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Chartres Cathedral
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Kenneth Clark: Civilization [3450-4716, 13"00] Chartres Cathedral (built ca. 1194 - 1220) 
沙特爾大教堂奇蹟般的保存至今, 火災、戰亂、翻新、整修, 都未能在它身上留下烙印, 我們份能懷抱朝聖之心爬上教堂所在的山丘, 連觀光客都無法攬亂這裡平靜的氣氛, 其他如西斯廷教堂到日本東大寺等性靈殿堂, 都被觀光客破壊無遺, The south tower is still more or less as it was when it was completed in the year 1164. It's a masterpiece of harmonious proportion. Was this harmony calculated mathematically? Well, ingenious scholars have produced a system of proportions based on measurements but it's so complex that I find it very hard to credit. However, Chartres was the centre of a school of philosophy, devoted to Plato (427-347 B.C.) and in particular to his mysterious book called the Timaeus (360 B.C.), from which it was thought that the whole universe could be interpreted as a form of measurable harmony. So, perhaps, the proportions of Chatres reflect a more complex mathematics than one is inclined to believe. 教堂的南塔仍和1164年完工時差不多, 這是一件比例和諧的建築傑作, 此和諧是數學計算的結果嗎? 才氣橫溢的學者是發展出一套, 以度量衡為基礎推算比例的系統, 但此建築結構之複雜讓我很難相信是演算的結果, 不過沙特爾大教堂是鑽研柏拉圖哲學的大本營, 這裡的學者尤其鍾愛柏拉圖寫的 "泰米亞斯篇", 柏拉圖在書中力陳宇宙萬物皆可詮釋為可量度的和諧形態, 也許沙特爾大教堂的比例, 反映了一套比我們想像中更複雜的數學運算, Chartres contained the most famous of all relics of the Virgin, the actual tunic she had worn at the time of the Annunciation. From the first, this relic had worked miracles but it was only in the 12th century that the cult of the Virgin began to appeal to the popular imagination. I suppose that in the earlier centuries life was simply too rough. At any rate, if art is any guide - and in this series I am taking it as my guide - the Virgin played a very small part in the minds of men during the 9th and 10th, and even the 11th, centuries. The Romanesque churches we've been looking at were dedicated to saints whose relics they contained - St Etienne, St Lazarus, St Denis, St Mary Magdalene - none of them to the Virgin. Then, after Chartres, almost every great church in France was dedicated to her - Paris, Amiens, Rheims, Rouen, Beavais. What was the reason for this sudden change? Well, I think the cult of the Virgin must have come from the East. Because all the early representations of the Virgin as an object of devotion are in a markedly Byzantine style. This is a page from a manuscript from Citeaux, the community of St. Bernard (1090-1153). And St Bernard was one of the first men to speak of the Virgin as an ideal of beauty and a mediator between man and God. But certainly a strong influence in spreading the cult of the Virgin was the beauty and splendour of Chartres. 沙特爾大教堂珍藏了世上最有名的聖母遺物, 她在天使報喜時所穿的件罩袍, 這件遺物打從一開始就行神蹟, 但一直到12世紀, 聖母教派漸漸普及, 我想這大概是因為早年人們的生活實在太艱苦了, 總之, 若藝術可做為指引 ... 我做本系列時就是以藝術為指引, 從第9到第11世紀期間, 聖母在人類的心智活動中扮演的角色微不足道, 我們走訪過收藏聖人遺物的羅馬式教堂, 收藏了聖艾提安聖拉索勒斯、聖丹尼斯、抹大拉的瑪利亞等人的遺物, 但沒有一座以聖母為重心, 但繼沙特爾大教堂之後, 法國幾乎所有的教堂都以聖母為主角, 巴黎、亞眠、蘭斯、盧昂、博韋等, 為什麼突然出現這樣的改變? 我想聖母教派一定是從東方傳進來的, 因為所有早期的聖母像, 都帶有明顯的拜占庭式風格, 這是西篤聖伯納派會古抄本中的一頁, 聖伯納是第一個將聖母描述為美的化身, 乃人類與上帝間斡旋者的人, 但美麗宏偉的沙特爾大教堂在廣播聖母教派上是功不可沒, The main portal of Chartres is one of the most beautiful congregations of carved figures in the world. The longer you look at it, the more moving incidents, the more vivid details, you discover. I suppose the first thing that strikes anyone is this row of pillar people. In naturalistic terms, as bodies they're impossible, and the fact that one believes in them is a triumph of art. The sculptor was not only a man of genius but one of great originality. He must have begun carving when style was dominated by the violent, twisting rhythms of Cluny. And he's created a style as still and restrained and classical as the Greek sculptors of the 6th century BC. 沙特爾大教堂的大門是世上最精美的雕刻傑作之一, 端詳得越久, 就越能體會其動人、鮮活的細節, 首先映入眼簾的應該是一列人形石柱, 嚴格說來, 這些石柱完全偏離人體的解剖構造, 但觀者卻能信以為真, 這是藝術上的一大勝利. 雕刻家不僅才華過人, 也很有創意, 他動工時, 藝術的主流思潮, 應該是狂暴、扭曲的克呂尼風格, 但他卻創造出和西元前六世紀, 希臘雕刻家一樣沉靜內斂和典雅的風格, But was it really Greek? I mean Greek in derivation. Were these reed-like draperies, the thin, straight lines, the fluted folds, the zigzag hems and the whole play of texture which so obviously recalls the Greek archaic figure, arrived at independently or had the Chartres master seen some fragments of early Greek sculpture in the South of France? Well, for various reasons, I'm quite certain that he had. 但這真的是希臘風格嗎? 我是說衍生自希臘的風格, 石像如蘆葦般垂墜的衣物, 纖長、筆直的線條, 凹槽皺褶、Z字型的衣擺, 及讓人忍不住想起古希臘雕像的質感, 是獨立發展而成的? 亦或是沙特爾的建築大師在法國南部看過古希臘的石雕作品? 基於數個原因, 我確信他是看過的, But the most important thing about the central doorway, more important even than its Greek derivation is the character of the heads of the so-called kings and queens that no one knows exactly who they are. These heads seem to me to show a new stage in the ascent of Western man. Indeed, I believe that this refinement, this look of selfless detachment and spirituality is something entirely new in art. Beside them, the gods and heroes of ancient Greece look arrogant, soulless - even slightly brutal. I fancy that the faces which look out at us from the past are perhaps the surest indication we have of the meaning of an epoch. And the faces on the west portal of Chartres are amongst the most sincere and the most aristocratic that Western Europe has ever produced. 但這道中央門廊最重要的是... 甚至比其古希臘源頭更重要的是... 國王和王后雕像的頭部, 沒人知道這些雕像刻的究竟是誰, 我認為這些雕像的頭部呈現了西方人崛起的新階段, 石像高雅、平靜、無私及充滿靈性的表惰, 是西方藝術的一大創舉, 相比之, 古希臘的天神、英雄塑像, 顯得倨傲、無情, 甚至略帶殘忍, 我總覺得這些遠古的雕像面容, 也許對 "紀元" 這個字下了最好的註腳, 而沙特爾西側大門的人像, 則是西歐最真摰、高貴的藝術作品, From the old chronicles, we know something about the men whose states of mind these faces reveal. In the year 1144, we are told, when the towers seem to be rising as if by magic, the faithful harnessed themselves to carts which were bringing stone and dragged them from the quarry to the cathedral. The enthusiasm spread throughout France. Men and women came from far away carrying heavy burdens of provisions for the workmen - wine, oil, corn. Amongst them were lords and ladies pulling carts with the rest. There was perfect discipline and a most profound silence. All hearts were united and each man forgave his enemies. 研究古老的編年史, 可讓我們對這些石像所反映的男女的心態略知一二, 據說1144年高塔突然平地一聲雷般出現時, 信徒把石塊從採石場拖到工地來, 這股熱情感染了全法國, 善男信女不遠千里而來, 為工匠揹來了沉重的補給品: 酒、油、玉米, 其中不乏和庶民一起拉車的貴族名媛, 流露出完美的紀律和發自內心的靜默, 大夥兒不念舊惡、萬眾一心, Its very construction was a kind of miracle. The old Romanesque church had been destroyed by a terrible fire in 1197. Only the towers and the west front remained. And the people of Chartres feared that they had lost their precious relic. Then, when the debris was cleared away it was found intact in the crypt. And the Virgin's intention became clear - that a new church should be built, even more splendid than the last. 建築主體本身就是一大奇蹟, 舊的羅馬式教堂1197年因大火而付之一炬, 只有西側塔樓逃過一劫, 沙特爾人民擔心失去了他們珍貴的遺物, 瓦礫被清除乾淨之後, 他們發現藏在地窖裡的遺物完好無缺, 聖母的旨意昭然若揭, 要他們在原址蓋一座更壯麗的新教堂, The building is in the new architectural style to which Suger (1081-1151) had given the impress of his authority at St Denis - what we call Gothic. Only at Chartres, the architect was told to follow the foundations of the old Romanesque cathedral, and this has meant that the Gothic vaulting had to cover a space far wider than ever before. It was a formidable problem of construction and in order to solve it, the architect has used the device known as flying buttresses - one of those happy strokes where necessity has lead to an architectural invention of marvelous and fantastic beauty. 建築採用的是迎新式建築風格, 也就是以蘇榭的聖尼斯修道院, 為基礎的哥德式風格, 但沙特爾的建築師受命沿用舊羅馬式教堂的地基, 這表示其哥德式拱門頂必須涵蓋一個史無前例的大面積, 這是個令人傷透腦筋的難題, 建築師的解決辨法是採用 "飛扶壁", 需要果然是發明之母, 一種令人驚嘆的建築元素從此誕生, Since the beginning of settled life, say, the Pyramid of Sakara (2700 B.C.), man had thought of buildings as a weight on the ground. He'd always found himself limited by problems of stability and weight. In the end, it kept him down to the earth. Now, by the devices of the Gothic style - the shaft with its cluster of columns, passing without interruption into the vault and the pointed arch - he could make stone seem weightless. The weightless expression of the spirit. By the same means, he could surround his space with glass. Suger said that he did this in order to get more light, but he found that these areas of glass could be made into an ideal means of impressing and instructing the faithful. 'Man may rise to the contemplation of the divine through the senses.' Well, nowhere else I think, is Suger's favourite saying so convincingly illustrated as it is in Chartres Cathedral. As one looks at the painted windows which completely surround one, they seem almost to set up a vibration in the air. 從行定居生活萌芽之初, 人類就將建築物視為緊貼地表的重物, 如沙卡拉金字塔就是個很好的例子, 穩定性和重量是人類無法突破的限制, 所以居住範圍一直拘泥於地表, 但是在哥德式風格出現後, 筆直羅列的長柱直通拱頂穹窿, 原本笨重的石材多了一股寓情寄意之氣, 性靈的虛無表徵, 空間也可用相同手法以玻璃環繞, 蘇榭的說法是這樣可以增加採光, 但他發現這些玻璃能有效地震懾、指引信徒, 他說 "凡人可透過感官體悟神啟", 我認為沙特爾大教堂是最能驗證蘇榭這句名言的建築物, 四周的彩繪玻璃似乎在空氣中激起了一波波的彩色漣漪, Chartres is the epitome of the first great awakening in European civilisation. It's also the bridge between Romanesque and Gothic, between the world of Abelard (1079-1142) and the world of St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), the world of restless curiosity and the world of system and order. Great things were to be done in the next centuries of high Gothic - great feats of construction, both in architecture and in thought - but they all rested on the foundations of the 12th century. That was the age which gave European civilisation its impetus ... our intellectual energy, our contact with the great minds of Greece, our ability to move and change, our belief that God may be approached through beauty, our feeling of compassion, our sense of the unity of Christendom - all this and much more appeared in those hundred marvelous years between the consecration of Cluny (915) and the rebuilding of Chartres (1194). 沙特爾大教堂是歐洲文明第一波大覺醒的縮影, 也是羅馬風和哥德風之間的橋樑, 橫跨了阿伯拉德和聖多瑪斯阿奎納的世界, 連接了翻騰的好奇心和體制秩序, 哥德風將在下一個世紀激發出許多偉大的成就, 不論是建築或思潮方面都出現令人驚嘆的偉業, 但那些必須依賴12世紀奠定的基礎, 那個年代賦予了尺歐洲文明進步所需的衡勁, 我們的知性能量, 我們與希臘偉大思維的接觸, 我們移動、改變的能力, 相信可透過美而認識上帝的信念, 我們悲天憫人的胸襟, 及天主教的凝聚, 這一切都來自克呂尼聖化到沙特爾大教堂重建的一百年間. |