2023-12-12 20:26:23
► The cathedral has always been able to welcome the modernity of its time
Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, rector of Notre-Dame de Paris
The order for contemporary stained glass windows for Notre-Dame de Paris is the result of a joint decision by the Archbishop of Paris Mgr Laurent Ulrich and the President of the Republic. It is not an announcement from Emmanuel Macron that falls from the sky, but two desires that come together. This is a state order because the cathedral belongs to the state. To manage it, an artistic committee, set up on the model of that of liturgical furniture, will bring together the Ministry of Culture, historical monuments and representatives of the Church. Bernard Blistène, former director of the National Museum of Modern Art at the Center Pompidou, will be its president.
The archbishop was the decision-maker for the choice of liturgical furniture, but for the stained glass windows it will be the State, with the agreement of the archdiocese. Bishop Ulrich expressed the wish that these stained glass windows bear witness to this 21st century event, the fire, destruction, and resurrection of the cathedral. The objective is that they bring a touch of our time and of this unprecedented restoration of Notre-Dame.
The archbishop asked the president that these stained glass windows be figurative to respect the titles of the chapels and illustrate the time of the Church and of Paris. Each is dedicated to a saint. To Saint Thomas Aquinas intelligence, Saint Clotilde advice, Saint Vincent de Paul service, Saint Genevieve strength, to Saint Denis mission, Saint Joseph the fear of God and Saint Paul-Chen friendship.
To respond to the controversy, I would point out that the work of Viollet-le-Duc remains respected and very present in the cathedral, from the spire to the nave. The radiating chapels of the choir have preserved the complete decor of Viollet-le-Duc: architecture, stained glass windows, frescoes, polychromies of the marbles, pillars, colors of the warheads which make up a bouquet of fire. On the other hand, in the southern chapels, the grisailles belonged to a decoration of which a large part has disappeared, so it is not sabotage. Especially since the stained glass windows to be removed will obviously not be destroyed but exposed and highlighted. They will take place in a museum of the work of Notre-Dame de Paris which is to be created in the premises of the Hôtel-Dieu.
Notre-Dame de Paris has 2,500 m2 of stained glass windows, 8% of which are from the 12th century, all the rest date from the 17th, 19th and 20th centuries. The cathedral has always been able to welcome the modernity of its time. Dominican Brother Marc Chauveau, who sat on the liturgical furniture commission, reminded me of the words of the sculptor Marc Couturier, to whom we owe the large golden cross that we saw emerging from the rubble after the fire: “For us artists, centuries do not count. When we work for Notre-Dame, we find friends who have been there for centuries. Here we are all together enlisted for a piece of eternity. »
► Replacing old stained glass windows with contemporary ones is vandalism
Didier Rykner, editor-in-chief of the online magazine “La tribune de l’art” (1)
I do not have a position of principled hostility towards contemporary stained glass windows in old churches. There have already been examples which have produced a successful result, but certain absolutely essential conditions must be met. And the first of these is that the original stained glass windows no longer exist, or that there are no others in the place concerned. Simply wanting to replace old stained glass windows with contemporary stained glass windows constitutes for me vandalism of a historic monument!
With the signatories of the petition that we launched on our site, we are therefore protesting against the installation of modern stained glass windows in the chapels of Notre-Dame because the original glasses constitute a desired and coherent whole, which Viollet-le-Duc deliberately installed in the nave. While in the transept and in the ambulatory chapels these are figurative stained glass windows, we are talking here about decorative stained glass windows which are one with the architecture, which give it meaning, and which cannot be removed without distorting the complete work of Viollet-le-Duc. They only have an interest in the place in which they were created.
Let us add that this debate already took place three years ago. Everyone then opposed it and the Minister of Culture at the time, Roselyne Bachelot, nipped the controversy in the bud, saying that there was no question of replacing the stained glass windows because it did not respect the ministry’s commitments. So this had not even been proposed to the National Heritage and Architecture Commission. These stained glass windows are protected as historical monuments with the cathedral, there are rules and they must be respected. I would also like to remind you that the stained glass windows of the chapels that we want to replace were absolutely not affected by the fire! They even underwent a light restoration recently, so they are not damaged.
We offer an alternative solution: why not instead order contemporary stained glass windows on the north tower of the cathedral? A reader of “La tribune de l’art” noticed that it is made up of bays without stained glass, but there is nothing stopping you from creating something new there. No one would object to this because they are white glasses and they are not part of the overall composition of Viollet-le-Duc. In addition, it would be very symbolic since it is the tower on which the firefighters extinguished the fire at the risk of their lives, and this is what made it possible to save the rest of the building.
(1) Author of Our Lady. An affair of statepublished on October 20 by Éditions Les Belles Lettres, 272 p., €17.50.
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