (perhaps in the [lost] painting?); but surely there, somewhere.

>and budding finials

*the* image of "early Gothic" architectural flora, to my minds/eye.

>and trefoil-carved wooden tracery,

"wooden"??

interesting thought.

>and, of course, the Rose window, the most graceful flower blooming in
the garden.

mmmm.

maybe.

>But doesn't all this architectural imagery grow out of the medieval
Benedictine monks' understanding of what they were about?

no, i wouldn't say so, necessarily.

or, certainly, not exclusively.

picquie, picquie.

the "cathedrals" were (in France), of course, strictly speaking, not the
constructions of "monks" (Benedictine or otherwise) --presumably-- but were
"secular" buildings, i.e., buildings constructed by the "secular" clergy (that
is, the non-"regular" clergy, the "canons" of the particular cathedral chapter
--those who did not live under a rule ["regula"]), ostensibly as a "tool" to
further their own profession, i.e., ministering to the _saeculares_ (i shall
be latiniacally corrected, i'm sure), the _hoi poloi_, or, in the eloquent
Southern Indianer parlance: "usens".

to address the essence of your point, however, the whole architectural imagery
(i.e., not just the specifically floral "iconogrphy") which we enjoy today in
these monuments did, surely (note subjective opinion) indeed grow out of
*some*body's "understanding of what they were about".

or, as the French say: "Duh".

Benedictines were certainly a necessary, but not necessarily a
sufficient, part of the whole.

something about keeping the candle lit....

>They were creating a new Eden,

may well be.

evidence?

>a heavenly Jerusalem

may well be.

evidence?

> --and the wall around Eden is the wall around the heavenly city, I suspect.


which wall would that be, exactly?

evidence?

>This playfulness flowers with their busy leisure, and will be vulnerable to
puritan sensibilities.

my Scotch-Irish ancestors are sensibly vulnerated, with your eloquence.

>So, it's outside of Eden that the soil is hard,

mmmmm...

so the good and ample Elastic Brother would have us believe.

not as tough as central Michigan, i'm told.

also, depends upon the gender, apparently: to those that toiled, yes; to those
whose lot it was only to span (or putz, as they say), maybe not so tough.

>the work ethic prevails, and gardening means toil.

_ibid_.

>In Eden, as in the church, one eats the bread of angels,

say, what is the Latin for that, "angelfood"?

and, whence commeth?

>not of the sweat of one's brow,

it's a tough gig alright.

>and the water of life flows from the rock,

now, you've been reading, somewhere.

sounds too good for a movie.

>not from the pump which needs priming.

doant go mixing metaphores (*i* never do).

ref?

>Isn't that what Chart[r]es says to you?

actually, Chartres says a lot of different things to me, or rather, *has* said
a lot of things to me, at various times over the decades since i
first stumbled upon the place.

Stephen Murray caught the virus (maybe, in small part, from me) and returned
from a summer partly (very smallely) spent there in about 1972
and said to me, "It really is the Rolles Royce of Buildings, you know."

mmmmm.

never thought about it quite like *that* before; but i suppose i'd buy into
that characterisation, in a pinch.

certainly not a *Bentley*.

different strokes....

>from Susan who loves flowers, not dirt under her fingernails

well, there's no accounting for taste, i guess.

can't make an egg without breaking omlettes, you know.

>peace

pox, horticulturally speaking,

c







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