Gothic Sculpture and its shifting meanings, Strasbourg Cathedral
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- čas přidán 2. 05. 2023
- A conversation with Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris in front of the South Portal of Strasbourg Cathedral, c. 1230, with mid-nineteenth century restorations (lintels, Solomon, and Christ). Many thanks to the scholarship of Nina Rowe.
Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris
I love the coverage of gothic art in these videos! I have no Idea if the presenters ever read the comments, or if it's just the channel manager, but I love Smarthistory so much I have to scream it into the void anyway
We do read the comments, and thank you for your generous note.
Best,
Steven, Beth, and the rest of the Smarthistory team
Thank you for this wonderfull explanation of the Ecclessia / Synagoge motive!
It's always fascinating to see cultural shifts in art.
I've been watching these videos for years, they're fantastic - want to point out one thing I especially love: the sound ambience. To record your talk in the actual location of the art adds such subtle depth and meaning to these videos. Thank you.
Thank you for noticing and saying so! By recording on location we can better communicate the experience of the art both through the ambient sounds, the photography we shoot, but also because being there informs how we respond to the work. All the audio is unscripted and recorded on site, and then edited, We think this makes a real difference. Please stay in touch.
Another excellent video from Dr. Harris and Dr. Zucker. Thank you for exploring the amazing world of art and inviting us to join the journey.
Thank you so much for this video! I've recently been to Strasbourg and only managed to see the cathedral from the outside. I was thrilled to watch your video ❤ You are awesome! 👏
I would love a cologne cathedral video!
Super! Merci pour cette révélation, je suis de Strasbourg et fasciné par cette grande dame depuis tout petit, merci de donner des clés pour mieux la comprendre! Cest d'autant plus intéressant quand on sait que derrière ces portes se trouve l'horloge astronomique de Dasypodius ;)
Really love this channel
I’m always thrilled to watch another SmartHistory video because I always learn so much when I do. Two twin evils are both embodied in Strasbourg Cathedral-Antisemitism and iconoclasm. The 14th century certainly was a time of renewed Antisemitism throughout Europe and the British Isles. I’ve read Barbara Tuchman’s excellent book about the nonstop war, persecution and bloodshed of all kinds during that century and have often wondered why it was especially bad during this century.
Re: iconoclasm. Why were there statues left in the inside the cathedral when the mobs of the French Revolution were so brutal in tearing down the religious statues outside both in Strasbourg and elsewhere? Notre Dame de Paris comes to mind. It’s a shame that religious fanaticism has contributed to the destruction of so much meaningful and beautiful art and architecture throughout the ages.
Thank you for the kind words. Barbara Tuchman sparked my interest in history many years ago.
Ah, so long since I've been able to appreciate a gorgeous cathedral. 🥰
It's a shame so much was lost in the revolution, but I'm also amazed at how much remains and how beautifully done the restorations are. Look at the colors on the exterior and the details on the sculptures themselves.
I feel the Ecclesia / Synagoga tension sometimes from Christians requesting prayer for their Jewish friends / relatives. Christ warned about these kinds of divisions, though. Who's to say what Big G's plan is when it comes to these matters...
As for me, my plan is to kinda float around the "For you" collection of videos while meandering my way through anything that doesn't have a red bar beneath it. It may be fun to freestyle and have no expectation for what comes next. 🙃
Fuck yeah evert video is worth a watch
Micro version of Synagoga "christian ivory' was made in january, excellent analysis by smart history doctors
Wow! The restorations tell such a story too, and that broken spear/ lance that the figure of the Jewess is shouldering, I wonder if they are inferring that this was the one that was thrust up in to Christ's side as he suffered on the rood? I have never seen the marvels of Strasbourg Cathedrale. I love to discover more please, from you two 🙏🏽💙
Thank you.
I think that the broken spear represents the broken power of the Jewish people. After the Jewish revolt in 70 A.D., the Temple had been destroyed and the Jewish people scattered. Also, Christians believed that Christianity had supplanted the Hebrew faith as the true expression of God's will. Thus, the Jews had lost their power, both on earth and in heaven.
Great video!
Magnificent! ❤
Thank you for your excellent videos. I subscribed sometime ago and have been enjoying them. Would you consider doing Santiago de Compostela, especially the "Portico de la Gloria" that has been under restoration with color.
We do hope to get to Spain again soon. Thanks for the suggestion and the kind words.
Another wonderful, concise yet far ranging in thought video! I would love to know more about the status of paint inside and perhaps outside the cathedral. What percentage was painted for example. Traces seem to be evident particularly on the angel column.
Good point! We did not get to talk about the polychromy...
My town
What a lovely town.
This is a lovely video, though I wish you had provided a sentence clarifying the relationship between the sculptures now on the portal and the ones in the museum. I appreciate the various perspectives you evoke.
Thanks for reaching out. Was something unclear about the Synagoga and Ecclesia sculptures being brought inside to the museum?
@@smarthistoryvideos I knew it well--I have been to Strasbourg but only briefly, at a time when the museum was closed, so I did not get to see the originals. I just did not hear you mention it, though you did speak of the originals of the heads of the pillar figures. Anyway, the video was a real treat.
3:25 look at the expression on the statue. Renaissance did not just popped up in Italy.
Thank you for this video.. Enjoyed thoroughly the explanations of the gothic art in this cathedral..
❤❤
Return with the subtitles in the videos, please!
you have to turn on subtitles. look for the icon on the bottom of the screen, on the left.
@@terrayjos the caption is not accurate as it is automatically generated.
Do we know who the sculptor of these specific sculptures is?
I wonder why this video does not show the interior and the wonderful working Astronomical Clock?
We decided to focus on the south transept sculptures and the pillar of angels...
Are there gothic paintings or do they not exist because of the dark ages?
There is indeed painting. Have a look here:
• smarthistory.org/the-wilton-diptych/
• smarthistory.org/hiding-the-divine-in-a-medieval-madonna-shrine-of-the-virgin/
• smarthistory.org/crucifixion-1200/
• smarthistory.org/saint-louis-bible-moralized-bible-or-bible-moralisee/
• smarthistory.org/the-golden-haggadah/
I wonder why sculptures in front of a church would have been destroyed during the French Revolution.
Cathedral sculpture around France was targeted for destruction as symbols of the power of the monarchy during the Revolution. It was one of the most significant iconoclastic spasms in European history (others include the Byzantine Iconoclasm and the Protestant Iconoclasm)
Okay those copies of the two female statues look nothing like the originals!
4:46 Technically, it is called Antijudaism in this timeframe. Antisemitism is a 19th century pseudo-scientific term that was chosen for print publication and political campaigning over alternatives like "anti-orientalism". The jews of Europe were forced into a most unlucky social role, let's just say that.
I mean, in terms of language "Semitic" is a fairly well established term and recognised language family based on a traditional name derived from legends in the Bible, and so speakers of these languages can be called Semitic in this sense accurately.
The problem is of course that in the late 19th century/early 20th century, the understanding of philology went far ahead of their understanding of archaeology and genetics, so they conflated language families with genetic groups, even those the link between these two can be made tenuous by the formation of multi-ethnic empires from the Bronze Age onwards. So Semitic speakers were assumed to be genetically related (there is some link but it is generally tenuous after 2-3 millenia). The same thing happened with Indo-European, the Nazis assumed Germanic peoples were the real originators of Indo-European languages - based on ideas by Penka and other, which made the ancient Romans, ancient Greeks, the ancient Persians and the Brahmin of India all 'ultimately' civilizations traceable to the germ of the Germanic race. Actual archaeological and genetic evidence has pretty much demolished the Nordic hypothesis of PIE's origins.
That said, the semantics of a word have less relation to a pedantic definition in a dictionary and are more pragmatic crystalisations of a social reality. Even those avowedly calling themselves "anti-semetic" tended to elide it with ani-judaism, including the Nazis whose anti-semitism didn't stop oportunistic attempts at forming alliances of convenience with "Semetic" Arabs. So it seems to me that at least in modern English an equivalence between anti-semitic and anti-judaism, whilst technical different, are in functional terms equivalent. And the original user of the term 'anti-semitism' - Wilhelm Marr - was specifically attacking Jews in his diatribe, and the difference between the ethnicity and the religion was definitely blurred (as indeed it was in the Middle Ages).
It’s antiSemitism
….uh-oh.