Welcome to Heaven
By Cory Williams
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| The West Portals Notre Dame de Paris. October 28, 2007. Benh LIEU SONG, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons |
During many of my Zoom induced daydreams, I find my mind wandering off to 2015 and the first time I visited Paris. The city was my last stop in a 6 week solo backpacking trip. The drain of travel and sharing room after room with no less than a dozen people at a time (three quarters of whom always snored) had me feeling like Quasimodo on the day I visited Notre-Dame. As I neared the cathedral, I felt a number of eyes on me. However, it wasn’t the hundreds of tourists flowing past me, but the eyes of every single statute that surrounds each of the three portals on Notre-Dame’s western facade. The eyes of angels, kings, and assorted biblical figures and saints all seemed fixed on me, giving me a brief flashback to that scene in The Haunting when wooden cherubs turn their head and stare at Lili Taylor. After reliving a slightly traumatic childhood moment courtesy of Ms. Taylor, I was left wondering what it must have been like for the millions that have walked through these same doors since the 13th century.
The Notre-Dame cathedral is what some would call a “poor man's bible.” That is, a church which relies on artwork it to teach biblical parables to the uneducated and illiterate. For example, the two friezes (horizontal rows of sculptures) and the sculptures within the tympanum (the triangular space that forms the center of a pediment) above the central portal on the Western Facade features scenes of the Last Judgement. In the scene, the archangel Michael weighs the souls of those that have been resurrected. While the sinners are led off to hell by a demon, the “good” Christians are led off to heaven. Essentially, it was made to be overwhelming and a little scary to make sure you learned what would happen to you if you sinned (hint: it’s hell). Together, all the scenes depicted in each of the three portals combine to create an allegory for entering heaven.
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| Last Judgment Tympanum. Central Portal of the west facade, Notre-Dame, Paris. Omar David Sandoval Sida, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons |
Finished sometime in the 1220’s, and the last of the three portals to be constructed, the Portal of the Last Judgement has a stunning amount of detail to it. The face of each soul is just different enough to separate them individually. However, the souls of the damned are full of genuine fear and horror. You really get the sense that they are not looking forward to hell.Below them, a frieze of the new resurrected souls stare up at them, awaiting their own fate. Above them all, within the tympanum, Jesus sits on a throne showing the wounds in his hands, and feet. To his right and left stand angels and Mary and John praying. Although he sits, Christ is larger than everyone, serving as a reminder of his suffering for the sake of mankind. Encompassing all of this are five arches full of a heavenly choir made up of various angels, saints, kings and various other religious people watching the scene unfold. Hell is present here. At the bottom right of each arch are multiple souls being tortured by demons. The placement of these little vignettes appears to be purposeful. Beyond them technically being below heaven, these lie on Christ’s left side. This is also the direction to which the dammed are led. While it’s hard to get a definitive answer on it, in Christian symbolism, the left hand appears to be considered the “bad side” of god. The devil’s side. And this the part where I apologize to any left-handed Catholics who may now be experiencing flashbacks of nuns smacking them with rulers for using their left hand. Between the two individual doors is a large statue of a Christ teaching, bringing back the idea that these were used to teach lessons rather than act simply as decoration.
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| Portal of the Virgin. North portal on the west facade, Notre-Dame, Paris. de:Freedom_Wizard, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons |
The two slightly smaller portals that flank the central portal on the western facade are slightly less… preachy (pardon the pun). To the right of the central portal lies the North Portal (not to be confused with the North Transept Portal on the north side of the building). This portal is also known as the Coronation Portal or the Portal of the Virgin. It’s also a slightly less menacing door when you compare it to the previous one. Separating the two doors here is a large statue of the Virgin with the child Christ. Within the tympanum, instead of the devils and judged souls are two different scenes. One features three prophets on the left and three Old Testament kings on the right. Above them lies Mary on her deathbed, surrounded by Jesus and the 12 apostles. The surrounding arches are again filled with a heavenly choir of anonymous angels and saints watching the scenes unfold.
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| Tympanum of the St. Anne Portal. South portal on the west facade, Notre-Dame, Paris. Miguel Hermoso Cuesta, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons |
To the right of the central is the South Portal of the West Façade (also not to be confused with the South Transept Portal). Known as the Saint Anne Portal, this particular portal is the oldest of the three main portals. The statues within its tympanum were actually part of the church of Saint Mary, which was dismantled with the expansion of Notre-Dame’s choir. If you look closely, you’ll notice the inclusion of something we haven’t seen in the other two portals: foliage. During construction of the cathedral, it was realized that the tympanum was actually too small to fill the space, so two strips of foliage were added as well as the two angels seen at the top. Who hasn’t realized too late that something was too small to fill a gap and filled it with leaves and grace? With all of its individual figures and ornate flourishes, the Saint Anne Portal is as if not more detailed as the Central Portal. The main focus is, surprisingly, not Saint Anne but rather the Virgin Mary with the infant Christ on her knee. She is flanked by an angel and the bishop of Paris to one side and a French king and another angel to the other side. The frieze directly below tells the stories of the Annunciations, the Nativity, and the Epiphany while the lowest frieze depicts the marriage of Joachim and Anne (Mary’s parents) as well as the marriage of Mary and Joseph.
Using the word portal rather than simply “entry” or “door” can seem a little pretentious. The word usually conjures the mental image of a massive, beautiful, but also slightly terrifying swirling ball of lights that serves as an entryway to another world. The portals of Notre Dame aren’t that different from this sci-fi idea. They are overwhelmingly beautiful and a little scary. But they also serve as an entrance to another world. They’re the entrance to heaven on Earth.
Sources:
French Moments. “West Facade of Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris” Accessed February 19th, 2021
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