Chartres Royal Portal – Ascension or Creation

33

Chartres Royal Portal Ascension or Creation?

By Richard J Legault

Copyright September 2018

Copyright December 2020

Chartres Royal Portal - Ascension or Creation?

of 30

Abstract: A review of why the sculptures over the left door of the Royal Portal of

Notre-Dame de Chartres Cathedral in France, cannot be read as the Apostles

witnessing the Ascension of Christ.

Ascension Doorway – At the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Chartres, the leftmost doorway of the

three-door Royal Portal is generally known as the Ascension doorway. The name refers to the

New Testament narrative in the Acts of the Apostles (1:9-11) describing how the Apostles

watched Jesus Christ ascend to heaven in the flesh, from atop the Mount called Olivet.1

Ascension Day, traditionally a Thursday, the fortieth day of Easter (following the count given in

1 All biblical citations and references are to the King James Version (KJV) except as otherwise noted.

Figure 1 - Royal Portal Left Door Lintels, Tympanum and Archivolts, circa 1145, limestone, Notre Dame de Chartres Cathedral, Chartres. (Photo: Legault)


of 30

Acts 1:3), has been commemorated in churches from the earliest days of Christianity with a

variety of specialized rites, rituals, prayers, chants, processions, sermons and visual artwork.

Academic and popular sources on Chartres Cathedral generally identify the scene sculpted into

the tympanum, archivolts and lintel stones over this doorway, shown in Figure 1, as depicting

the moment of Christ’s Ascension.2 Most sources simply mention this identification with scant

discussion or analysis of the images themselves in relation to the corresponding Biblical texts.

Some do acknowledge the Ascension interpretation is ambiguous and vulnerable to an

alternative interpretation, yet they nevertheless stick to the conventional view.3 An outstanding

exception to this lack of analysis is Margot E. Fassler’s excellent review of the rituals of the

Feast of the Ascension historically performed at Chartres. Unlike the others, she is less steadfast

in insisting on an Ascension reading of the sculptures. But more importantly, her analysis digs

deeply into the historical facts of the matter by reviewing the rites and rituals performed at

Chartres on the Feast of the Ascension – the liturgy, the songs and most importantly, I think,

the procession. As part of these processional rituals she states specifically that, ‘The sequence

“Rex Omnipotens” was specifically prescribed for singing before the door on Ascension Day [my

2 Katzenellenbogen, Adolf The Sculptural Programs of Chartres Cathedral, 1964, W. W. Norton & Co, New York;

Mâle, Emile The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France of the 13th Century, translated by Dora Nussey, 1983 Harper

& Row, New York; Lévis-Godechot, Nicole Chartres révélée par sa sculpture et ses vitraux (Chartres revealed by her

sculpture and her stained glass windows) 1987 Zodiaque, Paris; Prache, Anne La cathédrale Notre-Dame de

Chartes, 2000 Centre des monuments nationaux, Paris; Ball, Philip Universe of Stone–A Biography of Chartres

Cathedral 2008Harper Collins New York; and Miller, Malcolm (author) and Martin Marix Evans (Editor) Chartres

Cathedral 3rd Revised edition 1996, Pitkin Guides, The History Press Gloucestershire.

3 Lévis-Godechot 1987.


of 30

emphasis].’ 4 The chant Rex Omnipotens (All Powerful King) opens with a clear and unequivocal

reference to the Ascension:

Rex omnipotens, die hodierna,

Mundo triumphali redempto potentia,

Victor ascendit caelos unde descenderat 5

(This day the King omnipotent,

Having redeemed the world by His triumphant might,

Ascends a Conqueror to heaven, whence He had come.)6

I think this is strong historical evidence that explains how this doorway came to be called the

Ascension doorway. I think it is more a matter of historical ritual usage rather than a matter of

the sculpted images. I think the name Ascension Door describes what the doorway was used

for, that is to say its dedicated function rather than what the artwork itself depicts. Here I will

review how the images in these sculptures fail to match the Biblical description of the Apostles

witnessing the Ascension. I follow the premise that if it is permissible to consider the Cathedral

4 Fassler, Margot Elsbeth The Virgin of Chartres: Making History Through Liturgy and the Arts, p.278 (Yale

University Press, 2010).

5 Latin from Archaeologia, Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, Volume XLVI Society of Antiquaries of

London, 1881, page 400, consulted 1 March 2019 at URL:

https://books.google.com/books?id=gz1GAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=

onepage&q=Rex%20Omnipotens&f=falseArchaeologia 1881, English translation from MacDonald 1899);

6 English translation from MacDonald, Frederic W The Latin hymns in the Wesleyan hymn book: studies in

hymnology, Kelly, London 1899, page 57, consulted 1 March 2019 at URL:

http://ia800201.us.archive.org/25/items/latinhymnsinwesl00macd/latinhymnsinwesl00macd.pdf


of 30

as a virtual Bible rendered in stone images, then the individual images must be understood as

relating to corresponding images presented in the written texts.

The Naming of Doors - It is common in architectural art for doorways to be named for their

function rather than for any art work they might portray. Consider, for example, the east doors

of the baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence, begun in 1425 by Lorenzo Ghiberti. In praise of

Ghiberti and his doors, Giorgio Vasari wrote:

And right truly does Lorenzo deserve to be praised, seeing that one day Michelangelo Buonarroti, having

stopped to look at this work, and being asked what he thought of it, and whether these doors were beautiful,

answered: "They are so beautiful that they would do well for the gates of Paradise": praise truly appropriate,

and given by an able judge.7

While these doors have been universally known as the Gates of Paradise ever since, not one of

their panels has Heaven or Paradise as their primary subject. Every one of the panels depicts

Old Testament scenes taking place on Earth. Though there are numerous tiny peeks into heaven

in the upper background of a few panels, Paradise itself is not a primary subject. The name

Gates of Paradise is a classic example of an architectural artifact named for a function, ‘they

would do well for the gates of Paradise,’ rather than in reference to the subject of the artwork

they portray.

7 Vasari, Giorgio Le Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori (Lives of the Most Eminent Painters,

Sculptors, and Architects): (Torrentino 1550). English Translation by GASTON Du C. De Verre with Five Hundred

Illustrations: in Ten Volumes MacMillan and Co. Ld, and the Medici Society, Ld 1912-14, London. PDF copy

consulted 8 April 2017 at URL: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25326/25326-h/25326-h.htm


of 30

Figure 2 - Lorenzo Ghiberti, Gates of Paradise, 1425–52, gilded bronze, east doors of the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence. (Photo: Legault)


of 30

The same could be said for the well-known Jubilee Door more formally known as the Porta

Sacra (Holy Door) of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Pope Boniface VIII began the tradition of the

Holy Year, known as a Jubilee, in 1300 and the Catholic Church has celebrated them every 25

years or so ever since. The Jubilee door is kept walled up with bricks and mortar and broken

open, traditionally by the Pope himself, in a special ritual only in Jubilee years. People

commonly call it the Jubilee Door not because it depicts scenes of a Jubilee, but because of its

function.

Fig.3. Porta Sancta or Jubilee Door by Vico Consorti, bronze cast by Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry 1950, St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Dnalor_01, license CC-BY-SA 3.0)


of 30

Time and the Royal Portal - A linear concept of time is common to Jewish, Muslim and Christian

teaching. The main idea is that time is an artefact, created by God, who stands back, outside of

time. In the Abrahamic faiths, time begins at a moment of Creation and it flows only in one

direction during the history of the world. Time ends on a Day of Judgement. A core teaching of

the Christian variation on this idea is that historical time, between the two end-points of

Creation and Judgement Day, consists of two great periods. In the Christian view, the

Incarnation, God in the flesh entering the created world, represents the pivotal moment in

history that separates the two great periods. The structure of the Christian Bible precisely and

most fundamentally, reflects this idea, divided as it is into the Old Testament (the period before

Christ) and the New Testament (the period after Christ’s arrival on Earth). Like it or not, this

division of historical time is still in worldwide cultural use today in the conventional Gregorian

calendar.

The objective of medieval cathedral builders was primarily to record and transmit Christian

teaching using images in stone and stained glass. Accordingly, it makes sense to think that

Gothic Cathedral architecture, sculpture and stained glass images would reflect, in possibly

many ways, this most fundamental concept of time and of its three key moments, as a core

Christian teaching. In one view this concept of linear time is precisely the overall theme of the

imagery above the three doors of the Royal Portal, as depicted in Figure 4: Creation on the left,

Second Coming in the center and the Incarnation on the right.8

8 Van Der Meulen, Jan and Nancy Waterman 1981 The West Portals of Chartres Cathedral: The Iconology of the

Creation University Press of America. See also discussion in Fassler, Margot 1993 “Liturgy and Sacred History in the

Twelfth-Century Tympana at Chartres” in The Art Bulletin Vol. 75, No. 3, Sep., 1993.


of 30

Fig. 4. The Royal Portal Sculptures (excluding jambs, columns and capitals), ca. 1145, limestone, Notre Dame de Chartres Cathedral, Chartres. (Photo and sketch: Legault)


of 30

Left Door – I am sympathetic, in part, to Van Der Meulen’s unconventional identification of the

sculptures over the left door as an image of Creation. For example, I find that the clear one-for-

one mappability between the images in the sculptures with corresponding passages in the

Bible, so evident over the other two doors, is lacking over the left door explained as an

Ascension scene. The main reference for the Ascension in Scripture is Acts 1: 9-12. It describes a

moment, generally understood as taking place forty days after the resurrection, picking up the

narrative precisely where Matthew’s Gospel ends:

And when he had said these things, as they were looking, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of

their sight. And while they were looking steadfastly into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them

in white apparel; who also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was

received up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into heaven. Then

returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is nigh unto Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's

journey off. (Acts 1:9-12 KJV, my emphasis)

This passage explicitly describes an outdoor scene on Mount Olivet under a cloud towards

which Christ bodily rises and into which he then disappears, while the apostles stand ‘looking

steadfastly’ and watching Christ as he is ‘taken up’ into the sky. Two men in white (sometimes

called angels) are there, not in heaven but standing on the ground with the apostles. They

address the apostles who at this time number eleven according to Matthew 27-16, ‘Then the

eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.’ One

is left to understand this to be the original twelve minus Judas. In the sculptures, as shown in

Figures 1, 4 and 5, on the lower lintel there are only ten figures on the ground, not thirteen

(eleven apostles plus two men in white) as stated in Acts. Contrary to Acts, the ten sit rather

than stand. They sit, if not on thrones, then on furniture of some sort. Accordingly, this can

hardly be the out-door Mount Olivet scene described in Acts. The four descending angels


of 30

depicted on the upper lintel are not mentioned in any New Testament ascension scene, nor are

the two angels in the tympanum flanking the figure supposedly of Christ rising to heaven.

The only consistency between the sculptures and Biblical descriptions of the Ascension is the

placement of the supposed Christ figure – it is placed in the sky, either in or behind a cloud that

hides his feet, as seen in Figures 1, 4 and 7. This is a very weak mapping with Scripture and

weak evidence to support interpretation as a scene depicting the narrative of Acts 1:9-12.

The Seated Ten – Reading the left door sculptures as a scene depicting the idea of all of

creation and all of time in a single all-encompassing vision in the mind of God, sheds new light

on the meaning of the four angels and ten people sculpted in the lintels, shown in Figure 5.

These men and women (note the feminine bun hairstyle and beardless cheeks of the second

figure from the left) are clearly sitting and physically straining to see and to hear what is going

on around them. They do not all stare in the same direction, ‘looking steadfastly into heaven.’

Fig. 5. The Seated Ten and The Descending Four, lintels over the left door of the Royal Portal 1145, limestone,

Notre Dame de Chartres Cathedral, Chartres. (Photo: Legault)


of 30

Some look left, some look right and others look upwards. Did some of the missing heads

perhaps once look downwards too? They are perplexed and don’t really know which way to

turn. Their body language speaks. Their chins are jutting out and their necks are craned. These

chins and necks are in such tension that, were a barber to nick one, I swear it would bleed. The

physical straining to look around symbolically emphasizes the mental effort of trying to see, to

hear and to understand Creation and the cycles of time and the seasons that literally surround

them: the signs of the Zodiac and the Labors of the Months sculpted in the archivolts. They are

straining to see and to hear both the heavenly and earthly signs that surround them in order to

try to understand creation and the intentions of their God.

Four Angels - The four angels in the lintel stone, directly above the Seated Ten in Figure 5,

quite clearly have their mouths open. Their whole bodies and their voices aim downwards and

outwards, targeting the earthly realm and the ten figures seated below. Moreover, some of

their hands, wingtips and robes not only project outward from the surface of the lower border

of the stone, they actually drop below the edge of the sculpted frame. As anybody can plainly

see, the idea of thinking outside the box is by no means a modern one - the Chartrians were

experts at it. The clouds of the upper border partly cover the legs and wings uppermost in the

scene. This image is very ambiguous. It enfolds the semantic meaning that these angels are

located at a point of transition between the heavenly realm and the earthly one. They are

depicted in motion – a movement downward and outward into the earthly world of the viewer.

What exactly is the sculptor driving at here? Are these angels messengers, imbued with the

credibility of divine grace, or have they just been cast out, depicted in the act of falling from

grace and on their way to becoming infernal deceivers? A degree of ambiguity and confusion


of 30

prevails to the consternation, not only of the human figures seated below, but also to initial

attempts by a reader to be immediately certain about what is really going on in this scene.

While the stone itself is forever silent, the body language of the four open-mouthed angels

clearly depicts them in the act of giving voice to speech or to song. The angelic voices, though

inaudible to us as observers of the stones, are clearly audible to the ten figures seated below

who, bewildered, crane their necks and twist their heads to look and to listen and to try to

figure out what in the world – the world of Creation - is going on.

Signs of the Zodiac - The surrounding ten signs of the zodiac in the archivolts over the left door

do not fit well with an Ascension scene. Shown in Figures 1 and 4, these signs do, however, fit

much better with the idea of creation involving ongoing cycles of time that, for humanity,

sweep continuously, cycle after cycle, generation after generation, year after year, from the

time of first creation until the end of time. An appropriate mapping of zodiacal, constellational

and seasonal images to biblical passages is nowhere to be found in Acts, but very clear in

Genesis:

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let

them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of

the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. (Genesis 1:14-15 KJV, my emphasis)

The idea of constellations of stars is even more explicit in the Book of Job where God

explicitly commands, in his own voice, that Job contemplate Creation in all of its on-going

diversity and complexity:

"Now gird up your loins like a man, And I will ask you, and you instruct Me! Job 38:3 KJV


of 30

"Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, Or loose the cords of Orion? Can you lead forth a

constellation in its season, And guide the Bear with her satellites?” Job 38:31-32 KJV

Labors of the Months - The additional surrounding images of the twelve Labors of the Months,

seen in the archivolts in Figures 1 and 4, are also a poor fit with the Ascension. However, they

too fit much better with the idea in Genesis of humanity cursed for all time by God. Just before

the expulsion from the Garden, God addresses Adam with a curse that condemns Adam to a life

of labor and toil: ‘Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of

your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you and you shall eat the plants of the field

(Genesis 4:17-18 KJV).’ It is from this moment that the Labors of the Months begin and are set

in motion to endure season upon season, cycle upon cycle, generation upon generation until

the end of time.

The Dove – The Acts of the Apostles mention neither a dove nor the Holy Spirit as being present

at the Ascension. Nevertheless, in the sculptures on the keystone of the inner archivolt there is

the remnant of a mutilated dove, visible in Figure 1. A sketch published in 1946 by Banister

Fletcher shows what the Dove sculpture may have looked like originally.9 The sketch shows the

dove descending with wings spread, tail hidden beneath a cloud, head pointing downwards and

underlain by a cruciform nimbus, as seen in Figure 6. On the actual keystone today the head

and wings of the dove are missing, but the body, the cloud and the nimbus are still visible, as

seen in Figure 1.

9 Fletcher, Banister A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method (17th ed.) page 567, 1946 Category: New

York: Charles Scribner's Sons ISBN: 0750622679.


of 30

Iconographically speaking, such a dove in such a context represents the Holy Spirit. A deliberate

decision to include the Holy Spirit in the sculptures is yet another indication that the designers

may have had something in mind other than the Ascension.

Sages of the Ages - In my view, the Seated Ten in Figure 5 should not be understood as specific

recognizable individuals. Even though their heads are adorned by halos, marking them

iconographically as saints, it makes some sense not to think of them as the Apostles watching

Christ’s Ascension. These ten seated figures are also an integumental image. Symbolically it

calls to mind the visionaries and seekers of all the generations of humanity. It depicts fallible

human beings who must strain within the limits of their imperfect human abilities to

understand creation, to understand the cycles of seasons and of time that surround them in the

archivolts. They strain to understand the visions, the voices and all the signs coming from

heaven above them and the world around them – both the good and the evil, both the ordered

and the disordered, both the predictable and the chaotic. These are the generations of men

and women who record for posterity their understanding and their visions, as flawed and as

Figure 6 - Dove on the Keystone of the Inner Archivolt of the left Doorway (Images adapted from Fletcher

1946, public domain from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/FGothic_details_567.jpg)


of 30

limited as they may be, by writing upon the scrolls and in the books of scripture that the

sculptures so clearly depict them as holding in their hands and on their laps. The sculptures

depict them as straining in their attempt to accomplish, however imperfectly, precisely the

same act of contemplating Creation as is accomplished so perfectly and so easily by God the

Creator, standing in heaven above them. They are, however, not quite capable of a complete

understanding. These are, in effect, the same generations of men and women who must strain

‘all the days of their lives’, in the manual Labors of the Months depicted in the archivolts that

surround them. However, having been created in God’s image and endowed with free-will,

intellect and capable of acquiring wisdom, they must also strain and labor intellectually to

develop, master and apply all of the Liberal Arts depicted in the archivolts of the rightmost door

too. This is the labor the sculptures depict them in the act of performing: straining their bodies,

their senses, and their minds in perplexed effort to understand the creation they are

contemplating and to record their discovered wisdom as best they can within the limits of their

flawed and imperfect abilities. This idea is perhaps best summarised, and maps astoundingly

well onto a biblical passage from the Book of Wisdom:

For it is He who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists, to know the structure of the world and the

activity of the elements; the beginning and end and middle of times, the alternations of the solstices and

the changes of the seasons, the cycles of the year and the constellations of the stars, the natures of

animals and the tempers of wild beasts, the powers of spirits and the reasonings of men, the varieties of

plants and the virtues of roots; I learned both what is secret and what is manifest, for Wisdom, the

fashioner of all things, taught me. (Wisdom 7: 17-21 NJB, my emphasis)

An astute reader of this passage will not fail to note the order of the words in the phrase, ‘the

beginning and the end and the middle of times.’ This order is mappable, one for one, on the

three tympana, depicted in Figure 4, using the same convention of reading left to right:

Creation as the beginning of time, Second Coming as the end of time, and Incarnation. In both


of 30

the sculptures and the text, the dividing point in time – Incarnation and the middle of times -

comes at the rightmost end of the phrasing. No orderly one-for-one mapping of text to image

could be more precise.

I am by no means the first to consider the shortcomings of the traditional view that sees these

ten figures as the apostles and the overall scene as the Ascension. Margot Fassler, for instance,

makes a good evidence-based case for reading the Seated Ten as representing pre-Christian

prophets straining to see the Christ-to-come, while the four angels cry down that he is

present.10 She bases her view on solid historical evidence contained in surviving liturgical

material and contemporary descriptions of processional rituals that would have used these

doorways. Following Fassler’s scholarly methods that match sculptural images to contemporary

texts, one is led to understand these portal sculptures and images in terms of the special

liturgical texts, chants, ritual prayers and processional pathways customised to specific feast

days of the Christian calendar. For instance, one can understand the Nativity and Incarnation

imagery of the rightmost door being activated by a Christmastime procession through it,

accompanied by special prayers, chants and music appropriate to Christmas.

Similarly, one can understand similar specific feast day rituals using the left door for the Feast

of the Ascension. I think it makes sense that the left door probably acquired its association with

the Ascension because of this type of ritual usage – regardless of whether or not this

association truly reflects the content and subject of the artwork. Moreover, we know the

artistic decision-makers included much non-biblical imagery expressive of deeper meaning

10

Fassler, Margot Elsbeth 1993 “Liturgy and Sacred History in the Twelfth-Century Tympana at Chartres” in The Art

Bulletin Vol. 75, No. 3, Sep., 1993.


of 30

more closely tied to their theology and philosophy than to liturgy. This becomes obvious for

there are simply too many important images in these sculptures that have no bearing

whatsoever on the liturgy. Does anyone know, for instance, of any Christmastime liturgy,

prayers or chants that praise the Seven Liberal Arts and elders of Greek philosophy such as

Aristotle, Ptolemy, Euclid and Pythagoras who surround the Incarnation sculptures, shown in

Figure 7?

Labors of the Mind - The sculptures over the left door (Figure 1) connect semantically, with

eloquence, grace and decorum, to those over the right door (Figure 7). On the right, the

archivolts display the Seven Liberal Arts – the Trivium and Quadrivium – disciplines studied and

taught by the Chartrians as inherited not only from Greek and Roman antiquity, but from Arabic

Figure 7 - Lintels Tympanum and Archivolts over the Right Door of the Royal Portal 1145, limestone, Notre

Dame de Chartres Cathedral, Chartres. (Photo: Legault)


of 30

translations that had begun circulating in the period of these sculptures. The medieval

philosophers and theologians who taught in the abbeys and cathedral schools saw these arts as

the essential instruments required to contemplate Creation: not only how to observe it and

make sense of it in terms of order, number and measure but also how to properly speak and

write of it. Over the left door, Figure 1, the archivolts and lintels display Creation itself. The

Seated Ten show the intellectual labor, a labor of the mind, performed while seated, of the

Trivium in action with acts of observation (looking and listening), acts of bewildered reasoning,

acts of reading scrolls and books, and acts of recording that understanding, however

incomplete it may be, in writing.

God Figure – Consider the scene in the left door tympanum, shown in better detail in Figure 8,

as one of God standing back and contemplating Creation. While the cruciform halo or nimbus is

well established as a marker of Christ, it also is just as often used as an attribute of God, the

Father. It is also commonly used as an attribute of the Holy Spirit, underlying the head of a

descending Dove. The stonework of the God figure is set deeply back into the archivolts. It does

not protrude outward from the background very much at all, unlike the Christ in Majesty figure

in the Second Coming scene of the center door tympanum, shown in Figure 8. There, in the

Second Coming scene, the stone clearly projects outward from the background to indicate

Christ has exited the heavenly realm to come forward into the earthly realm. However, the

rearward positioned God figure in the left tympanum is definitely in the Heavens, explicitly

depicted standing behind an oddly shaped cloud in the celestial domain. This can easily be

understood an image of God contemplating all of creation and all of time in one all-

encompassing vision of which only an omniscient and almighty God, the Creator of heaven and


of 30

earth, is capable. From the point of view of Trinitarian theology, it matters not a whit whether

you think of this God figure as God the Father (Yahweh) or God the Son (Jesus). It can depict

neither one nor the other but both and at the same time. In Scripture the one is just as active

and equally responsible for Creation as the other: Yahweh in Genesis and Jesus as the Word

(Logos) in the Gospel according to John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the

beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was

made (John 1:1-3 KJV)

Fig. 8. Royal Portal Left Door Tympanum 1145, limestone, Notre Dame de Chartres Cathedral, Chartres. (Photo: Legault)


of 30

Oddly Shaped Cloud and Angelic Body Language – Consider carefully the odd V-shaped or U-

shaped cloud behind which God stands in Figure 8 – the left door Tympanum. Consider also the

tension and dynamics of the sideways in-leaning posture of the two flanking angels. It is evident

that the sculptor exerted a considerable amount of extra effort in giving this strange shape to

the cloud and this odd posture to the angels. In nature in general and in Gothic art in particular,

clouds generally do not take on the odd angular geometry seen in this image. If the task had

been to simply render the Ascension cloud described in Acts, surely any old cloud shape would

have sufficed and there would be no need for the odd angularity. Similarly, if the angels were

added to the scene (in spite of not being mentioned in Acts) to symbolically represent a

welcoming arrival of Christ in Heaven, there would be no need for the odd angularity of their

Fig. 9. Royal Portal Center Door Tympanum 1145, limestone, Notre Dame de Chartres Cathedral, Chartres. (Photo: Legault)


of 30

postures. So what did the artist have in mind here and why go through so much trouble to

represent things in this peculiar manner?

The Cloud - The only place in Scripture I can identify God appearing in a cloud of such odd

angularity is in the Book of Job where He appears to Job in a whirlwind. This is also the only

place in Scripture where we are given a comprehensive contemplation of Creation in God’s own

voice in a lengthy series of rhetorical questions posed directly to Job. This litany of questions

describes Creation long after ‘the beginning’ of Genesis, and in its on-going state or

maintenance mode, to call it that. It is a description of Creation encompassing all time in all of

its unfathomable complexity, diversity, harmony and chaos. How well does the V-shaped cloud

match the natural shape of a whirlwind? Images of whirlwinds are hard to come by in medieval

art. In nature, whirlwinds come in a

bewildering variety of shapes and sizes

depending on the atmospheric conditions

that produce them – tornados,

waterspouts, dust devils and so on.

Nevertheless, the actual debris cloud

often formed at the foot of well-formed

tornados do typically display, in nature, a

striking angular funnel top shape, with a

cross section uncannily similar to our V-Fig. 10. Typical Tornado Debris Clouds (Image: Stull 2016)


of 30

shaped cloud.11 Compare the debris cloud image in Figure 10, for example.

The Flanking Angels – Consider the body language in the odd posture of the two flanking angels

in Figure 8. This is hardly the welcoming or escorting or reverential posture one might expect in

an Ascension scene. The Angels’ gazes are fixed neither on the cloud nor on the God figure, but

outward and backward in the direction of their outer leg or foot. Their bodies also face neither

the cloud nor the God figure. They stand shoulders and hips facing square to the viewer,

precariously leaning sideways toward God and the cloud. Their stance is one of a forceful

bracing in apparent resistance to some force pushing against their bodies. They are straining to

maintain their balance, leaning precariously inward in an effort to prevent or arrest an outward

movement away from the Cloud. The braced legs and feet indicate that these angels are

standing and not in flight. Nevertheless, their wings are fully deployed and pasted against the

archivolt, as though driven by a convulsive gust of wind. Are these Angels more concerned

about their footing than the God figure they accompany? Why do the postures of their hips,

leaning torsos and braced legs have such an uncanny resemblance to the posture that skaters

and skiers use when they dig in their edges to arrest their motion, right down to the direction of

the gaze? It would be silly to suggest that ice skating and skiing were common activities in 12th

century France. Neverheless, I think that the language of the Flanking Angels’ body posture is

deeply embedded in the muscle memory of any child who has ever delighted in sliding across a

11

Stull, Roland Practical Meteorology: An Algebra-based Survey of Atmospheric Science 2016, page 581 (Sundog

Publishing, Madison, Wisconsin). PDF Copy consulted 2 November 2019 at URL:

https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/books/Practical_Meteorology/prmet/PracticalMet_WholeBook-v1_00b.pdf


of 30

freshly waxed floor or a frozen pond, or of any person resisting gravity’s pull decending a steep

slope or resisting a poweful burst of wind.

Fig. 11. Left Flanking Angel Compared to a Ski Stop Posture. (Photos: Sculpture: Legault, Skier: Ashleigh Mowers)

Fig. 12. Right Flanking Angel Compared to a Hockey Stop Posture.


of 30

If I am reading the body language of the flanking angels correctly, then this reading is perfectly

consistent with the direction of convulsive forces at play in the typical debris cloud that forms

at the foot of a tornado or whirlwind. When the main funnel of actual tornadic vortices touch

the ground, the debris flies outward from the tornado funnel and upward from the ground. It is

striking how well the convulsive idea of a whirlwind matches and animates the simultaneously

tense and dynamic posture of the flanking angels. Coupled with the odd angularity of a cloud

that matches so well with the cross section of a tornado’s debris cloud, I am easily fully

persuaded that the sculptor here wanted the viewer to understand, by visual analogy, the idea

of God enveloped in a whirlwind. Accordingly, I think the Biblical text of greatest relevance to

the imagery is the Book of Job and this supports the idea that the scene is more one of a

Contemplation of Creation than of an Ascension.

Ambiguity and Self-Reference - The artwork over the left door includes elements of ambiguity

and self-reference. It depicts Creation as something ambiguous and difficult for flawed and

imperfect human beings to understand fully. There is ambiguity and disorder for instance in the

signs of the zodiac and the labors of the months that are in horrible discontinuity compared to

their usual orderly calendrical sequence. Have two of the signs, Pisces and Gemini, been ripped

away and thrown out of their positions by the tornadic forces of the tympanum, to land in the

archivolt of the Incarnation Door, like a tornado-tossed Dorothy and Toto thrown from Kansas

into Oz?

There is ambiguity in the role of the four descending angels. That the sculptures themselves are

a little bit ambiguous and difficult for an observer to understand is abundantly obvious to me

from the fact that so many art historians and interpreters have, over the years, gotten it


of 30

completely wrong by seeing them as a depiction of the Apostles witnessing Christ’s Ascension. I

think it is most evident that the designer of these sculptures deliberately made the imagery a

little bit ambiguous and difficult (though not impossible) to understand. I think the ambiguity

and difficulty for humanity to fully understand Creation is one of the many integumentally

layered meanings the designer intended to convey. Could there be any more eloquent or

graceful a way of depicting ambiguity than by deliberately wrapping your meaning in

ambiguous images? Moreover, you almost have to chuckle when it dawns on you that this

ambiguous human artifact speaks of the ambiguity of divine Creation. Considering the artists

who created the images considered themselves and their artefacts elements of divine Creation,

you must conclude, at the end of a twisted loop of logic that this is an image of the Creator

having endowed Creation with some ability to perceive and to contemplate itself. In a sense,

because it too is part of the Creation to which it refers, the inanimate image contemplates

itself.

I think it is clear, the images over the left door do not depict the Apostles watching the

Ascension of Christ. They encompass a contemplation of Creation. It is a scene, on the one

hand, of Creation contemplated from above, by the perfect understanding of the Creator and,

on the other hand, of Creation contemplated from below, by the strained and imperfect

understanding of human beings.

Evidence - As a matter of proper evidence for any interpretation, here in Part I of this series of

articles on the Royal Portal, I work with the idea of one-for-one mappings of the sculpted

images with matching passages of biblical text. If the initial premise is that a Gothic cathedral is

a stone and glass replica of the biblical text, then logic dictates that for each and every biblical


of 30

image there must be one or more matching passages of corresponding biblical text. The same

approach must also apply to matching non-biblical images to passages in non-biblical texts.

Accordingly, as a reader seeking meaning, I must attach greater significance where text and

image match best and where the quantity of one-for-one mappability between the two is

greatest. I defy any biblical expert to extract from Scripture a greater number of matches for

the left tympanum, archivolt and lintel sculptures that would support interpreting its primary

meaning as a typical Ascension scene rather than a scene of Creation Contemplated.

Isomorphism and Self-reference - In speaking of one-for-one mappability, essential to

analogical reasoning, and of self-reference, the modern reader should notice here that the

Chartrian methods of expression exhibit the deliberate exploitation of tools and techniques

described by modern cognitive science. For example, Douglas Hofstadter, arguably one of the

most well respected pioneers of modern cognitive science, has written much about reasoning

by analogy and the importance of analogical one-for-one mappings. He describes them, alluding

to their use in mathematics, as isomorphisms. He writes (Hofstadter 1979):

The perception of an isomorphism between two known structures is a significant

advance in knowledge – and I claim that it is such perceptions of isomorphism which

create meanings in the minds of people (Hofstadter’s italics).12

In this first of three papers on the Royal Portal sculptures of Chartres Cathedral, I have followed

in Hofstadter’s footsteps in applying his concept of isomorphism and of reasoning by analogy to

pair one-for-one some Chartrian images to the texts they best and most closely match. In this

12

Hofstadter, Douglas Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, page 50, 1979 Basic Books, New York.


of 30

way, if Hofstadter is correct about isomorphisms and meaning, I hope to have extracted greater

meaning from the artefacts than has previously been possible.

Food for Thought - For this brief essay, I resist a tempting digression into Hofstadter’s work on

isomorphisms and analogical thinking. Instead, here I have shown, as a matter of observable

fact, that the Chartrians were experts at exploiting many tools and techniques now studied in

modern cognitive science, in designing recognizable isomorphisms and analogies between

sculpted images and written texts. Suffice it to say that these tools and techniques are nothing

very new. They are fruit born of seed wisely planted long, long ago in orchards tended by the

wisest sages of both classical and medieval antiquity. They have fed generations of bewildered

and hungry seekers for millennia – a labor for all seasons, as it were.

Indeed, I will further explore these images as Icons for all Seasons in a separate paper.

Acknowledgements: Improvements to this paper were inspired by

encouraging input from:

Mike Klug author of Mandorlas in our Midst, a medieval art blog at

https://mikejklug.wordpress.com/

Roland Stull Director, Geophysical Disaster Computational Fluid

Dynamics Center, University of British Columbia, and

The participants on the British on-line discussion forum for Medieval

Religion at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/medieval-religion

http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/medieval-religion


of 30

References

_________, Archaeologia, Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, Volume XLVI Society

of Antiquaries of London, 1881, page 400, consulted 1 March 2019 at URL:

https://books.google.com/books?id=gz1GAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_sum

mary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=Rex%20Omnipotens&f=false

Ball, Philip 2008 Universe of Stone–A Biography of Chartres Cathedral Harper Collins New York.

Fassler, Margot Elsbeth 1993 “Liturgy and Sacred History in the Twelfth-Century Tympana at

Chartres” in The Art Bulletin Vol. 75, No. 3, Sep., 1993.

Fassler, Margot Elsbeth 2010 The Virgin of Chartres: Making History Through Liturgy and the

Arts Yale University Press.

Hofstadter, Douglas 1979 Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

Katzenellenbogen, Adolf 1964 The Sculptural Programs of Chartres Cathedral W. W. Norton &

Co, New York.

Lévis-Godechot, Nicole 1987 Chartres révélée par sa sculpture et ses vitraux (Chartres revealed

by her sculpture and her stained glass windows) Zodiaque, Paris.

MacDonald, Frederic W 1899 The Latin hymns in the Wesleyan hymn book: studies in

hymnology, Kelly, London 1899, page 57, consulted 1 March 2019 at URL:

http://ia800201.us.archive.org/25/items/latinhymnsinwesl00macd/latinhymnsinwesl00macd.p

df

Mâle, Emile 1958 The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France of the 13th Century, translated by

Dora Nussey, Harper & Row, New York.


of 30

Mâle, Emile 1983 Chartres Harper and Row, New York.

Miller, Malcolm (author) and Martin Marix Evans (Editor) 1996 Chartres Cathedral Pitkin

Guides, The History Press Gloucestershire, 3rd Revised edition (July 1 1996).

Prache, Anne 2000 La cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartes, Centre des monuments nationaux,

Paris.

Van Der Meulen, Jan and Nancy Waterman 1981 The West Portals of Chartres Cathedral: The

Iconology of the Creation University Press of America.

Stull, Roland 2016 Practical Meteorology: An Algebra-based Survey of Atmospheric Science

Sundog Publishing, Madison Wisconsin. PDF Copy consulted 2 November 2019 at URL:

https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/books/Practical_Meteorology/prmet/PracticalMet_WholeBook-

v1_00b.pdf

Vasari, Giorgio 1550 Le Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori (Lives of the Most

Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects): Torrentino (1550). English Translation by GASTON

Du C. De Verre with Five Hundred Illustrations: in Ten Volumes MacMillan and Co. Ld, and the

Medici Society, Ld 1912-14, London, consulted 8 April 2017 at URL:

http://www.csus.edu/indiv/o/obriene/art192b/readings/giorgio-vasari-lives-of-the-most-

emminent.pdf

http://www.csus.edu/indiv/o/obriene/art192b/readings/giorgio-vasari-lives-of-the-most-emminent.pdf

http://www.csus.edu/indiv/o/obriene/art192b/readings/giorgio-vasari-lives-of-the-most-emminent.pdf

Chartres Royal Portal – Ascension or Creation

Documents

Transcript of Chartres Royal Portal – Ascension or Creation