This is a special short post on recent events around the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris. The regularly scheduled occult post will be up when it is done. Ditto the roots of Modern art. This does tie into the last post, where we looked into the historical meaning of art in the West from a Classical perspective. The Christian heritage is up next, so Notre-Dame works as a preview. But that isn't the reason for this. The fire, responses, and aftermath reveal much about the state of the modern West. Others have commented on the fruits of globalist governments betraying their nations and the self-erasing emptiness of secular materialist monoculture. This post considers why Notre-Dame matters to the West, and that leads the deeper question of what is the West? While it's too big to really tackle in a post, thinking about Notre-Dame is a good start on an Easter weekend.
If you are new to the Band, this post is an introduction and overview of the point of this blog. Older posts are in the archive on the right. Shorter occult posts have their own menu page above. The Band on Gab
Firefighters enter Notre-Dame for the first time after the fire started. As horrifying photos and predictions of utter destruction proliferated and the enemies of the West celebrated, the Band joined millions in fearing the worst. What we saw was something else...
The altar cross blazed through the smoky darkness, flanking candles intact. Given the context, the message of triumph through suffering in Nicolas Coustou's Pieta is fitting. An appropriate scene for Easter.
News of the fire affected people in a way that doesn't normally happen in our materialist, media-created popular culture. It hit people that ignore fleeting internet tragedies like Harambe or Cecil the Lion. Meanwhile, enemies of the West celebrated on social media. [By the way, if this surprised you, welcome to reality. We've been expecting you. Now never forget.]. All this, despite a globalist media culture that opposes organic identities and ignores history for a perpetual fake year zero featuring whatever lies fit the current narrative. Notre-Dame is a bit of a reveal - the instinctive reaction that it triggered tells you something about about who you are, and your relationship with the actual Western civilization.
A universally-preferable monoculture is anti-human. It is diametrically opposed to the anthropological, biological, and social history of the human species - nature and nurture. Mammalian biodiversity is settled science and Postmodernists are right for once when they claim that we are shaped by formative cultural experiences.
This really isn't hard to see if you ignore the lies and pay attention, but it gets glaringly obvious when something real shines through and touches the deep roots of identity.
Eastman Johnson, Sunday Morning, 1863, oil on canvas, New York Historical Society
Diversity really is a human characteristic, but it isn't a strength or a weakness. It just is. A great deal of modern alienation and related mental health crises disappear when people can live in stable communities with common basic values. Rootedness is the opposite of alienation.
One of the places where Postmodernists fly off the rails is when they treat identity as a singular thing. This comes out in any form of identity politics - where people define themselves by a single trait. Humans are prone to binary thinking around in and out groups, but in a healthy society, identity isn't one simple box to check off. Its a tangle of biological, familial, social and cultural drivers that can pull in different directions. It's fractal. Warring tribes can share religious and cultural identity. One sibling can be gay. Subjectivity matters.
Thomas Le Clear, Young America, c. 1863, oil on canvas, Private collection
There are a lot of identity markers in this picture.
Something else jumps out too. The communication is direct. There is no media presentation. The listeners likely know who the boy is personally.
Stock image of Greek orator Demosthenes (384-322 BC)
This is how humans always communicated. Neither our intellectual nor social development can process the perspectives of millions or the weaponized rhetoric and blanked coverage of global media. Lacking the ties and markers that define a fully-formed, healthy identity is the essence of alienation.
Alienation - lack of rootedness - makes it possible for one characteristic to become all-defining because it offers something to latch onto in an internal void. This is obvious - grievance-peddlers openly target those who "don't fit in" in an easily typecast way. But the reality is that all identities are multi-layered things, with ingrained assumptions and reactions we are not even conscious of. Put bluntly:
In the face of relentless globalist lies, it's good to take stock of some facts now and then. The Western tradition is a very general level of identity. It subdivides into national and religious categories that are enormously broad in their own right. It is easiest to think of identity as a hierarchy of nested subsets, where division at on level has no impact on belonging to the same higher ones. An affluent Danish Lutheran and struggling Austrian Catholic have different identities on most levels, but are both subsumed by the West.
Western culture, like any culture, developed organically over time. That's how humans operate.
Paris came was added to the Frankish Empire by Clovis I in the late 5th century and became capital of his Merovingian dynasty. By the time Notre-Dame was built around 7 centuries later, France had evolved into an independent kingdom with its own language.
Changes come naturally in response to circumstances, and generally weren't all-transforming in scope. The Black Death that decimated Europe and Asia in the Middle Ages altered social, political, and economic relations everywhere it hit. In the aftermath, people's identities changed on lots of levels. But they didn't stop being French, or Florentine, or Chinese.
So what's Western culture?
On the widest level, the West evolved gradually over centuries from three main roots: Christianity, the Classical heritage, and the nations of Europe. These are also really broad and messy around the edges, but can be summed up well enough. All three are embodied in Notre-Dame.
Christianity
Western culture is religiously diverse, but it is Christian. The religion became official in the Empire in the 4th century including Western Europe, and the migrating Germans of late antiquity all eventually converted. There were controversies and heretical movements but until the Great Schism of 1054 divided the Greek and Latin churches, faithful Europeans were just "Christian". Afterwards, the Church becomes the institutional religion of Western Christendom and develops international structures that create a shared identity alongside national divisions. Even after the Reformation, any form of Christianity distinguishes Western culture on the world stage. This is just one component. Other cultures can be Christian and not of the West.
Saint Catherine's Monastery, 565, Mount Sinai, Egypt.
The monastery was founded during the reign of Justinian I (emperor from 527-565) on the site where Moses was believed to have seen the burning bush and has been in use ever since.
It is definitely Christian and has ancient roots, but is not of European nationality
The Transfiguration mosaic is original and captures the supernatural character of Eastern image theology.
The Classical Tradition
The philosophical, legal, and artistic traditions of the West was built on Greco-Roman foundations.
Cass Gilbert, United States Supreme Court Building, 1932-1935, Washington, DC
The Supreme Court does look like this...
Other cultures also drew on Classical sources, but weren't Christian or European.
Andrea da Firenze, The Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas, 1366-67, fresco, Santa Maria Novella, Florence
Thomas' victory is over Avarroes, the greatest of Mohammedan Aristotelians. He was obviously drawing on the Classical tradition and was even born in Cordoba, but wasn't Christian. There was enough common ground for Thomas to respond to him, but he was tangential to the West and not of it.
The European Nations
The socio-cultural formations - nationalities - that developed in Europe out of the mix of people present at the end of antiquity. The demographics vary regionally - this gives the West its diversity of national cultures.
The creative energy of Western culture came from strong, competitive national identities within the common geography, history, and religion of Europe.
The French Gothic of Notre-Dame captures this. As the Gothic style spread across Western Christendom, it developed regional variations. So the cathedral has a distinct national identity within a common Western one. Both exist at the same time.
It's fractal.
Think of these as intersecting fields rather than a checklist, where individual cases can be complicated. Non-European individuals have assimilated into Western society, non-Classical traditions have contributed to Western through, and non-Christian creators have added to Western art and culture. But if we need to map out the general parameters of Western culture, Christianity, Classics, and Europe is a good start. Hit all three and there really isn't any ambiguity.
Notre-Dame, north rose window, circa 1235
Notre-Dame was initiated by Maurice de Sully, Bishop of Paris from 1160 to 1196 and was mostly built between 1163-1345. Paris was growing in size and prosperity as Europe stabilized after the upheavals of the barbarian migrations and fall of the western empire. It was the capital of the Île-de-France, the historical heart of the French monarchy since Hugh Capet took the title King of the Franks from the Carolingians in 987 and established the Capetian French monarchy. Bishop Sully wanted a new cathedral that was large enough for the population and worthy of the city's status. The nave was nearly done and the apse, choir and altar finished by his death in 1196. Over the 1200s, the facade and towers were built and the windows expanded to let in more light. The tower that collapsed was a later addition.
Jean Fouquet, The Right Hand of God Protecting the Faithful against the Demons, circa 1452–1460, from the Hours of Étienne Chevalier, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Paris was the capital - the Louvre was the royal palace - but the official church of the monarchy was the Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis, where the Capetian kings were traditionally crowned and buried. Notre-Dame did attract royal attention, but as a cathedral, it is the seat of the Bishop of Paris. If Saint-Denis was the symbol of the French kings, Notre-Dame was the symbol of Paris, then of France.
The design was based on earlier Romanesque prototypes, but used the new Gothic vaulting techniques that had debuted when the east end of Saint-Denis was rebuilt not long earlier. Notre-Dame was much more ambitious, and there are signs of trial-and-error problem solving. The Gothic flying buttresses were not in the initial design, but were added later when the weight of the vaults were causing the upper walls to crack. Depending how you feel about divine intervention, this may have saved it.
As the first big Gothic cathedral, Notre-Dame had rib vaults that were cutting edge for their day.
Vaulting just means spanning space with curved masonry arches or variations of arches, but appears in lots of forms dating back to prehistory. The basic principles of Gothic vaulting, like all Western vaulting trace back to Roman antiquity, but were way more complex than anything prior. Roman vaulting was relatively simple - barrel and groin vaults with round arches - because they built with concrete and these simple forms were sufficient for huge complexes.
Colosseum, 70-80 AD, Rome
The famous amphitheater is made of rings of concrete groin vaults - intersecting tunnel or barrel vaults that open on all four sides. All the vaulting is semi-circular like the arches opening to the outside.
San Paolo fuori le Mura, founded by Emperor Constantine and consecrated in 324, rebuilt by Emperor Theodosius I beginning 386, and renovated by Pope St. Gregory the Great after 590; cloister added between 1220 and 1241; nave rebuilt 1823-40, Rome
The oldest really big Roman churches weren't vaulted at all. The imperial basilicas of the 4th and 5th centuries had wood beam roofs. St. Paul's Outside the Walls was founded by the first Christian emperor on the side of the apostle's martyrdom. It is in good shape because it was relatively unmodified after the Theodosian rebuilding until the nave burned in 1823. The church was rebuilt as closely to its prior appearance as possible.
The interior shows the wooden roof. Beams spanning the nave provided the structural support allowing for large windows between them to light the vast space. They are visible here.
Early medieval churches followed suit.
Church of Saint George, Oberzell, Reichenau, Germany; Pisa Cathedral, 1063-1092
Roman arches and flat wooden roofs with windows between the beams centuries after St. Paul's. We can see the unifying influence of Christianity on the European nations. The basilica type was an appealing sign of tradition and historical meaning. But fire was a danger, especially in north of the Alps.
Léopold Robert, The Church of San Paolo fuori le mura the Day after the Fire of 1823, 1825, Thorvaldsen's Museum, Copenhagen; Giovanni Paolo Panini, San Paolo fuori le Mura, 1750, oil on canvas, Private collection; stock photo of engraving of the interior after the fire.
In a relevant parallel to Notre-Dame, a worker repairing the lead roof of St. Paul's caused a fire that destroyed most of the nave.
The before and after show the open beams and the damage that Notre-Dame avoided.
St. Sernin at Toulouse, circa 1080-1120
Fire resistance was one of the reasons behind the development of the vaulted churches that gave the Romanesque period its name. The style isn't Roman, but the groin vaults in the aisles and barrel vaulted nave are a revival of Roman engineering in a new context and with new materials. Medieval builders used stone and mortar not concrete.
Ste. Madeleine at Vézelay, circa 1104-32
Barrel vaults are massive and need full support along the sides. This eliminated the clerestory windows seen between the roof beams in the basilicas and made the interior dark. Figuring out how to groin vault the span of the nave allowed windows between the supporting piers.
This was an improvement, but the size of the windows was limited by the weight of the roof. Groin vaults transfer the load to the four corners instead of needing to be supported along two full sides. But they are still thick and heavy and transferring the downward pressure means that lateral forces are created at the base. The walls have to be massive enough to contain this outward force or else the arches would collapse. The windows appear where the arches are under the most lateral pressure, so sacrificing too much wall isn't possible.
Gothic builders solved the weight problem with the sort of ingenuity that reveals the notion of a Dark Age as the Renaissance lie that it was. They realized that a lattice of arches could carry the weight of the roof because the spaces in-between didn't have to support anything and could be filled with lighter materials. The ribs still converge on corner piers like the groin vaults did, but since they weigh so much less, the supporting walls could be much thinner.
Gothic arches were another improvement.
A pointed arch is proportionately taller than a Roman one and this angles the force vector of the transferred weight of the roof downward. The ceiling gets higher, with less outward pressure on the walls at the base of the vaults.
There is a symbolic advantage to pointed arches too. The Roman arch is a semi-circle, and a circle has no implied direction. There is a reason why it has always been a symbol for timelessness and perfect balance. The Christian notion of transcendence is different. It has metaphysical and moral direction. The vertical proportions of the Gothic arch create a feeling of ascent in visitors that is often described as soaring. What better form to express the spiritual aspirations of the generations who have worshiped here.
The flying buttress was the last piece of the Gothic puzzle. This was the crowning engineering achievement of the medieval mason. Buttressing just means preventing the lateral pressure at the base of a vault from moving the stones and causing a collapse. In the Colosseum or a Romanesque church, the massive walls buttress the vaults. Flying buttresses are like vaults on the outside of the building that meet the wall at the same places where the interior ribs converge. This takes the job of countering the outward force off the wall, freeing it for much bigger openings.
Notre-Dame was the prototype of big Gothic cathedral, and the flying buttresses were still being worked out when construction started. The finished project is brilliant - a lattice of ribs and flying buttresses in suspension with thin walls and huge windows.
This set the stage for the stained glass - the preeminent form of public art in the Gothic period - and as the builders refined their techniques, the windows kept getting bigger.
Notre-Dame showed how to have stone vaults and lots of light, and the Gothic spread through the West. The fire-resistance was put to the test when the roof beams caught fire. The 19th century tower didn't survive but the vaults held.
The burning beams are visible, but the sturdy rib vaults passed their test.
So where does the Classical tradition fit in? "Centuries of "humanists" and "rationalists" have assured us that this was the product of a dark age, where the lamp of ancient learning was stamped out by superstitious dark-fearing barbarians. At least until the Italian Renaissance saved us. While this perspective is antiquated among serious historians, there is still a general tendency to see Classical and Gothic as stylistic opposites. They are, but only if we think of them as "styles" in a post-Renaissance sense. Consider:
Baron Henri de Triqueti, Dante and Virgil, modeled 1861; cast 1862, bronze, Museum of Fine Arts. Boston
Aquinas' contest with Avarroes involved Aristotle, and John Scotus Eriugena was commenting on Neoplatonic theology in 9th century Ireland. Virgil and Ovid were popular, aspects of Roman law were adopted, and there were steady advances in technology. It is worth noting that the main sources of Classical culture in the West - monasteries and Byzantine and Muslim transcription - were all religious.
The wondrous engineering of Notre-Dame is a perfect example of this medieval connection to the Classical past. The underlying vaulting principles trace back to Roman times, but they have been so refined to serve a new context that it is hard to see. This is organic evolution, not cultural tyranny in the name of something someone wants.
To be fair, let's hear from the red team.
The notion that the Gothic is opposed to Classical reason boils down to some jaw-dropping ponces thought Gothic looked superstitious,
...then subversives made it evil.
Think for a moment on the rhetorical slight of hand in using mass media to transform an expression of Western culture and faith into a house of horror. Wizardry.
Back in reality, we can see pictures from the period that show the systematic logic that went into planning the proportions of a cathedral. These are not the same proportions as a Greek temple, but they apply the same notion of Classical logos through the mathematical principles of Pythagoras, Euclid, and others.
Adelard of Bath's translation of Euclid's Elementa (Elements), from an early 14th century Scholastic miscellany, ff. 293r-335r, British Library, London
These texts covered the Medieval Arts or Trivium and Quadrivium - grammar, rhetoric, logic, mathematics, geometry, astronomy and music. In this illumination from Euclid we see the personification of Geometry holding the compass and square, the same tools that builders used to translate mathematical logic into visual form.
The arrangement of the facade follows the proportions of the Golden Ratio. Using this oddly common ratio in building is an ancient idea.
.
The great rose windows echo Classical ideas about fortune and the cyclical passage of time with applied Euclidean geometry
It is true that Notre-Dame is a symbol first of Paris and of France. To suggest otherwise is retarded. At the same time, it is a magnificent Parisian and French expression of bedrock principles of Western culture that are the basis of Western identity. The Christian faith in every aspect of the construction is obvious. It comes from the morningtide of one of the great European nations, but the analogy is deeper. As a clearly French version of a clearly European style it visualizes what European nationalism is - diverse and distinct cultures within a larger set of values. Order and logic are its lifeblood - the engineering and the symbolism radiate the techne guided by episteme that was the Classical ideal of art. But it is rhetorical too.
Notre-Dame is not that big for a Gothic cathedral, but visitors are consistently struck by the effect of the interior. The extreme order and proportion - the logos - triggers an emotional response - pathos - because this order resonates as True, and therefore Beautiful. This is where the pointed vaults come back in. The vertical rise gives the pathos a sense of direction. It carries your attention upward, to thoughts of the divine source of this beautiful order.
Faith, nation, and reason in perfect harmony.
Nicolas Coustou, Pietà, 1723, Notre-Dame de Paris
The altarpiece is more classical in style, but the theme of the Pietà is perfect. It is fitting that this happened during Holy Week, when the path of hope through suffering to resurrection is center stage. But it is also a reminder of what made Notre-Dame such a powerful symbol in the first place. It isn't the building but the faith of the builders. No one opted for inferior stone or clear glass to save a sou because they were motivated by deeper commitment.
Cultural rootedness with faith and reason. There is no one solution for alienation. But ditching the globalism for organic social organization would go a long way... no drugs or 5G required.
William Holman Hunt, The Light of the World, 1851-1853, oil on canvas, Manchester Art Gallery
Be glad for Notre-Dame, but remember where it came from. What it represents. The harmony is that of the West - a visual symphony of complimentary identities that sang its faith to the heavens. But for all it's splendor, all its stained glass light, it is merely a reflection of the true light that gave it meaning. Without that it is an outdoor museum, a check-mark on a sightseeing bucket list between the Pyramids of Giza and the Sydney Opera House. But with it it is a living reminder that the light of the world is not in bricks and stones, and if the conviction needed to make a Notre-Dame seems lacking, it is not because we are alienated from the world. It is because our world has been alienated from us.
Step back into the light, reconnect with the West - or whatever your heritage - and realize that the divine is not found in brick and stone. The medieval masons knew that - their Gothic vaults pointed heavenward.
Sometime we just need a reminder.
No comments:
Post a Comment