Cathedrale Notre Dame de Paris

An Emblematic Monument of Paris

Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Paris is over 800 year’s old gothic style Cathedral present at Paris. The era of gothic architecture originated through the construction of this Cathedral in the capital city of France. The bishop of Paris, Maurice de Sully decided to give the capital a cathedral worthy of France's largest city. He wanted to build it in the style of the day, now known as the gothic style. King Louis VII, one of his classmates, encouraged the project. The Cathedral, notable residents of the city, and the entire population participated in construction: some offered money; others offered their labor, while others offered their knowledge. Construction began in 1163, and Notre-Dame would be completed some 100 years later, in 1272. During this time, many craftsmen's guilds (tailors, sculptors, carpenters, joiners, masons, and glassblowers) worked relentlessly under the supervision of seasoned architects. They all made an equal contribution to God and to Mary. Mary, Mother of God, to whom Maurice wanted to dedicated the entire cathedral, it was dedicated to her, Notre-Dame de Paris, Our Lady of Paris! At the cathedral, there are no fewer than 37 representations of the Virgin (sculptures, paintings, stained glass, and more). Since it was built, the cathedral has been one of the main symbols of Paris and of France.

Architectural Elements

This building has been given the romantic name of "the forest" because for many of the beams used to build it, each beam came from a different tree. The structure is made from oak. Its dimensions are very impressive: 120 m long, 13 m wide at the nave, 40 m in the transept and 10 m high. Technically, the gothic arches required sharply-sloped roofs. Notre-Dame de Paris’s roofs are at a 55° incline. In addition, as framing timber became less common due to deforestation and urban development at the time, it was necessary to use weaker and lighter cutting wood, which made it possible to erect the structure and increase its incline. The structure supports a lead roof composed of 1326 tiles, each measuring 5 mm thick, for a total weight of 210,000 kg. In the 11th and 12th centuries, Cathedral roofs were covered with flat tiles coming from abundant clay deposits.

West Facade

The façade is an imposing, simple and harmonious mass whose strength and somber grandeur is based on interplay between vertical and horizontal lines: four powerful buttresses that spring up to the top of the towers, lifting them heavenwards. They symbolically let us know that this cathedral was built for God. Two wide horizontal strips seem to bring the building back down to our mortal earth. This cathedral is also a cathedral for men. This façade’s simplicity and harmony has fascinated modern art historians and contemporary architects. At the centre of the façade, near the gallery of the Virgin, a large rose measuring 9.60 m in diameter which was created around 1225, stands at the centre of the façade, forming a halo above a statue of the Virgin with Child between two angels. On the right and the left, there are statues of Adam and Eve, which remind us of original sin. These statues were rebuilt by Viollet-le-Duc in the 19th century.

Under the balustrade, there is a wide horizontal frieze, the gallery of kings, a row of twenty-eight statues representing twenty-eight generations of kings of Judah, descendants of Jesse and human ancestors of Mary and Jesus. This part of the façade shows that Mary, a mortal woman born of the human race, gave birth to Jesus, who was both man and God. These painted statues were added to the cathedral in the first third of the 13th century and quickly became familiar representations of the kings of France.

Stained Glass Windows

The buildings were arranged around a small cloister that allowed access to the cathedral. This cloister’s arcatures were decorated with eighteen glass windows created by Gérente according to Steinheil’s cartoons. These windows represent the Legend of Saint Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris. Each window is accompanied by a Latin inscription that narrates the scene. The medallion on the main bay of the cloister portrays the Coronation of the Virgin, created by Gérente based on Steinhel’s drawings. Only the last six scenes from the life of Saint Genevieve are accessible to visitors from the Treasury corridor.

Paintings

The Mays of Notre-Dame de Paris are large paintings accompanied by poems in honor of the Virgin. They were commissioned almost every year from 1630 to 1707 by the Parisian Goldsmiths’ guild. They were offered the following spring of each year, on 1 May, to their cathedral in honor of the Virgin Mary. Along with the Cathedral comprises of various paintings with great significance some of them are Saint Peter curing the sick with his shade, The Conversion of Saint Paul, The Centurion Cornelius at Saint Peter’s Feet, Saint Peter's Sermon in Jerusalem, The Crucifixion of Saint Peter, The Crucifixion of Saint Andrew, The Stoning of Saint Stephen, The Prophet Agabus Predicting Saint Paul's Suffering in Jerusalem. The presence of these paintings around the walls and corners of the structures adds more elegance to the complete Cathedral. Most of the paintings are described with some scriptures encrypted from the Holy Scriptures to define its significance.

Portals

Towards the south of the cathedral, a white statue of Mother Mary along with infant Jesus is present against the south east pillar of the transept. Ever since the cathedral was first founded in the 12th century, an altar dedicated to the Virgin has stood on this spot. This statue is the most well known of the thirty-seven representations of the Virgin housed by the cathedral. Sculpted in the middle of the 14th century, it comes from the Chapel of Saint Aignan in the ancient Cloister of the Canons on the Île de la Cité. After being transferred to Notre-Dame in 1818, it was first of all placed on the trumeau of the Portal of the Virgin, to replace the 13th century Virgin knocked down in 1793. It was in 1855, during the restoration campaign of Viollet-le-Duc, that it was moved to where it now stands. This is a historic location, as since the end of the 12th century an altar to the Virgin had been in place on the same spot.

The Portal of the Last Judgment is the west façade's central portal, on the lower lintel; depicting the dead is being resuscitated from their tombs. Just above that, on the upper lintel, the archangel Michael is weighing their souls according to the lives they led on earth and the love they showed to God and to men. The chosen people are led to the left towards Heaven (to Christ's right) and the condemned are lead to the right, to hell, by a devil.

The Portal of Saint Anne is the portal on the west façade on the right. It was installed around 1200 before the other two portals of the façade. It’s in the centre; there is a magnificent Virgin with Child in the Romanesque style, with all of the elegant and serene characteristics of majestic Virgins. She is seated under a canopy and on a throne, bearing a crown and a scepter and holding her Son, who holds the Book of the Law, on her lap. There is an angel on each side of the throne, and on the left, there is the bishop of Paris and perhaps his treasurer. On the right, there is a king of France. The bishop could be Saint Germain and the king could be Childebert, but these individuals could not be precisely identified. Above the tympanum, in the concentric archivolts, we see the heavenly court (Angels, Kings, Prophets and Elders of the Apocalypse) singing the glory of God, a wonderful example of harmony and sculptural sophistication.

The cathedral's presence at the capital city of France has engraved a mark of attraction to the tourists. The architect's exclusive effort is depicted through the portals, sculptures and paintings which add more beauty to the cathedral. From the historical perspective the cathedral is an emblematic monument of Paris. Thus, Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral is a significant figure of Gothic architecture and Christianity.