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The building blazes again after a spectacular restoration campaign. (©Laurent Rebours)
Since the recent restoration of its polychrome interior decor and its some 150 bays closed by colored stained glass, the building blazes again in a clarity approaching its primitive state.
For the visitor who knew the place before this restoration and the darkness in which it was bathed, it is a visual shock.
The close link between architecture, stained glass and polychromy is also confirmed by the stained glass windows painted in trompe-l’oeil unearthed in the west bays.
The splendor of a major reference in the history of French religious sculpture has also just been restored through the forty scenes inserted into the stone lacework of the “choir tower”, one of the few surviving fences in France, sculpted between 1529 and 1716 by the best artists of the time.
They embed the choir brought to the taste of the 18th century by the architect Victor Louis whose stucco and blue draperies have regained their brilliance.
Contemporary creations too
In addition to the liturgical furnishings designed by goldsmith Goudji for the crossing of the transept, the cathedral remains open to contemporary creation with the showcase created in 2020 by designer Hubert Le Gall for the Veil of the Virgin, relic considered as the Holy Shirt of Mary and which is the pride of the Chartrains.
This book also discusses the reopening of Saint Piat Chapelclosed for more than twenty years where will be welcomed on two levels among the most beautiful pieces of Gothic sculpture in France as well as the treasury of the cathedral.
Four windows created by the Korean artist Bang Ai Ja are the counterpart to four historiated decorations of a high quality painted ensemble (second half of the 14th century) recently revealed.
█ Practical: Notre-Dame de Chartres Cathedral by Fabienne Audebrand, Irène Jourd’heuil and Philippe Pagnieux. 10 euros. 96 pages, 112 illustrations. Also available in English. Editions du patrimoine du Center des Monuments Nationaux.
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