Climbing the Walls: Building Chartres Cathedral (1150 – 1260)

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One hour’s drive southwest of Paris, Chartres Cathedral stands as a magnificently complete example of Gothic architecture, sculpture, and stained glass. But what looks like a unified design is really the result of several extended building campaigns that lasted for years and required the work of many skilled craft persons. Every level of the huge building is accessible through passageways in the thickness of the buttresses. This talk is richly illustrated by the speaker’s images of Chartres Cathedral.

This program has been organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and is funded, in part, by the Jean Stafford Camp Memorial Fund.