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| Main altar at St. Etienne, Toulouse |
After a whole day on Friday and then Saturday morning listening to very professional papers (many with power points!) I was pretty nervous about reading mine. Only student, only creative writer, only one offering up something quite so … hmmm, different.
St. Etienne looked so bizarre from outside—it’s a bit of a mish-mash of styles, because it is so old and was added to over the centuries. The first written record of the church was in 844. In fact it was two incomplete churches which were put together. Its rose window dates from 1230. The portal was added later, and completely off-centre because of the foundations, there’s a tower from the 1600’s.
In the cathedral, I felt Ihad a visceral understanding for the first time about sculpture’s relationship to space. I think where the art happens is not really so much in the curves or corners of the stone or metal—but in the shape of the empty space created around, in, and through it. Sculpture and architecture create space, shape it so that we are able to see it or experience it on the human scale. There can be no vault like the sky over our heads, and yet in some ways the scope of the sky is too much, too vast, too uncontained for comprehension. The genius of these great cathedrals is in creating spaces that both limit and suggest the infinite at the same time.
We stood right below the organ, backs against the old white marble, and listened, felt, the music. The magnitude of it was shocking, revealing. I felt myself delicately sliced open and exposed to the air—a peeled nectarine in the rose-orange light of the stained glass.
But I managed to read through the whole piece and not stutter too much or break out into tears and sobs at the end (it’s not really that dramatic, it’s just that I’m such a crier.) The essay was all about Los Angeles—its history and landscape, the bones and stories buried beneath its concrete and illusory images. Smoke and Mirrors. Seemed to go over quite well, I had some great questions and comments. And then afterward at lunch was able to talk to a few people, and got invitations to submit work to several different journals. A couple in Europe, one in the U.S. Hurrah!
But I managed to read through the whole piece and not stutter too much or break out into tears and sobs at the end (it’s not really that dramatic, it’s just that I’m such a crier.) The essay was all about Los Angeles—its history and landscape, the bones and stories buried beneath its concrete and illusory images. Smoke and Mirrors. Seemed to go over quite well, I had some great questions and comments. And then afterward at lunch was able to talk to a few people, and got invitations to submit work to several different journals. A couple in Europe, one in the U.S. Hurrah!
The conference ended a bit early because there’d been two last-minute drop-outs, so Christien and I managed to visit St. Etienne Cathedral (which C had seen the day before).
The conference ended a bit early because there’d been two last-minute drop-outs, so Christien and I managed to visit St. Etienne Cathedral (which C had seen the day before).
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| St. Etienne, with its strange exterior |
But the strange exterior was hiding a phenomenal space inside. Obviously my experience of great churches and cathedrals is fairly limited … not many that I ever visited in the U.S.—and honestly I don’t think there are really many of architectural merit in the States … not exactly our fault of course—we didn’t have centuries of church-building. There was something quite special about St. Etienne though—the way the white arched ceilings lifted upward, the pillars pushing up with the supports forming veins or branches. It gave me the feeling of a forest. The way trees actually lift sky upward … simultaneously making the sky seem a solid thing which must be supported and an infinite weightlessness that can only be lightly brushed with the tips of leaves or fingers.
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| The vault ... |
In the cathedral, I felt Ihad a visceral understanding for the first time about sculpture’s relationship to space. I think where the art happens is not really so much in the curves or corners of the stone or metal—but in the shape of the empty space created around, in, and through it. Sculpture and architecture create space, shape it so that we are able to see it or experience it on the human scale. There can be no vault like the sky over our heads, and yet in some ways the scope of the sky is too much, too vast, too uncontained for comprehension. The genius of these great cathedrals is in creating spaces that both limit and suggest the infinite at the same time.
We wandered through the space, looking into the chapels, and a mini-concert began. High up on one of the walls, the organ (all polished mahogany and gleaming pipes) was set into the white stone, hanging there like a wall-sconce. It was only when we realized you could just see the organist and a trumpet player inside, that it was clear just how huge the organ was, and how far up. They began practicing for mass and the sound of the organ (a famous piece that we can’t for the life of us place … think its Bach) filled the church. There needs to be a more vigorous verb for what the sound did … in my notebook I wrote that the organ music ‘conquered the space, pounding out into every atom of air and brick and wood, making their electrons vibrate to its rhythm.’ And then came the trumpet, clear, almost dwarfed, calling out over the waves of the organ.
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| Looking back from the Portal |
We stood right below the organ, backs against the old white marble, and listened, felt, the music. The magnitude of it was shocking, revealing. I felt myself delicately sliced open and exposed to the air—a peeled nectarine in the rose-orange light of the stained glass.
A very, very good day.
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| the organ, high up on the wall -- the organist and trumpeter are barely visible on the right side |
A very, very good day.
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