The Road Goes Ever On

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Reims' Carnegie Library

Carnegie libraries used to be a big deal in the US, a century ago, and some still are.There is no surer way to enslave people than to deny them information, and Mr. Carnegie had the good sense to fight that good fight. Much of Reims was destroyed in WWI, and Carnegie, as well as other generous Americans, did much to finance the rebuilding of this and other European cities. The Carnegie Bibliotheque in Reims is no mere library, however: it is one of the greatest of Art Deco structures. And something we had to see.

Full frontal

Bust of Mr. C

Building detail

Young stained glass, but as beautiful as any other

Card catalog room

Staircase

Ceiling in what we think was the main reading room

Windows, same room

Lobby chandelier

Lobby wall mosaic

Another; one of many

Door off the entry porch; note ashcan

Porch ceiling

Flower pot

All right next to the great cathedral's grounds

Laon Cathedral, Sculpture

West facade, north door, ever-popular Last Judgment

In the archivolt, a wise virgin

And a wise ex-virgin; no, a foolish ex-virgin; whatever

Judgment up closer, note tiny resurrection scenes at bottom

Damnation; not least, a bishop

Coronation of Mary, major big tympanum

Abraham and Isaac; and big knife

Jews burning...a favorite Christian Medieval theme

Slimey creatures

All in a row

More of the towers

More menagerie

Rare female gargoyle

Looking up one of the towers...Cistercian
severity?

From the cathedral looking toward lower (and newer) Laon,
much battered in the WWs

Laon Cathedral, Architecture And Glass

Laon, in Piccardy, northeast of Paris, is one of the great early Gothic cathedrals, transitional by description, but pretty fully Gothic, if you ask me. It was begun in 1155 and finished in the 1230s.

Laon Cathedral...with restaurant, tourists, TI, and tourist train...

The two west towers, with their menagerie of oxen, unicorns, etc; there were to be
seven towers, but "only" five actually were built

The white stone is marvelous and permits all kinds of coloration; we had the place
pretty much to ourselves; you can see you're off the beaten cathedral path when
the gift shoppe consists of a few postcards and a voluntary payment system;
anyhow, here is the knave view, great light, even greater up toward the bow

Elevation; aisles, real galleries, triforia, smallish clerestory
windows; note the columns, more like Romanesque...

View to the choir and bow, with great rose window and three
13th century lancets

Crossing

View abaft

Choir view

Alas, all the side chapels are walled-off, thus much diminishing
the sense of size inside; a later post-medieval innovation, one
imagines

Beautiful bow rose window

The Becket window; he did some time here at the cathedral
school, under the protection of the king of France, waiting to
see how much of a bribe the pope would require, and whether
Henry II could afford it