niksoftware photos on Flickr

Once more the Motion Blur-Filter from Nik´s Analog Efex used on a shot of a part of the forest on my way to work, this time used in a more abstract way.

Watching The Dancer by David James

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Watching the dancer at Brazilian Restaurant in Dubai.

Reclining Buddha by David James

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Miniature Reclining Buddha in from of the main statue of the Reclining Buddha at Wat Po, Bangkok

The Lookout by Lisa Brown

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Pacific Ocean near Manzanita on the Oregon Coast

Portrait Carnival Curacao by Rob Roy

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Portrait Carnival Curacao

The abbey of Lessay: the Romanesque church where Gothic was invented by Arsène Lupin

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Ask around what are the two most iconic symbols of Gothic architecture and art, and the answer will likely be: stained glass windows and rib vaulting.

In both cases, that answer will be wrong: those wonders, on which Gothic cathedrals built their worldwide reputation, are... Romanesque! And they were not just invented and barely tested at the time of Romanesque, they were actually implemented again and again, and perfected along the way over at least one century before Gothic happened. Much more than the definitive breaking point it is often purported to be, the advent of the Gothic was much more a smooth and slow transition, largely calling upon concepts, methods and techniques created and improved during Romanesque times.

As regards stained glass, the oldest still in place is the Ascension Window in the Le Mans Cathedral, which could be as old as Year 1100, possibly 1120–40. The windows in the Augsburg Cathedral in Germany also have a strong claim to the title of oldest Romanesque stained glass window. I hope to be able to photograph all of them some day.

Now, and coming back to our main subject, the rib vaulting (in French: voûte sur croisée d’ogives, or more simply voûte d’ogives), experts agree that, even before the cathedral of Durham in England, it was first experimented in the abbey church of Lessay in Normandy, which stands in the Cotentin peninsula, today the département of Manche. This new, revolutionary vaulting system could be as old as 1090, at least for the apse, choir and transept. Let us remember that this was also the time when other Benedictine monks, in Burgundy, were experimenting the “broken”, or “pointy” Romanesque arch in the Cluny II abbey church, on which construction began in 1088.

The beginning of the nave is also very old, as will be explained below. Its western part may have been built a few decades later, around 1130–40 —but even so, at that time we are still fully within the Romanesque Age, which did not come to an end until 1200 at the earliest —and of course such a clean cutoff date is only symbolic and does not correspond to any actual reality.

The abbey church of Lessay was miraculously saved in the 1950s by Yves-Marie Froidevaux, Chief Architect of Historic Landmarks, after it was severely damaged by the mines detonated by the Nazi army before it retreated after the D-Day landing of June 1944. The restoration Froidevaux carried out, re-using most of the old stones wherever it was possible, today remains an example of a successful and respectful restoration.

Dedicated to the Holy Trinity, this church may look less impressive from the outside than the one in Cerisy, of which I uploaded photos a few days ago. Its apparel is mostly of local shale stones. The cut stones are limestone from Yvetot-Bocage near Valognes, a stone of a lesser quality compared to the famous pierre de Caen, which is also used here, but quite sparsely. Prima facie, this vast church offers more similarities with the humble parochial ones to be found locally in the Cotentin, than with “the great monastic architecture”, as Lucien Musset calls it in the Normandie romane book published by Zodiaque.

As you step inside, however, the architectural and religious message resonates with all its majesty and might. Contrary to Cerisy, this nave retains all of its rows; its perfect proportions are ample, elegant and powerful. They fascinate the first-time visitor.

In the oldest rows of the nave, toward the transept, the ribs fall on “nothing”, for lack of a base or an engaged column to receive them. Such an approximation denotes an incomplete concept, enthusiastically adopted but not yet fully developed.

However remarkable and iconic it may be, owing to the very first use of rib vaulting in human history, the abbey church of Lessay fails to satisfy the lovers of Romanesque sculpture, which is almost absent. This does not come as a surprise in a Norman Romanesque church. Some capitals are sculpted, but they are often the most distant, way up high at triforium level, and the other are only prepared for sculpting, rarely decorated with hooks or gadroons.

I really like this view very much, as it is so iconic of what this church is justly famous for. At the same time, I am enthused by the sheer and simple purity of the architecture, which was so innovative for the time and yet seems so evident...

DSC03773-75_HDR by Steve Harwood

Medlock Bridge Park

Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area

Saint Mamet - Sony RX1r by Roxo15

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Sony RX1r

Banyoles by José Luis Mieza

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HDR Color Efex Pro

www.niksoftware.com/hdrefexpro/en/entry.php

IMG_2506 by jtrinche

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C like... Cathedral

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Part of my new 52 project: antwerp52.blogspot.be/2015/01/week-03-c-like-cathedral.html

Woodland Storm by Shane Turnbull

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Biarritz - Sony RX1r by Roxo15

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Stitched Panorama

Sony RX1r

Macro (Meersen NL) by Allard Coenen

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Macro setting on Leica Q, Cropped image

Edited with Niksoftware

dead tapes by Ale Brando

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Walk on by Allard Coenen

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Glenn by Chris Costello

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The abbey of Lessay: the Romanesque church where Gothic was invented by Arsène Lupin

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