Notre Dame Burns

Posted on by Thor

2 of 5 Prints SOLD

In 2012 I visited Paris and had the opportunity to spend several hours sketching Notre Dame Cathedral from the banks of the Seine. I was following in the footsteps of Ronald Searle who creating an amazing series of sketches of the city in the 1950s. I tracked down the same locations he sketched and sketched the scenes myself. The styles of the cars had changed but otherwise history had stood still. With his sketch in hand I walked the banks of the river until I found the same view.

It was a quiet sunny day with locals and tourists checking their phones and shooting photos. I was humbled by the buildings immensity. I felt I was in the true heart of the city. I was in the exact same place one of my favorite artists had created about 50 years before. Construction on the cathedral was begun in 1160 and largely completed by 1260, though it was modified frequently in the following centuries. In 1858 some of the statues were damaged by Huguenots who considered them idolatrous. In 1793 after the French Revolution many of the art treasures were destroyed or plundered. 28 statues of biblical  kings were beheaded being mistaken for French kings.The cathedral became battered and ruined from neglect but Victor Hugo‘s novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame written in 1831,  brought a new interest to the structure. During the liberation of Paris in 1944 the building experienced some damage due to stray bullets. In 2016 there was a failed cathedral bombing attempt, and in 2017 four people were arrested on charged that they planned to travel to Paris and attack the cathedral.

None of these damages over the centuries compared to the horrible fire that engulfed the building starting about 6:50pm on April 15, 2019. It is believed it was caused by construction workers who were renovating the building. The fire possibly began in the bell tower. The fire caused the collapse of the spire and the roof. A small statue of a rooster on the top of the spire contained relics including a tiny piece of the crown of thorns which was acquired in 1239.

There is a water reservoir, covered with a lead roof, that is located between the two
towers, behind the colonnade and the gallery and in front of the nave. It was designed to quickly extinguish a fire.  Many of the statues, including statues of the twelve apostles, were removed just last week to allow for construction, so that is some good news. A bucket brigade of people also passes relics to safety as the roof burned. Firefighters have saved the cathedral from total destruction. There are no confirmed deaths. The fire is being treated as an accident.

As news of the fire blazed into my studio via social media, I immediately started to alter the sketch I had created in 2012. I painted the fire and smoke darkened the scene. Seeing the cathedral towers on the western facade engulfed in smoke of course brought back memories of September 11 when the twin towers collapsed in New York City. Thankfully the firefighters saved the twin towers on Notre Dames Western facade. The interior was blackened yet a golden cross remained suspended above the damage. The full extent of the damage is being assessed.  The phoenix must now rise from the ashes.

Church of Saint Paul – Saint Louis

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Terry was using a Foders map to navigate various walking routes through the city. The map of Paris never seemed to show the name of the street we were on. I was almost bowled over by a baby carriage and an elderly lady as I searched for my bearings. We were walking on Rue Saint Antoine when we happened across this church which I recognized from Ronald Searle‘s sketch from 60 plus years before. I pulled his Paris Sketchbook out of my art supply bag and I searched for the exact spot he had sketched from. It was exciting when every line and angle matched up. In his day this was a working class neighborhood with vendors pushcarts and shops. Today the neighborhood has been gentrified with upper class fashion and jewelry shops along with some smaller bodegas.

As I sketched, an elderly man in ragged clothes and a boy stood in front of me speaking in French. I didn’t understand a word, so I shrugged my shoulders and kept sketching.  They persisted and the man pointed at the pens clipped in my bag. I decided to give him one of the dried up pens and satisfied, they walked away. If I knew some French I could have asked them to pose. Like everyone else, they seemed in a hurry. It was threatening to rain and there was a light drizzle, but not enough to stop me. Victor Hugo had his first child christened in this church. Everywhere we went, we seemed to be walking in Victor Hugo’s footsteps.

A Room with a View

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Terry and I took the Paris metro from the airport to Hotel Pantheon. We were delighted to find out that out that we had been upgraded to a room with a view. A municipal building in the square in front of the Pantheon had a wedding ceremony going on.  Colorful confetti was thrown over the coulee as they left the building. A crowd of guests stood in the street afterwards. A wedding photographer took pictures of the couple with the Pantheon as a backdrop. There was no mad rush to get to a reception. A large vintage sedan with its chauffeur was waiting at the corner.

This view was from the hotel window and it was the first sketch I did in Paris after I opened the window shutters. It was obvious from the start that there would be no shortage of interesting subjects in this city. Terry and I went inside the Pantheon to look around. In the basement there were catacombs with crypts. One room held the remains of authors Victor Hugo, 1807-1885, and Emile Zola, 1840-1902. The Pantheon had a huge pendulum suspended from the large central dome. There was an exhibit of original manuscripts from Jean Jacques Rousseau. Terry and I looked through but didn’t linger. Murals and statuary decorated every corner and alcove of the interior. One huge room housed a scale model of the Pantheon itself.

It was good that our hotel was near this major landmark since it helped us navigate back after we got lost on the myriad of angular rooked streets of Paris. Inevitably we were always lost since there was no grid pattern to follow.  Streets would often end at public places and only a few of thee street names ever seemed to actually be on the map. Once while I was trying to read the map, a little old French lady walked right into me to push me aside. She was like an ant unable to consider the notion of walking around. The country celebrates youth even more than America, so perhaps that is why the older ladies seem so bitter. I eventually abandoned the maps and wandered the streets by instinct and feel. Every turn would result in another stunning find so that is when the adventure begins. It only became important to get a feel for where the River Seine was in relation to where we were.