On the Trail of Monet’s Cathedrals and Haystacks: Devotional

interior, Gothic cathedral, author photo

Stone—heavy, durable, hard to carve into blocks or statues. Part of a Gothic cathedral, though, it can soar to great heights, as well as form thin, decorative tracery around rose windows.

Chartres, one of three rose windows, author photo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notre Dame de Paris, flying buttresses, author photo before the fire

Built all over Europe in the Middles Ages, these vast churches have defied wars, storms, and fires, as we’ve so recently seen with Notre Dame in Paris! Inside, its stone columns still run up and fan out to someday support a new vaulted ceiling. Outside, Notre Dame’s flying buttresses still arch back against the cathedral and will again, we hope, counter the outward thrust of a new roof.

Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, author photo

 

Thinner stone walls could hold huge windows of stained glass, opening up these cathedrals to a beautiful light that some have called heavenly.

The stained glass and statues helped generations of mostly illiterate people learn the story of redemption.

 

When Monet painted the Rouen cathedral series,

Rouen Cathedral, Facade and the Tour d’Albane, Gray Weather, Claude Monet, Rouen Museum

the cathedral had stood solidly in that same spot for over 700 years! So he was able to return after a year to finish the series.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hay—light, perishable, blown to and fro by the wind. It grows for a season and is then easily cut and formed into a plump haystack to dry. Although necessary for feeding livestock, hay stacks don’t soar toward God or let in heavenly light to tell God’s story.

detail of haystack painting by Monet, author photo

They aren’t permanent either. Monet began his haystack series in the fall, but continued so long into the winter that the farmer needed the hay to feed his cattle! Monet had to pay the farmer to wait while he finished his paintings. 

Imagine that farmer walking away fingering the francs in his hand, but shaking his head over the strange ways of artists!

So if asked which has more spiritual worth, a cathedral or a haystack, most would choose the cathedral.

Yet in the summer of 1806 the prayers of five Williams College students did soar up out of a haystack to God and helped begin the American mission’s movement that sent 1000s of men and women to spread the gospel throughout the world. There had been recent Christian revivals in America under George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, and others, but up to this time, no one had considered taking the gospel to other parts of the world.

But Samuel Mills, a student at Williams College, had begun to pray about it. And on a Saturday afternoon in August he and four other students gathered in a field off campus to discuss and pray about missions to foreign lands. Williams College is in the postcard-pretty Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts. Vibrant autumn foliage soon gives way to winter snows, so by August haystacks begin to dot those fields around the town and college.

That August Saturday in 1806 a thunderstorm rolled down out of the mountains and lightning crackled over the fields, sending the five students under a haystack for shelter. They continued praying, and the Haystack Prayer Meeting, as it came to be called, continued weekly after that.

Within just a few years, Mills, along with other students, had helped encourage the founding of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions which sent the first American missionaries to India in 1812. One of those, Adoniram Judson, was a friend of Mills from when they both attended Andover Theological Seminary. Mills also help found the American Bible Society and The United Foreign Missionary Society.

Monet made beautiful paintings of the fleeting, superficial changes that light brings to haystacks and cathedrals, but the objects aren’t really changed, and even stone cathedrals don’t last forever.

But when God’s light comes, it can even transform a haystack into a cathedral in which His heavenly light illumines and leads regular people, like college students and us, to take the gospel light to our neighbors, and around the world.

Then these people of God become temples of the Holy Spirit, and they will live forever!

Are there people in your neighborhood or others you keep in touch with who need to receive the light of the gospel?

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Molly is taking a much deserved break from photo shoots, but if you sign up for  Kathythepicturelady posts, you’ll soon see some of the funnier photos from her Molly-in-France series!

The next post will be an Impressionist-inspired kid’s art project for Mother’s Day. Don’t miss it!

 

 

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On the Trail of Monet’s Cathedrals and Haystacks: Rouen

In the afternoon we tore ourselves away from Monet’s sunny garden to make our train connection to Rouen to see the cathedral that Monet painted so many times.

As we waited on the platform of the little train station, the weather changed. Wind brought clouds and the first rain of our trip. It continued to rain while we were in Rouen, a city on the Seine River not far from the Atlantic. I didn’t mind, though, as one of Monet’s cathedral views is in the rain, and he actually liked to try to capture the effects of rain and fog.

On this rainy Sunday few people were about, and no sun lit up the exterior of Rouen Cathedral or pierced through the stained glass that remains. It’s slim Gothic pillars still soar up to its high vault, and outside it wears its age with dignity and lacy beauty. And some parts of it are really old!

There has been a Christian church on the site of Rouen Cathedral since Roman times. Since then it has been partially destroyed by wars, fires, and storms many times, and just as often been rebuilt. The Vikings destroyed the early church and then rebuilt it when they settled the area.

 

The first (Viking/Norseman) Norman duke, Rollo, is buried under his effigy in the ambulatory.

Effigy of Rollo

For many, many years Rouen continued to be Norman/English land, and Richard the Lionheart’s heart is buried under his effigy next to his ancestor, Rollo.

Effigy of King Richard

 

 

 

 

The cathedral was rebuilt in the new Gothic style in the 12th century, but  fires and storms caused more rebuilding in the 13th century. Then in the 1400s, the façade was made over in the highly-decorative Flamboyant Gothic style, so that today the cathedral still looks like it’s wearing a garment of stony lace.

In WWII Rouen was a major supply depot for the Nazis, so the city and the cathedral were heavily bombed. The cathedral suffered several direct hits that caused much destruction. It was repaired, but in 1999 a storm toppled a huge pinnacle weighing many tons, which crashed through the roof and into the choir. When you look up you can still see the repaired place where it came through.

Today Rouen Cathedral is a mixture from all those times—some, like the North Tower, date back to the 1100s, while some stained glass and other sections are from the 1200s and 1400s. The middle spire or tower, made of iron, was installed in the 1800s, and, of course, repairs from WWII and the 1999 storm are even more recent.

Monet knew this cathedral well. He grew up in Normandy, a brother lived in the city, and it was just a short train ride from Giverny. As he thought about his next series, Rouen with its lacy exterior must have come readily to mind. He rented a room across the square from the cathedral and painted over 30 views of its façade over the next 2 years. Today a sign marks the spot from which he painted.

But as with every other subject Monet paints the light more than the cathedral. He studied how the cathedral changed with the sun’s angle and the weather. Some views show the sun rising behind the north tower. Others show the deep shadows produced by full sunlight. It’s an oblique view, although a few of the paintings are more face on.

The details of that lacy exterior would defeat most artists but Monet’s short, sketchy brush strokes give the cathedral a lacy texture just as his thick paint gave the haystacks a strawlike texture.

Rouen Cathedral, Facade and the Tour d’Albane, Gray Weather, Claude Monet, Rouen Museum

One of my favorites is the rainy day cathedral with its many tones of browns and creams. You can see the reflections on the wet cobblestones, just as we did.

When 20 of the paintings in this series went on sale, Georges Clemenceau, who later became France’s prime minister, was enthralled by them and bought one. He was a fan of Monet and wrote many admiring reviews of Monet’s work in his newspaper.

Activity

Find a permanent object or building outside that you can view for a week or so at all times of day and in different weather. Observe how light changes colors and shadows. Write down your obsevations or make sketches.

Molly is inspired and ready to paint!!

Are you signed up to receive the next Kathythe picturelady post? It will be an Easter post with more photos of the Isenheim altarpiece that I first showed at Christmas.

Later in April will be some devotional thoughts based on this whole Cathedrals and Haystacks series.

All photos in this post by the author