ST. DENIS
Where It All Begins
Abbey Church of St. Denis stands as the first inspiration of Gothic cathedrals. Abbot Suger first pioneered a form of structural revolution that overthrows the current Romanesque form. The display of the mural, for instance, became more of a technical condition. St. Denis’ fame as a pilgrimage center grew as Charles the Bald presented the Abbey Church with relics of Christ’s Passion.
Name: Basilica of St. Denis
Artist: Abbot Suger, Diocese of St. Denis
Material: Stone, mortar, marble, glass, wood, metal
Date: 1144 AD
Culture: French Gothic
Scale: Length: 108m; Width: 39m
Current Location: St. Denis, north of Paris, France
The idea that the House of God is on earth has roots since the temple of Solomon to Jerusalem. In the debate over the sumptuousness of a cathedral, Abbot Suger looked at the several archetypes from the Bible of the celestial dwelling from Solomon, Ezekiel's temple, to the Book of Revelation, all of which he is convinced is the celestial experience that his church would give to the physical eye. In St. Denis, two rose windows are dedicated to pilgrimage and crusade as Abbot Suger drew comparison to Jerusalem. One window represented the First Crusade and the other the journey of Charlemagne, thus, securing the Carolingian heritage of the church’s patron. (von Simson 1988, pg. 90). He incorporated the criticism of St. Bernard to eliminate grotesque monster and stood to empower other monastic architectures in Burgundy and Normandy. (von Simson 1988, pg. 95). A dearth of immediate models might have been a great starting point for the new Gothic design. Abbot Suger drew comparisons to Solomon’s Temple to portray the creation of God. Abbot Suger did not credit the patrons nor other masons with the new design. He emphasized exactly luminosity and concordance of parts.
Gothic began as the style of the Ile-de-France. Within a decade, three architectural projects marked the beginning of the Gothic age. The first Gothic cathedral is that of Sens, the first abbey is St. Denis, and Chartres as the first sculptural program of Gothic art. These three buildings were managed by Bishop Henry of Sens, Bishop Geoffrey of Chartres, and Abbot Suger. (von Simson 1988, pg. 64). At this point, France was going through a state of theodicy as churches grew as a “custom of our ancestor” (von Simson 1988, pg. 87). As St. Denis became a historical monument, it stood as a defense of the realm, in the manner of custom as well as political battlefield. King Louis VI announced that France had been endowed with the glory of Christ’s Passion as part of the crusader campaign and thus, advocated for pilgrimages which St. Denis would have hosted with relics from Jerusalem. Linking France with Jerusalem was an appeal to a canon of works and worship images that troubled St. Bernard as well as Abbot Suger as they form a motif for the seat of Christianity for which it was to bear resemblance to Jerusalem as the seat of the new Church. In that, the Abbot wished to portray the French façade as the portal of heaven.
An iconographic correspondence between the Cluniac Abbey of Beaulieu and St. Denis is the scene of the Last Judgement, where the wise virgins and the foolish virgins of the Bible appear as though leading the way into the Celestial City to meet the Prince (von Simson 1988, pg. 114). The romantic view of eschatology in the Last Judgement parable symbolizes the anagogical aspect of the Abbey’s art that the abbot wished to be splendidly finished “with the gold of Jerusalem” which is perfect in giving off the true Light. The luminosity of the church windows in stained glass was not just his infatuation with light which is meant to illuminate the mind. They were the connecting devices that drew the church together into a precious stone that in theology was the incarnation of the Light in metaphor. Referring to the mysticism of the Pseudo-Areopagite, an account of the eclipse in Jerusalem at the time of the Crucifixion by a Syrian, the church needed to embody the eternal light that would unveil the “superior temper” of divinity. (von Simson 1988, pg. 160). After the inspiration of the church’s patron saint, St. Denis, light would be redeemed in the meaning of the Pseudo-Areopagite, who have alluded himself to be the witness of such time as that of Christ’ Passion and the Dormition of the Virgin. This has inspired the luminosity that Gothic churches were known for their stained glass. This hierarchy of light was what was considered the governance of the City of God as it was also the ecclesiastical hierarchy (von Simson 1988, pg. 137). The archetype of St. Denis becomes a sanctuary of saint but also in the galleries of Kings a model for later Gothic churches in France such as Amiens and Notre Dame de Paris.