The North window of
Notre Dame de Paris.
The magnificent roses of the transepts at Notre Dame
date to 1250-60. Unlike most of the glass in Paris, and much of France,
these two contain nearly all of their original elements. The ravages of
time and war destroyed a majority of the great glass works of the Middle
Ages, though human arrogance also took its toll. By the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, the distaste for Medieval styles was prevalent
across Europe. In efforts to modernize the churches and cathedrals,
windows were callously smashed out and replaced with a lightly tinted
glass called grisaille. In the nineteenth century some of these
works were restored. Sadly, there no longer existed an extant tradition
which supported the same degree of craft evident in such masterpieces as
the roses of
Notre Dame de Paris and Chartres.
Image:
Rhey Cedron |
Vista of Paris
from atop Notre Dame - 45k 
