For a couple of weeks I have been meaning to go back through my photo library to find images of my April 2005 trip to Paris, France. I was only there for 4 days but took at least a 1,000 photos. I have two favorites, the photograph above of Notre Dame de Paris is one of them. The Church’s name means “Our Lady of Paris”. The River Seine runs beside the Cathedral, just off the bottom of this picture. I think it is the colours that make this photograph, the red and greens of the trees contrast well with the blue sky and stone of the building. Many diversified characteristics will help identify a structure as Gothic: ogee archways, ribbed vaults, and the wondrous flying buttresses are a few.
Notre Dame de Paris, more than seven hundred years old, is only the most recent of holy houses to occupy this ancient sacred ground. The Celts held their services on this island in the seine, and atop their sacred groves the Romans built their own temple to Jupiter. In the early years of Christianity, a basilica dedicated to St. Etienne was constructed around 528 by Childebert. A church in the Romanesque manner replaced the basilica, and this stood until 1163 when work began on the structure which stands today.
Yet, it is always the craft placed high above, which captures our eyes and imaginations most effectively. Since all works of religious art rise beyond mere artistic expression, bearing potent symbolic reference, we must accept that our attention was intended to be focused upwards. Within the span of the passing centuries, the cathedrals of the Middle Ages themselves rise up above other cultural achievements. At the center of these towering legacies resides Notre Dame de Paris, 'Our Lady.'
