It gives me great pleasure to welcome our next contributor to the series of ICMA online exhibitions - a major supporter of the organization and an individual who has given significantly of his own time and knowledge, not least of which was his role as our last treasurer - none other than Harry Titus. Most of you will already know Harry and there is no doubt that many of you will also be aware of his lifelong interest in Auxerre Cathedral and his schoalrship on that building. Harry received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and his Ph.D. from Princeton University. His research is centered on the art of the Middle Ages in Burgundy but he also has a strong teaching interest in garden history.

I am particularly delighted that Harry has curated an exhibtion on that building for us.

Colum
Colum Hourihane
President, ICMA

For the previous exhibition by Kirk Ambrose, please click here.

Sculpted Portals at Auxerre Cathedral



The Gothic St. Etienne in Auxerre, France sports a typical array of five sculpted portals: three spread across its west façade, and one on each terminal of its transept. The portals were begun in the mid-13th century with the western group and were completed in the 1490s at the north transept portal. Most of the iconography consists of well-known subjects. On the other hand, the relationships among these subjects have given interpreters pause. Also, a unified view of the portals’ stylistic affinities has proven elusive.

Since 2001 the Centre d’Études médiévales in Auxerre has been coordinating a series of studies focused on the cathedral’s nave and transept in conjunction with the physical consolidation of those areas by a team under the direction of architect Bruno Decaris. As the projects conclude, the west façade is being cleaned using laser technology. The scaffolding for this project provides an opportunity for close study of the cleaned portal sculpture. As in other similar cases, new insights about iconography and style will result.



The portal program began with the south portal of the west façade, probably shortly after the completion of the Gothic chevet around 1240. Its subjects are focused on David and Bathsheba in the dado zone and John the Baptist in the tympanum. A Judgment of Solomon group is located on the flat wall immediately south of the portal proper. At Sens Cathedral the earlier John the Baptist tympanum in its northwest portal has been connected with a free-standing baptistery said to have been nearby. At Auxerre, the baptistery was more distant, in the vicinity of the north transept. Efforts have been made to explain the choice of the David story by relating it to the personal life of a putative patron as well as through more traditional typological relationships. There is a division of opinion about whether stylistic currents connect the Auxerre workshop with Reims, Paris or regional centers.



The central portal of the west façade, arranged in an orderly fashion at first glance, is composed of physically disparate sections. Its south splay was constructed with the southwest portal, its north splay with the northwest portal, and everything on both sides above the dado cornice was installed around 1400. Although there are stylistic differences in the dado zone from side to side, an intent to coordinate the two sides is clearly apparent. To the south is the parable of the prodigal son in relief surmounted by paired figures in niches, while on the north is the Joseph story in relief surmounted by paired figures in niches of a different type.





Added later, the jamb zone is empty, the tympanum presents the Last Judgment, and the archivolts scenes from lives of apostles. Fabienne Joubert is preparing a study of the upper zones of the portal, a heretofore neglected area. For the lower zones, Folke Nordstrom has pointed to the abundance of classical references in the relief motifs.





The north portal was probably completed close to 1300. Its dado reliefs recount the Genesis story through Noah’s Ark, and the tympanum area presents the Coronation of the Virgin on its lintel, with a tantalizing unfinished area at its summit. Ursula Quednau has provide us with the most comprehensive study to date of the 13th-century façade sculpture at Auxerre, but even for her, the stylistic position and the iconographic relationships of this portal remain somewhat insecure. The Genesis reliefs are among the most “realized” examples of Rayonnant sculpture, with an exquisite balance between figure style and enframing tracery. Their relationship to the presentation of stained glass panels and manuscript illumination of the period is evident. This sculpture deserves to be better appreciated and better protected.

Considering the west portals as a group, one sees a series of changes in style (toward broad planes of elegant drapery) moving from south to north across the second half of the 13th century, with a crowning centerpiece from 1400. In terms of subject, one finds a rather dazzlingly eclectic array; Genesis, Joseph, David, Solomon, the Prodigal Son, John the Baptist, the Coronation of the Virgin, apostles and the Last Judgment, sometimes arranged to make limited logical relationships among subjects, but surely not a unified “program” in the sense that we often expect from a 13th-century façade.



The transept and nave program was begun around 1310 by laying out its perimeter. Then the builders concentrated on the south arm of the transept, whose portal sculpture has been dated to around 1330 by Jean-Pierre Cassagnes.



The tympanum subject is the St. Stephen story, which was obviously chosen to reflect the interests of the canons, whose property rights were predominately located on the cathedral’s south flank. Cassagnes posited that the unusual iconographic detail of Abraham (and Stephen’s soul in his bosom) at the apex of the tympanum reflected the personal devotional interests of Pope Jean XXII. The organization of the tracery and figures calls to mind 14th-century ivories and other liturgical objects.



The exaggerated movements of some figures and their animated facial features remind us that we are in the era of Jean Pucelle.



As the building of the cathedral continued through the troubled times of the 14th century (raids by the English, plague) and into the 15th century (Hundred Years’ War), the north transept portal was left unfinished. At the conclusion of the war, the king appointed one of his supporters, Jean Baillet, as Bishop of Auxerre in 1478. Among this bishop’s many achievements was the completion of the north arm of the transept, along with its sculpted portal. One wonderful feature of the north arm façade, exterior and interior, is that it maintains the layout and rhythms established in the south arm 150 years earlier, but where the moldings in the south arm are all single-curved Rayonnant, the corresponding moldings in the north arm are all double-curved ogee Flamboyant. It has long been recognized that the north arm tympanum’s subject is the life and afterlife of St. Germain of Auxerre, the 5th-century prototype of a bishop of Auxerre. Again it is obvious that the choice of subject reflects the dominance of episcopal properties along the north flank of the cathedral, and that the subject was chosen to balance the presence of Stephen in the south portal. For many years the archivolt sculpture of this portal was passed over in silence by the few who bothered to discuss the portal at all. During the recent scholarly effort, Annaig Chatain has linked the archivolt sculpture to scenes from the lives of four other early bishops of Auxerre, forming a framework for a focus on Germain. This study was made infernally difficult by the fact that soldiers in the revolutionary period shot at the archivolts for sport, and then later in the nineteenth century the remains were sawn down to give them a more regular appearance. The loss of most attributes for most of the figures resulted in Mlle. Chatain’s approach of identifying settings and general types of figures acting within them.



In the tympanum, the Germain narrative is worked out using many small figures whose features are rather detailed. With this work, like others sponsored by Jean Baillet, a corner is turned toward the Renaissance. A number of the background motifs that support the narrative are carved in a classicizing architectural style, an early example of an approach that we should be seeing in the upcoming exhibition at the Grand Palais of art in France around 1500.

* My view of cathedral chronology and bibliographic references can be found on my homepage, http://www.wfu.edu/~titus.