Trigger warning. Im about to speak heresy. I prefer Chartres Cathedral. It’s windows are enormous and sublime. At 120ft height it is the height of French Gothic cathedral construction.

The entire point of all gothic churches is the stained glass which was new technology at the time. Gothic gives the maximmum space for massive windows. So some of this genius has been lost. But a change of light bulbs would easily fix this.

It’s not lit properly. The walls are super white as they were in the 12th century. But it was lit by candles and oil lamps which give off a warm yellow light.

It’s museum lighting not church lighting.

The bright white also focuses attention on the stone walls instead of the stained glass.

People who think this way are usually antiCatholic. AntiCatholicism is just another bigotry.

Clearly false. It was s whole society of believers who were in agreement that only the best for God. If not for great civic projects the peasants would have no artistic beauty in their lives. In the US the poorest neighborhoods built the most opulent churches.

The art is the stained glass which has been upstaged by over lighting the stone.

It’s adding modern farmhouse aesthetic to a medieval masterpiece.

Glad you said it. The interior lighting detracts from the Medieval stained glass. I agree with the cleaning and thus lightening of the stone to its original. But the overuse of very white LED bulbs is super anachronistic and makes the stone the centerpiece rather than the windows. Anachronistic.

Our negative views of the Medieval period come from the biases of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. The French and American revolutions were not sparked by peasants but by the merchant class.

Austerity was the clerical and pious ideal at the time. This included fasting on Weds and Thursdays as well as 4 weeks before Christmas and 6 weeks before Easter (Advent and Lent).

Manors and castles and monasteries were funded on the agricultural economy. Cathedrals were built on the urban merchant economies that rose up after about 1000AD. Cathedrals were less Church run projects than civic projects with semi- independent management from the clergy.

The gross exploitation of common workers was during the industrial revolution. The modern imagination projects that back to the pre-industrial eras. Peasants and serfs lived very basic lives but they had plenty to eat except in times of famine.

Peasants were eating just fine in the 12-14th Centuries. Also the Cathedrals were built by craftsman not peasants. And they were compensated just fine also.

The building’s restoration is glorious. The pristine stone hasnt been seen in 600 years and has no equal in Europe. Hoping that other great cathedrals will be restore to their pristine stone in imitation.

My only complaint is the ridiculous altar and baptismal font. That crap went out in the 70’s.

Bottom right pic. Is that from North by Northwest?

You chopped your dickhead off. No point in that!😜

You just know after the shoot they fucked for days

The most vulnerable people I know are Appalachians abandoned by FEMA in the wake of a 500 year storm.