Swarthmore College Works Art & Art History Faculty Works Art & Art History Winter 1984 The Case of Rouen Cathedral: An Art Historical Detective Story Michael Watt Cothren Swarthmore College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-art Part of the Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Art and Architecture Commons Let us know how access to these works benefits ouy Recommended Citation Michael Watt Cothren. (1984). "The Case of Rouen Cathedral: An Art Historical Detective Story". Vanderbilt Alumnus. Volume 70, Issue 1. 21-25, 34. https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-art/107 This work is brought to you for free by Swarthmore College Libraries' Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Art & Art History Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Case of Rouen Cathedral An Art Historical Detective Story by MICHAEL W. COTHREN ~ for the reign of the patron, King Louis IX, "Praeteritorum enim recordatio futu· ~ and even imply the political sanction of rorum est exhibitio. 11 ~ Christ for Louis's earthly power. The The recollection of the past is the I) windows of many medieval churches, ~ however, present problems to the mod­ promise of the future. 05 Sugerius Abbas em viewer which are even more basic. i The ravages of time have often con­ s' structed barriers between us and the orig­ hen we think of French inal glazings of many Gothic churches, Gothic stained glass, ra­ reducing them to a mere fragment of their diant and weU-preserved original appearance, and thus hindering ensembles like the Pari­ our aesthetic, as well as our symbolic and sian Sainte-Chapelle or historical understanding. The windows the Cathedral of Chartres are most likely of Rauen Cathedral are a case in point. to come to mind. There are good reasons The cathedral church of the Norman for this. Works such as these, because capital of Rauen (about eighty miles they have been well cared for, maintain northwest of Paris) was one of the most their aesthetic impact to this day and al­ impressive buildings of the Middle Ages. low us to experience them in a way sim­ Constructed in the High Gothic style after ilar to that intended by their creators for a fire in 1200 seriously damaged the pre­ the original viewers over seven hundred I . vious Romanesque church on the site, years ago. These glittering, colorful com­ I • the new cathedral was filled with stained positions were meant to take our breath Figure 1: Malchus led before the Bishop glass windows executed b-y some of the away, to dominate our experience within and Prefect of Ephesus. Detail from a most important artists of the time. Glass a soaring, unified architectural space, to panel of stained glass from the Seven painting was arguably the major medium imbue us with a sense of wonder and Sleepers of Ephesus window of Rauen of painting in this period largely because excitement. The idea that sparkling and Cathedral, now in the Glencaim Mu­ of the vogue of Gothic architectural com­ multicolored light can replace walls to seum, Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, dating plexes like the Cathedral of Rauen. The enclose lofty architectural spaces is still from 1200-1202. Gothic architect opened broad spaces be- overwhelming, even to jaded twentieth­ tween supports so that walls could be century viewers to whom space shuttles replaced with colored glass depicting ec­ and skyscrapers are an everyday Chartres or the Sainte-Chapelle, many clesiastical subjects of hagiographic, the­ experience. aspects of them- such as their symbolic ological, occasionally moralizing, often Yet even if our visual responses ally us meaning or the circumstances that called political significance. With our thirteenth-century precursors for their creation-remain obscure to the Some of the windows painted for the when standing before the windows of modem viewer unfamiliar with medie­ nave aisle of Rauen were entrusted to a val theological speculations or political painter who is generally considered one power struggles. We need guidance to un­ of the greatest artists of the early thir­ Michael Cothren, A '73, is associate pro­ derstand how the glazing of Chartres out­ teenth century, a true old master. He was fessor of art history at Swarthmore Col­ lines and interprets cosmic history from a virtuoso in the use of overlapping to lege in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. On the creation of the world, through the suggest three dimensional space, and he October 16, he was the guest lecturer for Incarnation, to the end of time. Even more enveloped his figures in lusciously the Vanderbilt Art Association's Lecture obscure is the political justification pro­ painted drapery that falls in elegant, long Series; his topic was the Nave Aisle Wm­ claimed in the windows of the Sainte­ curves over sophisticated and graceful dows of the Cathedral of Rouen. Chapelle, which cite sacred precursors poses (Fig. 1). He used glass of unusually VANDERBILT ALUMNUS/ Winter 1984121 rich texture and color. Only our igno­ the simple, singular, early thirteenth­ stained glass, reported many losses. In. rance about his name has prevented him century lancets with up-to-date, larger, 1934 when Lafond returned to the store­ from holding the revered place he de­ and greatly subdivided windows. Instead room, other panels had been smuggled serves within the history of art. Medie­ of one broad opening, the new windows out and sold, including two panels pui:­ valists refer to him as "the John the were composed of four narrow ones (Fig. chased by Raymond Pitcairn, on e of Baptist Master," naming him after his 2) . But the stained glass taken out of the which has recently entered The Cloisters best known work, a window at Rouen old windows was too precious to discard, Collection of the Metro_politan Museutn which portrayed the life of Saint John the so the decision was made to adapt it to of Art. In 1934 it was further discovered Baptist; it would be like calling Michel­ fit the new multiple, but narrow open­ that the panels that had remained in stor­ angelo "the Sistine Ceiling Master." ings. The panels chosen for reuse were age had not been cared for and were in The work of the John the Baptist Mas­ much transformed to fit their new deplorable condi tion. These bat tered ter and his contemporaries in the nave of home-butch ered we might want to say. fragments have now been moved to the Rouen has not been preserved as whole Some were cut down, most were re­ French national storage facility at the windows like those of Chartres and the shaped, turned on the bias or patched up. Chateau of Champs-sur-Mame. A pro­ Sainte-Chapelle. Portions of them have Then they were plugged into the open­ gram is currently underway to return actually been removed from Rouen. In ings like a series of patches in a quilt . them to Rauen. The first product of this fact the best examples of the work of the Little attempt, other than the addition of effor t i s a splendid m odern window, John the Baptist Master are not even in a new strip of decoration along the edge which has recently been installed in a France, but in American collections. Two to form a border, seems to have been made chapel of the choir of the cathedral. Con­ panels are in the Raymond Pitcairn Col­ to give any semblance of formal conti· temporary French glass painter Sylvie lection in the Glencaim Museum, Bryn nuity, or to bind the battered relics into Gaudin has surrounded eight fragmen­ Athyn, Pennsylvania. Others are in the a coherent whole. There was even less tary early-thirteenth-century panels with Worcester Art Museum in Massachu­ concern for continuity in symbolic skillful and judicious modem variations setts and the Metropolitan Museum in meaning. Episodes from the lives of the of their medieval themes-a mixture of New York. Thus, experiencing the win­ various saints from several windows were the medieval and the modem created in dows of the nave aisle of Rouen requires randomly arranged within a single lancet such a way that justice has been done to some effort, since they are no longer there. as if subject were a matter of little sig­ both. It requires the assistance of a detective. nifican·ce. It is impossible to follow a n ar­ My study of the Rouen nave aisle win­ First, all the dispersed pieces in the rative or to discern a symbolic theme. dows began with an examination of this United States and France must be tracked Perhaps this was the first "museum in­ group of panels-those in American col­ down. Then they must be examined stallation " of medieval art. lections and those that have been re­ closely to determine to what extent each Two such patchwork windows con­ turned to Rouen in this modem window. has been distorted by modem alterations front the visitor to the Cathedral of Rouen In 1982, while I was on sabbatical in Paris (stained glass in museums has often been today in two chapels of the north aisle of working on this and oth er projects, how­ "refreshed" by its trip through the art the nave. Together they contain the rem­ ever, more fragments were discovered, market). Only at this point can an at­ nants of a dozen or so windows. As late fragmen ts that had apparently been left tempt be made to piece together the mea­ as 1830, however, there were two others in a storage crate and forgotten. There ger fragments that have been gathered on the south side of the church.