The document discusses the renovation of Chartres Cathedral in France. The once gloomy interior is being painted a light yellow to restore it to its medieval appearance. However, some criticize the renovation as a "scandalous desecration." The author visited when half the cathedral was still black and saw the dramatic contrast. The renovation aims to uncover history by cleaning stained glass windows and restoring sculptures to reveal details obscured by time. It seeks to show visitors what the cathedral looked like centuries ago.

1. 2 ▶ winter 2015
A
t the center of the small town of Chartres, a ninety-minute train
ride away from Paris, sits a towering cathedral. This edifice, com-
pleted in the thirteenth century, has been the center of contro-
versy because of a decision made in 2009 to renovate it. This is not the
simple, patchwork maintenance performed on many old monuments; the
cathedral’s once gloomy interior, blackened by centuries of use, is cur-
rently being painted a sunny, pale yellow. The paint job is part of a monu-
mental attempt to restore the cathedral to its medieval appearance. But
the renovation has inspired polemical responses.
Back to the
Blueprint

2. www.stowawaymag.com ◀ 3
The cathedral’s official website
announces that the renovation will
“bring about a radical change in our
perspective of the place”[author’s
translation]. Yet, some are skeptical.
Martin Filler, writer for the New York
Review of Books, expressed his hope
that “by some miracle this scandalous
desecration of a cultural holy place
can be reversed.”
When I visited the cathedral three
years ago, I stood in the middle of
the scandal and the radical shift of
perspective. I entered the cathe-
dral, halfway through renovation
and split by history. One half was
the color of charcoal; the other half
was full of color—bright whites
and yellows gleamed in the intense
light that shined through the newly
cleaned stained glass windows. I was
stunned by the contrast.
At first, it may seem as
though the renovation is
destroying history; but
those who take the time to appreciate
the work that has been done come
to realize that it is in fact uncovering
history. An untrained eye can see very
little in a cathedral obscured by cen-
turies of dust, but using Chartres as
a guide, modern visitors can learn to
see cathedrals as their thirteenth-cen-
tury counterparts saw them. Medieval
visitors, looking at a myriad of colors
accentuating stained glass, sculpture,
and architectural detail, must have
seen much more in a cathedral than
we see today.
Stained Glass
The purpose of stained glass is to
tell stories and to invite light into a
sacred space. As the years pass, the
light is dimmed and the stories are
silenced by dust. Modern tourists see
only muted tones of colored glass,
yet medieval visitors read the stories
of the cathedral walls represented in
vibrant color. During the renovation
of Chartres Cathedral,
the glass is being
cleaned piece by piece,
transforming the
subdued glass back into lively stories
and the shadowy cathedral into a
place of light. Each time we visit a
cathedral, we should imagine it full
of light, and we should look for the
stories that are being told in the glass.
Sculpture
The sculptures on the exterior of
cathedrals have a story to tell as well,
but these tales are often lost over
time. Where medieval visitors saw
beautiful representations of people,
animals, and mythical creatures,
modern visitors see only crumbling,
often unrecognizable figures. At
Chartres Cathedral you can see sculp-
tures of the twelve apostles holding
objects that symbolize how they
were martyred. Yet time and wear
erase details, effacing the life of the
sculptures and the representations
of apostles of old. Skilled masons at
Chartres are renovating the sculp-
tures to bring the figures back to life.
In places where the sculptures haven’t
been reanimated, we are left to our
imaginations to envision what the
sculpture once looked like.
Left:photocourtesyofUnitedStatespublicdomain;Right:photocourtesyofMossot(photomodified)

3. 4 ▶ winter 2015
renovation complete, tourists can go
to Chartres to see an example of what
a medieval cathedral once looked like.
And they can use that vision to help
them uncover the beauty hidden in
cathedrals that haven’t undergone
such dramatic renovations.
Next time you visit Notre Dame
de Paris or Reims or any other cathe-
dral, remember Chartres. Allow your
imagination to peel back the layers of
time and see cathedrals as they were
meant to be seen. The answer will not
be right in front of you, but maybe
that is exactly what will intrigue you
and push you to continue rediscover-
ing cathedrals.
—Kayla Bowman
half yellow— it would have given visi-
tors the unique opportunity to close
one eye and imagine what today’s
gloomy cathedral must have looked
like centuries ago. Then, through the
opposite eye, they would see if their
imagination came close. This cathe-
dral would have trained average trav-
elers to discover the beauty of ancient
architecture, as it did for me.
Unfortunately, the renovation
will be completed next year; the old
cathedral will be entirely masked by
the new, and visitors will no longer
have the rare privilege of witnessing
the cathedral’s dramatic transforma-
tion in process. However, with this
Architectural Detail
In a cathedral that has not been reno-
vated, the mélange of grey can blend
together and hide the architectural
details. Where paint has long since
faded, visitors have the challenge of
detecting the numerous architectural
details in a sea of gray. Paint serves
to accentuate the architecture of the
building. At Chartres Cathedral,
painters have chosen yellow and
white paint to draw visitors’ atten-
tion to the vaulting in the ambulatory
around the cathedral’s nave.
If the renovation of Chartres
Cathedral had been stopped at the
point where I first saw it—half black,
PhotobySydneyHughes