Amiens 2

Outside, south side of the apse, a forest of flying buttresses

Northside

A line of gargoyles

View from the Somme

The Sommes in Amiens

After only a few hundred years subsidence was noted in
the building--the cathedral is only a hundred meters or so
from the river--and huge metal spikes such as this were
driven in various places; that was the 16th or 17th century,
I think; things have held up well enough since...

View of the great cathedral from the south side, along one of Amiens' fashionable
streets (we took a lunch break); note interesting playground

Back at the cathedral later, we ran into a group of young school-children en
field trip; decked in their little striped vests, each one wearing a big name-tag,
with picture, contact information...

Nothing quite like the enthusiasm of children

Amiens 1

After Noyon we drove on to Amiens and spent one night at the Parc des Cygnes campground (which charges roughly 1 euro per hour for wifi; at so many others it is free). The next morning we drove into Amiens, looking for a camping aire, never found it, but did find suitable free parking about a kilometer from the great church. Amiens Cathedral is one of the big three or four "classic" Gothic cathedrals in France, along with Chartres, Bourges, Reims, and maybe another few, all done in the late 12th-13th century. Amiens is the biggest and highest of them and also has notable sculpture. I'll divide our pix into three posts and then usual sacreligious out-takes.

West facade; we'll return to look at the portal sculptures later

Amiens has a maze, like Chartres; here Vicki has again found its
center

Nave view; Amiens' immensity really is awe-inspiring...

Elevation...aisles, blind triforia, huge clerestory windows;
four-part vaulting

Crossing, way, way up there

From the crossing looking back west

In one of the aisles, incredible height

Apse-ward

Amiens has glass, but apparently not of the age nor quality
of Chartres; looks pretty good to me...

Even with the rose windows, it is the tracery you find
yourself impressed by, not so much the glass

The famous ribbon of leaves that runs the length of the cathedral between the aisle
and triforium

Noyon Cathedral

Those (Tawana, Wes) following us on the Cathedral trail know that the next stop would be Noyon, another transitional Gothic. Noyon is in the Oise, WWI country, still not very far from Paris. Vicki's distant and dubious relation, Robert Louis Stevenson, praised Noyon's cathedral in his An Inland Journey.

West facade; the symmetry ends here...there
are many out-buildings, including a large
refectory adjacent to the north side of the west
porch; Noyon is pretty old for a Gothic,
mid-12th

There's hardly a grain of sculpture at Noyon;
all removed, presumably by the masses
during the Revolution; except for a few
gargoyles

Knave view; note alternating piers and columns; the vault
originally was of the earlier six-part style, with the alternating
arrangement; after a fire way back in 1293, it was replaced
with the by-then standard four-part

Elevation: interesting! relatively large aisles,
galleries, blind triforium, smallish clerestory
windows; we've seen few Gothics with
galleries. one of the first Romanesque
features to go

Perhaps Noyon's most interesting facet is its
use of rounded transept ends; virtually all
Romanesques and Gothics have rounded
apses--that's how the Romans built their
basilicas, which the Christians mostly copied;
this is the north transept; rounded

There's some nice-looking glass, but it's not
what you come here for..it's the architecture

Looking from altar back to the west

Apse and altar view

Interesting  (to me) sculpture department: Joan of Arc was
converted from witch to saint only in the 20th century; well,
yes, she spent several hundred years merely as a martyr;
the sculpture here presumably depicts a "sacred
conversation" involving her and the then-pope and his
assistants; life-sized too

Ditto; she was canonized in 1920; the English
might have objected, but they no longer had
privilege of the floor; so to speak; that's a joke,
son

We are now in the cloister adjoining the church and
refectory, admiring a very old well and then noting that the
arches supporting the vaulting above are listing seriously 
to port; we decided to move on to the cathedral's exterior

From the south; note the severe right angles
on the towers; Noyon has plenty of  integral
buttresses, but flying buttresses only at the
apse I think

High on the south-side apse, about the only exterior
sculpture remaining

This is/was the chapter library, adjoining the cathedral; built
of wood, resting on a wall; dated 1506; personally, I like
storing my books in less fire-prone situations; but this one
has indeed stood the test of time

Carving on a library pier; no termites, either

The old-fashioned way...paving a drive-way in Noyon

A pretty town; most of it post-WWI...

Senlis Cathedral

The aire in Beauvais was OK and free and just across from a shopping center with a super-duper-marche and cafe and many other shoppes. I was in heaven. Also a cheap lavarie where I did the wash. So we spent an extra day, a productive administrative day, despite lack of wifi. Vicki did research for further journeys. Next morning we drove on, in threatening clouds and cold (it's late May) to Senlis and the first of the day's two transitional Gothic cathedrals. Senlis, north of Paris, was an important center in the earlier Middle Ages. Paris' bishop reported to Senlis' bishop for some time, and the bishops of Senlis crowned the kings of France. Or maybe that was Sens.* Anyway...

Senlis cathedral, yet another Notre Dame, begun in the mid-
12th and finished before the 13th; then, as we'll see,
remodeled extensively (fires, etc.) in later Gothic; from the
south; flying buttresses all around the apse

The big south tower

Interior, nave, looking to the east and the burst of brilliance
there...[interlude for theological reflection]...; I like to refer
 to this as the knave view

South rose window

Crossing; under nets; interestingly, the older ribbed
vaulting is fine, but the later Gothic add-on ornaments,
hanging down off the ceilings, are crumbling; thus the
nets

Elevation: big aisles, big galleries, no triforia,
not-so-big clerestory windows; an earlier
stage in transition

And, as in the previous shot, the really cool thing to note
at Senlis is the use of alternating columns (classical
columns, with Corinthian capitals) with big Medieval piers;
sort of a Romanesque/Gothic/Romanesque/Gothic
arrangement; originally related to the vaulting, requiring
a heavy support/medium support alternation, this pattern
quickly died out, with uniform large piers replacing it

Ceiling of the large south-side chapel of St. Anonymous;
note the huge later Gothic down-hanging ornamentation
thingie (there's a name for this, I am sure, and I must add
it to the inventory already cluttering my mind); anyhow,
this one is relatively low-down and evidently not
deteriorating like the one's high up that require nets

There is a fair amount of nice glass, later Medieval-looking,
higher up

E.g., Susanna and the Dirty Old Men

Looking into a crypt, dated 1000AD, burial site for SS
Gervais and Prothais

Starboard portal

West facade; the north tower was eaten by
termites, according to the Condemnations
of 1277, which was taken as a sign that...
wait...no...

West typanum and earlier Gothic sculpture;
another life of Mary

By the mid 13th century, Medieval sculpture was beginning
to show motion and emotion; note particularly the jamb-
statue on the right, a St. John I think, who seems to be
saying "Hurry up! I have to go...!"

Adjacent to the cathedral is a good bit of earlier Medieval
and even Gallo-Roman ruins; here, bits of a royal chapel

Then, as we were walking back to the
camper, the storm finally hit, rain and then
wintry mix; we ducked under an old wall
and noticed the sign, which reads "Rempart
Gallo-Romain IIIe Siecle"

I was trying to shoot the hail bouncing off
the roof of the building across the street...
Goth'Ink is a tattoo shop

Pea-size hail accumulating on our wind-shield

*Further research has shown that it was indeed Sens that was superior to Paris, bishoprically.... We'll get there next fall.