The Life of Stone: Viollet-le-Duc's Physiology of Architecture

Author(s): Martin Bressani

Source: ANY: Architecture New York , 1996, No. 14, Tectonics Unbound: KERNFORM
AND KUNSTFORM REVISITED ! (1996), pp. 22-27
Published by: Anyone Corporation

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 Martin Bressani

The Life of Stone

• •

Yiollet-le-Duc's P

Life consist

of the totalit
that resist death.

Dr. Xavier Bichat

Recherches physiologiques sur la vie et la mort, 1 800

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 The name of the renowned French architect Eugène-
Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc usually conjures up the thought
of a rationalist mind with a decidedly deterministic bent.
An artist's fame, however, is often only the accumulation
of the misunderstandings surrounding his or her produc-
tion, the work disappearing behind the reputation. Viol-
let-le-Duc s well-known Entretiens sur l'architecture (Discourses
on Architecture, 1863, 1872), for instance, cannot be
reduced to a positivist position. The multi -volume treatise
opens with an inquiry into art's sacred origins, which are
traced to primitive acts of transgression. Art, claims Viol-
let-le-Duc, is an "instinctive craving" that has its source
"in the making of monstrosities." He gives the example of
the making of idols, which stirs feelings of vanity, sanctity,
and transcendence. Art, he concludes, "exercises its func-
tion by giving body to fictions"2 bringing to life what was
only a figment of the imagination. It therefore transcends
the narrow limits of the useful by bringing to shape the
fig. 2 Analytical drawing of the interior impossible. This "impossible" indeed haunts Viollet-le-
of the apse of the church of Notre-Dame in
Duc at every turn of his meticulous analysis of Gothic
Dijon, drawn by Viollet-le-Duc, from uCon-
structures, the methodical logic of medieval builders
struction," Dictionnaire raisonné, 1859.
being transfigured into an ode to the vital powers of the
universe. In proposing a science of architecture that can give form to the fictions of the
mind, he pursued not so much the cohesive order visible in the organic world as its pro-
fuse vitality, its life impulse.
Viollet-le-Duc s ideas about architecture responded to the social, political, and intellectu-
al upheavals that had changed the face of Europe between the late 1 8th and early 1 9th cen-
tury - the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the Terror, which became for the
romantics eternal allegories of history's gloom and glory. Indeed, Viollet-le-Duc 's exaltation
of life stood at the end of a long historical development that had begun with a celebration of
death. When, around 1780, the ancien regime tottered toward its deserved demise, the
philosophes began to preach the relativity and artificiality of the inherited social order, and the
elites responded by developing a taste for decay. Initially their engagement was purely aes-
thetic; they silendy contemplated the deathlike stillness of J. J. Winckelmann's Greek ideal,
politely discussed the epic breadth of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, or
obsessively perused the Roman catacombs. There they enjoyed, in the words of the French
antiquarian Séroux d'Agincourt, "a repose almost similar to that of the thousands of dead
who have slept in these cemeteries through fifteen centuries."3
But then the imagined repose of the dead turned into the witnessed anguish of the dying.
Boullée's funerary landscapes opened to the execution places of the Revolution and the batde-
fields of the ensuing wars. The Terror freed death from the confinement of the aesthetic gaze.
fig. i Nervous system of the human Those who had contemplated ruined tombs now buried
head and torso, drawn by N. H. Jacob,
corpses in hasty graves. Like Pierre Bézoukhov in Tolstoy 's War
Marc Jean Bourgery, Traité complet
and Peace, they lost amid the slaughter the last vestiges of
de l'anatomie de l'homme, 1844.
Courtesy Osler Library of the History of necrophilic contentment and rediscovered within themselves
Medicine, McGill University, Montreal. the radiant power of life.
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1 For their generous editorial comments Only then did the romantics fully realize how misguided
I thank Claude Jean Bressani, Kurt Förster,
they had been when they had set out to refashion the world
and Robert Jan van Pelt. 2 Eugène Viol-
from the ground up, acting in the erroneous belief that the
let-le-Duc, "Premier entretien" (1 857), in
state was but the contractual aggregate of so many social
Entretiens sur l'architecture (Paris: Morel, 1863),
atoms.
1 :24, 27. 3 Séroux d'Agincourt, Histoire de Society had been all along a living thing, a social
body that, by 1814, desperately tried to grow new roots.
l'art par les monuments depuis sa décadence au IVe siè-
cle jusqu'à son renouvellement au XVIe siècle (Paris:
Thus at the time of Viollet-le-Duc 's birth, as the Russian,
1811-23), 1:21; as quoted in Anthony
Prussian, and Austrian monarchs restored some European
Vidier, The Writing of the Walls: Architectural Theory
order,
of the Late Enlightenment (New York: Princeton German and French intellectuals set out to formulate
Architectural Press, 1987), 186.
a new science of politics based on a natural history, even a
physiology of the social. German and French artists began to explore the paradoxical chasm
that had opened between the Jacobin destruction of tradition and the Restoration glorifica-
tion of history, between the longing for continuity and the experience of discontinuity.
More than anyone, the architect confronted the paradox lodged at the heart of the age of
historicism: the imperative of manifesting a historical idea within a world that had severed
its links with the past. Modern theories of tectonics sought to recover tradition for the pre-
sent by collapsing history into nature, and nature into technology.
14.23
A new interpretation of Gothic architecture - at once embodying the
birth of the idea of nation, flowing with vital sap and bound by a technical magic - will be a
chief vehicle for the new synthesis. Indeed in the analysis of medieval architecture con-
tained in the Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture française du XI e au XVIe siècle (1 854-68) Viollet-le-
Duc 's vitalist conception of architecture is most readily apparent. That masterful 1 0-volume
work describes the Gothic monument as a living organism, whose organs and connections
Viollet-le-Duc, a most patient anatomist, dissects. There is no need to expend a great deal of
imagination to conceive the Dictionnaire as a sort of anatomy treatise. Viollet-le-Duc himself
suggests it in the opening pages: "The timé has come to study the art of the Middle Ages just
as we study the development and the life of a living being . . . dissecting its various parts,
while describing the functions." That hint aside, the methodical analysis of the structure of
the Gothic cathedral, where drawings play a key role, is without question anatomical. Viol-
let-le-Duc describes all structural members through a series of partial views drawn in per-
spective, dissecting, layer by layer, the inner workings of each of its parts, stripping them of
all that is accessory, studying even the intimate structure of the materials themselves and
showing the detail of their implementation, course by course (figs. 2, 3). No other works of
medieval or classical archaeology present this type of surgical analysis.
In order to make the parallel totally unambiguous, I
would contend that one specific anatomy treaty provided a
model for the Dictionnaire: the Traité complet de l'anatomie de l'homme
(1832-54), a magnificent and monumental eight- volume
folio written by a close friend of Viollet-le-Duc, Doctor Jean
Marc Bourgery. The Traité distinguishes itself from other works
" of the type by a conceptual method and a graphic strategy
remarkably similar to that of Viollet-le-Duc's Dictionnaire. On
the one hand, Bourgery sets down an ideal type of the human
species as a key instrument for his analysis. On the other
hand, he equips his Traité with illustrations of an unprece-
dented realism and spatiality.
fig. 3 Analytical drawing of vault
springers of a typical 13th-century
cathedral, drawn by Viollet-le-Duc,
"Construction," Dictionnaire
raisonné, 1859.
 A comparison of the illustrations in the Traité and the Dic-
tionnaire reveals an immediate visual homology. Plate 30 of
the Traité is an exploded perspective of a human skull (fig.
4) - an unprecedented form of drawing in anatomical trea-
tises - that is remarkably close in composition and subject
matter to one of the most famous figures of the Dictionnaire,
one that has become emblematic ofViollet-le-Duc s innov-
ative drawing style: the exploded perspective of the spring-
ing point of the arch of the Gothic vault (fig. 5) .
The realistic rendering increases the dynamism. Not only does it make clear the structural
logic, it also makes us feel the transfer of loads and even the gestures of the masons who
built it. The drawing literally freezes in a unique spectacle the "falling down" of heavy
stones to the positions assigned to them. It bespeaks the work of the stone, its function in
channeling and holding an energy flow. Each member has its own specific configuration
but is nonetheless a prisoner of a system of forces that is both stabilized and always in ten-
sion. A remarkable impression of corporeality, injected with an almost visible vital flow,
dominates the drawing.
The illustrations in the Traité and the Dictionnaire obviously reflect the fundamental princi-

These analogous visual strategies indicate deeper con- ple of organic theory as defined by George Cuvier s science of comparative anatomy: the
ceptual connections between the Traité and the Dictionnaire. "principle of correlation" which states that all parts of an organic body correlate with one
Drawing is of central importance to both texts. Typically, another toward an interior binding purpose. Both the exploded perspective of the human
fig. 4 Exploded perspective of a human
figures are an essential component to anatomical treatises, skull and the springing point of the arch of the Gothic vault make this point vividly clear.
skull, drawn by INI. H. Jacob, in Marc
but in Bourgery s Traité they become obsessive ends in Bourgery describes the drawing of the exploded skull as the means "to show clearly for
Jean Bourgery, Traité complet de
themselves. In the Traité, anatomical drawing is endowed
l'anatomie de l'homme, 1833. Courtesy each bone in particular, its diverse mode of articulation with the neighboring bones and its
with the capacity to render with exactitude the dispositionOsler Library of the History of Medicine, relative situation to the head considered in its entire structure," a description equally applic-
McGill University, Montreal.
14.24 of the parts of the human body and their able to Viollet-le-Duc s drawing. Both indeed clearly delineate the precise function of every
intimate conformation.4 The human body appears through the plates of stone - or every bone -in the complex assembly of the Gothic or the cranial vault. The func-
Bourgery s work with an uncanny objectivity (fig. 1 ) : Jacob s drawings penetrate the depth of tion of the part is thus immediately understood in relation to the unity of the whole. No
the body, layer by layer, endowing it with an unprecedented spatiality,5 showing "palpableother form of representation could better convey the great innovation introduced by Cuvier
truths" as Viollet-le-Ducs uncle, Etienne Delécluze, phrased it.6 No other treatise makes us in the natural sciences, shifting the emphasis from classification by description to classifica-
feel the dissecting act and the individuality of the body examined. Comparing it, for tion by the function performed, moving from an understanding of the organism from
instance, with figures of the famous Renaissance treatise De corporis humani fabrica by Andreas without to one gained from within. The material organization is entirely controlled by
Vesalius is sufficiendy convincing; the latter s abstract delineations akin to the recondite lin- function, the originating force shaping the organism. But this attention to function should
eaments of Albertian theory make clear the distance - and the kinship - between the Renais- not be understood too mechanistically. Indeed, as Viollet-le-Ducs drawing communicates
sance body analogy and its 1 9th-century revision. From numerology to physiology, from the so well, function here is not simply the reflection of a mechanistic world; it is an integral
confident surface gaze of the Renaissance magus to the frown of the pathologist penetrating expression of life.
the depth of the body in which secrets, invisible lesions, and the very mystery of origins lie This becomes clear in the theoretical and method-

hidden, we move along a concealed passage that links the Renaissance to the 1 9th çentury.
Both share vitalist leanings, but the eroticism of the one is the repressed fears of the latter, the
caressing of the world s surface is now the scanning of its recessed layers.
The science ofViollet-le-Duc s Dictionnaire is laden with the same epistemological myth of
depth. The gaze confronts impenetrable shapes that require new methods of survey in order
not only to be seen but also to be felt. Prosper Mérimée, an archaeologist and novelist,
described the plates of Viollet-le-Ducs Dictionnaire in the same terms Delécluze used to
describe Bourgery s Traité: "The plates . . . make 'palpable' the descriptions." 7 The illustrations
of the Dictionnaire convey with incredible virtuosity the spatial phenomenon not of the social
space of buildings but of the construction assembly. Unlike traditional archaeological docu-
mentation, which favors orthogonal projections, and unlike Choisy s famous axonometric
projections, Viollet-le-Duc shims abstraction as much as possible to dissect the body of
architecture through countless perspectives. We sense the corporeality of the organs exam-
ined and the tension that binds one member to the next.
The exploded perspective drawing is particularly successful in conveying such an organ-
ic coherence. Springers and arch stones, spread widely apart, are deployed in a perspective
drawn
that gives the viewer a very effective reading of the spatiality of the construction assembly.
Dictionnaire
fig. 5 Exploded perspective of the
springing point of the arch of the nave
in a typical 13th-century cathedral,
by Viollet-le-Duc, "Construction,"
raisonné, 1859.
ological principles that underlie Bourgery s Traité, particular-
ly in the way it announces itself as a polemic against the
materialists. Bourgery achieves an emphatic repudiation of
any form of materialism by heralding the priority of func-
tion in shaping the organs. Ultimately, for him, physiologi-
cal functions are the expression of a general and universal
vital force to which all natural organisms are subjected. That
vital power is nature s will, or natures idea, the "highest
phenomenological expression of life." Since he believes life
to be first and foremost an expression of will, the relation
between life and matter will be dynamic. At any given time,
writes Bourgery, the organic being is the product of the
struggle between the conflicting forces of life and death.8
Bourgery s dynamic conception of the organism forces
him to adopt a methodology based on the development of
the
organism through time, comparing the various organs
of the adult with that of the child and the elderly. The fron-

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tispiece of the Traité clearly illustrates this process (fig. 6). In fig. 6 Frontispiece, drawn by N. H. internal
4 See MM.Tisseron et de Quincy, "Notice binding force of the cathedral s evolution. Whether
Jacob, in Marc Jean Bourgery, Traité sur le docteur Bourgery," in Archives des
order to make his comparative method meaningful, how- the cathedral is in Rheims, Tours, or Rouen is secondary.
complet de l'anatomie de l'homme, hommes du jour (Paris: Maulde et Renou,
ever, Bourgery must first postulate his model for the per-
1833. Courtesy Osler Library of the His-
Crucial to the analysis is the development of the same
1 846) , 1 . S On Bourgery s drawings see
fect unfolding of the organic force in the natural world. He tory of Medicine, McGill University, structural
Von Reinhard Hildebrand, "Anatomie und principle for all cathedrals. For all cathedrals are
must establish the type of the ideal man at the peak of its Montreal. Revolution des Menschenbildes" in Sudhoffs
only one being developing through time, bearing within
Archiv - Zeitschrift ^Wissenschaftsgeschichte
development: "In order to facilitate the comparison between the various parts of our work, itself the vital principle of its growth.
(1992), 76:19-22. 6 Etienne Delécluze,
we had to create for ourselves an ideal type of the most beautiful form and most perfect It is hardly surprising that the vital principle directing the
"Des travaux anatomiques de M. le Docteur
development of the species, a type along which all figures would be equally represented. To Bourgery" La revue de Paris 17 (1 840) : 2 1 construction
0. of the cathedrals is made manifest principally at

this effect, we have set ourselves to describe a Caucasian male, five feet tall, thirty-three the
7 Prosper Mérimée, "Bibliographie - Dic- level of structure since that aspect constitutes, properly
tionnaire raisonné de l'architecture
years old, and endowed with the most beautiful proportions. Alongside its study we will speaking, the building s organic constitution: the structural
française du Xle au XVIe siècle par M. Viol-
relate that of the child and the elderly: in other words, it is always the same ideal individual skeleton, enhanced by its ornamental foliations, endows the
let-le-Duc. 1 er volume; chez Bance éditeur,'

that we are describing as it must have been and as it will be through the aging process" building
Le Moniteur universel, 30 Dec. 1854, 1437-38; with an appearance of organic unity. Moreover,
(Traité, 1 832, 1 : 3). The mature state of the adult is only one fugitive state of perfect equilib- structural
reprinted in Lettres à Viollet-le-Duc, 1839-1870 necessities, insofar as they form the greatest tech-
(Paris: Librairie ancienne Honoré Champi-
rium between the vital and material principle, but it serves as a reference point for the study nical challenge to the constructor, are the true batdeground
on, 1 92 7) , 2 1 6. 8 Jean Marc Bourgery,
of organic development for man and all other organisms. The vital force is a creative princi- between idea and matter. The more apparent that struggle,
Traité complet de l 'anatomie de l 'homme, avec planches

ple essential to the whole scale of being. The perfect type of man is but the perfect accom- lithographie es d'après nature par le peintre Nicolas Henri
the more vital the architecture. Viollet-le-Duc, in his study of

plishment of that principle. The homo perfectas is a transitory reality that can never be perfecdy Gothic
Jacob (Paris: Delaunay, 1 844), 3:22-24, 28-33

9 Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire raisonné de l'ar-

structures, describes the subde play
14.25
circumscribed and whose theoretical representation is such as the romantic era liked to of opposing forces that determines the sta-
chitecture française du Xle au XVIe siècle (Paris:
imagine it: the figure of Jesus Christ conceived as a vital principle incarnated in all men. bility of the cathedral. One needs to follow the detail of his
Bance, 1 854), 1 : vi.
Striking parallels can be found in Viollet-le-Ducs analysis of medieval architecture. For analysis to understand the extraordinary character of the
example, the key monument of the Middle Ages can only be understood through its devel- forces "in equilibrium" in the cathedral. The masonry is subjected to forces that pull it away
opment in time, from one cathedral to the next, each successive structural transition devel- from its passive role and bind the whole construction

oping a greater economy of means. Once maximum efficiency is achieved and the principle in an organic unity (fig. 9). The principle of order,
that directed its development is exhausted, the cathedral falls prey to arbitrary and mon- common to both Greek and Gothic architecture, is

strous manipulations (fig. 7). This evolution, writes Viollet-le-Duc, moves from "childhood doubled, in the latter case, by an animation principle:
to old age through a series of imperceptible transitions, without it being possible to know "The skeleton of the cathedral is rigid or flexible ... it
the day when ceases childhood and when begins old age."9 Like Bourgery, Viollet-le-Duc gives or resists; it seems to be living because it obeys
must therefore postulate a theoretical state - the famous representation of the ideal cathe- to contrary forces, and its stability is gained only
dral illustrated in the second volume of the Dictionnaire (fig. 8) - that will structure the analy- through the equilibrium of these forces, no longer
sis and allow the ordering of all cathedrals within a chronology. The ideal cathedral, "com- passive but active . . . the stone lives, acts, fulfills a
pleted, accomplished" is "just as it had been conceived," (Dictionnaire, 2:323) or rather as it function, is never an inert mass" (Dictionnaire, 1859,
wanted to constitute itself, "nourished by the political and religious impulsion that pro- 4:127, 164). Like Bourgery, Viollet-le-Duc under-
voked the building of the great cathedrals of northern France" (Dictionnaire, 2:338). This his- stands life as an antagonistic power that uplifts the
torical impulse is made manifest through the structural principle that is, as it were, the material world into a magical state of animation.

fig. 8 A 13th-century cathedral, "com-

pleted, accomplished just as it had been

conceived, ".drawn by Viollet-le-Duc,

"Cathedral," Dictionnaire raisonné, n.d.

fig. 7 Flying buttresses of the choir of

the cathedral of Soissons, of the choir of

Saint-Denis, of the cathedral in Nar-

bonne, and of the church of Saint- Urbain

of Troyes, drawn by Viollet-le-Duc, from

"Arc," Dictionnaire raisonné, 1854. The

evolution of the flying buttress illustrates

the efficiency that develops progressively

in the Gothic cathedral, shown in this

instance by the increased slenderness of

this architectural member.

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 What is Viollet-le-Duc s aim in constructing a bridge fìg. il Perspective view of the lectern of endowed with a few sparks of it, instead of painfully drag-
between architecture and the life sciences? If it does stem the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris,
ging ourselves in the way of imitation ... we would pro-
designed and drawn by Viollet-le-Duc,
from his era s resentment toward the artificial nature of ceed as did the Greeks themselves. All our scientific discov-
1868. Courtesy Centre de Recherches
man-made objects - the death spell that befell European sur les Monuments Historiques, Paris. eries, all our great inventions could become the objects of
culture at the end of the Enlightenment - his end goal is artistic translation . . . and no longer would we ceaselessly
not to define a positivist or deterministic methodology. He repeat that scientific discoveries and the development of industry are deadly things for the
seeks rather to raise human artifacts to the status of living development of art. This is a complete mistake: all this new knowledge of nature and sci-
fictions. Art, as a creative process, chimerically brings to ence should enlarge the scope of our imagination fertilized by the sentiment which once
life human desires. directed the Greek genius along new and fertile paths. In order to demonstrate the applica-
The first volume of his Entretiens sur l'architecture, pub- tion of that principle, imagine for instance that a Greek artist had to express in a bas-relief
lished at the same time as the first volumes of the Diction- or a painting the power of steam; it would have been the occasion to create an entire myth.
naire, makes this intent explicit. Here he defines art as the The locomotive would have had as father the personification of fire, and as mother that of
first and most delicate of all human instincts: the desire to water; thus personified in its turn, it would become god or goddess. Its features would
create something extraordinary that transcends and even T y •
express an energetic and blind physiognomy, reflecting the character of its power; its limbs
defies the found natural world. The artist's aim is to bring AI would combine the expression of force and suppleness; finally, just as in the late represen-
into being "a secondary creation" whose gestation is born tations of the Greek Hermes, its feet and its head would be winged" ("Esthétique," 188).
I ^
14.26 within the human mind. Transgression l' M
Art is a life-engendering power that allows the human world of artifice to be raised to
from nature must take place for the artis- the level of myth. In Viollet-le-Duc 's example, the machine is raised from an abstract
% 9 Theoretical section through
tic impulse to be satisfied ("Premier entretien," 28-29). mechanism to a living being, fruit of the union of two opposite mythical principles, fire
nave of the church of Notre-Dame in
That artistic instinct is a religious one. Viollet-le-Duc
Dijon substituting cast iron for the col-
and water. Despite the poetic nature of that transformation, Viollet-le-Duc insists that the
writes: "As soon as man attempted to formulate his first
umn of the nave and wood for the flying mythic transfiguration is only possible thanks to man's rational powers. In the Dictionnaire,
buttress in order best to illustrate the del-
thought the religious idea sprung up, and the first sensi- under the heading "Style," he writes: "Even while we recognize that a work of art may
icate transfer of loads from the vault to
ble expression of the religious idea has been the first step exist in an embryonic state in the imagination, we must also recognize that it will not
the buttresses, drawn by Viollet-le-Duc,
in the way of the arts."10 For him the religious idea"Construction/'
is Dictionnaire raisonné,
develop into a true and viable work of art without the intervention of reason. It is reason
nothing but the contemplation of the creative principle1859.
of Viollet-le-Duc describes the cen- that will provide the embryonic work with the necessary organs to survive, with the prop-
the universe, and art is the translation of that idea into fic-
tral column as acting only as a pin trans- er relationships between its various parts" (Dictionnaire, 8:482). If the artistic impulse is
ferring the loads laterally. He also under-
tional form. Hence art objects are counter-creations that rooted in myth, it must nonetheless proceed through a rational methodology in order to
scores the cantilever springing above the
bring to shape formative ("divine") powers normally
capital of the column of the nave where,
confer organic structure to the seed planted in the imagination. Viollet-le-Duc's reason is
hidden within natural phenomena. as he describes it, the xvfall over" action the obstetric power of the poetic or mythic idea.

His theory of style describes the true creative processtoward

as the exterior is counterbalanced by Art, according to Viollet-le-Duc, creates the synthetic semblance of a new life form, the
the downward force through the slender
a genesis: from the brain of the architect "the work of art creation of a fiction whose artificial character is forgotten through the infusion of a fantas-
columns whose masonry has greater com-
arise [s] in embryonic state" that the power of reason
pressive strength thanks to their being

"develop[s] by nourishing it with observations." "If the

laid en délit (here shown as cast iron).

architect is an artist he will assimilate such nourishment to

develop his conception." "Style is [that] power which gives body and life to works of art"
(Dictionnaire, 1866, 8:476) (fig. 10). Mérimée, from whom Viollet-le-Duc drew his general
thoughts on art, summarizes succincdy the idea in a May 1857 letter to Viollet-le-Duc: "A
man dreams and stirs up many old ideas; suddenly there comes a new one. We do not know
more the 'how' or the 'why' than we know how, from the union of a male and a female is
born a child" (Lettres, 27).
In this light we must understand the famous parallel drawn by Viollet-le-Duc in 1 864 in
his opening lecture at the École des Beaux-Arts between the ability of the Greeks to give
form and shape to their mythologies and the potential ability of the 1 9th-century architect
to express such concepts as the power of steam and electricity: "If we were endowed with
the creative genius of the Greeks, and nothing prevents us to think that we are not at least

fig. io Top ridge of the flying buttresses

at the church of Notre-Dame in

Dijon, drawn by Viollet-le-Duc, uCrète,"

Dictionnaire raisonné, 1859. ,

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 tic vitality. Viollet-le-Duc 's theory of tectonics, in contrast us with these myths, reframing the death and resurrection
1 0 Viollet-le-Duc, Esthétique appliquée à l'histoire

de 1 art (1854) (Paris : École nationale

to contemporary German theories, makes no radical dis-
tinction between material exigencies and their representa-
tion. For Viollet-le-Duc, such a strategy of masking is a
death blow, particularly if the mask is of conventional
dress. The artistic urge, to be truly satisfied, must involve a
batde between the idea and its material realization. The
vitality of the art object emerges from the visible traces of
publiées par la section française de l'Institut arché-
of Christ as a symbol of nature's eternal cycle, death and
supérieure des Beaux-Arts, 1 994) , 14-15.
decay leading to a new birth and renewed strength. His
1 1 Two related sources are key for
Viollet-le-Duc: Mérimée s famous short design for the Easter candlestick at Notre-Dame is telling in
story, "La Vénus d'Ille" first published in La this regard (fig. 13): the serpent spews the spring growth
revue des Deux-Mondes, 1 5 May 1837; and
and the coils of the dragon tail transforms into an intricate
Charles Lenormant, "Études de la religion
and vigorous young budding plant that flowers at the top
phrygienne de Cybèle" in Nouvelles annales
into the head of Christ.

that struggle. Viollet-le-Duc's architectural fictions are not

ologique (Paris: 1836), 1:215-72. The transfiguration of Christ is no longer an act of love; at
ideal ornamental configurations that seek to mediate
least the act of love is no longer understood on a saindy register but as struggle and vio-
between contingent facts and the world of culture, nor are
lence. In the romantic interpretation of Greek primitive theology - an interpretation famil-
iar to Viollet-le-Duc11 - life was considered inseparable from death, creation inseparable
they a series of historical quotes set in a narrative structure
fig. 12 Detail drawing of the base of the
to be read subjectively. His fictions emerge instead from
from destruction. The virgin that symbolized fertility was seen as rebellious and an enemy
lectern for Notre-Dame de Paris,

designed and drawn by Viollet-le-Duc, of marriage, and the stories about acts of love all bore traces of violence and death. The
the global spectacle of the building's organism as it relates
1868. Courtesy Centre de Recherches sur demonic power radiating from Viollet-le-Duc's lectern and Easter candlestick at Notre-
to the stability of the whole. The conflict between the pull
les Monuments Historiques, Paris.
of gravity and rigidity of static place that constitutes Dame
the establishes contact with these archaic myths. To fertilize the earth, its bosom must be
life of the stone is thus the primary aesthetic material of architecture; the architect's prob- torn with violence as any productive action involves a momentuous loss
14.27
lem is to make this conflict distinct and completely visible. of cohesion to generate a new one. Death is a force of life rather than its
Yet nowhere is the vital spell more apparent than in the strange coils ofViollet-le-Duc's tragic demise. From Hugo's doomful ceci tuera cela we move to a defiant ceci doit tuer cela. Life
ornamental work. To gaze at these luxuriously uncanny motifs is to bear witness to the becomes a pure process of transgression where it holds to no other meaning than itself or
unbridled and dangerous energy unleashed in the creation of a double of nature. The world no meaning beyond the communion of unleashed, dangerous, contagious forces.
that comes to life in Viollet-le-Duc s ornament is far from the homely idyll of a William Úl
OC
Morris arabesque. Instead its indecisive nature, between vegetal and animal, makes it for- 3
I-

eign and even hostile. O

lil
I-
Consider, for instance, the ornamental work carried by Viollet-le-Duc at Notre-Dame de
X .§
Paris. The medievalizing motifs assume an oriental intemperance: the fleur-de-lis takes on a O I
lotuslike efflorescence with erotic flagrancy, decorative illuminations possess an unruly 5 j
b. a

polypoid life, Dionysian garlands circle the reliquary of the real cross. Most ominous stands
0oc
oc IW
W IJJ
the majestic lectern in the middle of the choir (fig. 11). Like no other, this work gives shape 0 I *
¿ "3
to Viollet-le-Duc s special cult of the generative powers of the world. The fantastic nine- w W È-

foot-high construction is an assemblage of iconic symbols of power: figures of the eagle, w = 1 W I È-

the bull, and the lion emerge vigorously below the slash of a sharp horizontal and above the
S*i
«■ .S "8
energetic interlaced coils of odd organic forms. The conventional allegories of the evange- ï11
* 8. *
lists take an unfamiliar turn. Divested of their hieratic or saindy character they reek of pagan
2 S1 I
vitality. The crowning eagle inscribed with frenzied hieroglyphs soars with heroic breath.
SIÄ1
c/> Ä
The lion head springs out of its globular dish with unrestrained ferocity. At the base of the
* I i"
</> S s
lectern, in a most singular display of an expanding and dilating force, the stem slowly
uncoils as leaves of a strange aster plant defiantly lift the whole structure (fig. 12). :11
We are witnessing in the midst of the great Christian church the return of a primal 'î
ïï a
force made all the more potent by being out of place. Here Viollet-le-Duc uses symbols of « .9
« &■
a Dionysian fertility cult: the bull, the lion, and the primal plant - Goethe's Urpflanze - all
z g
M s
pure manifestations of the productive forces of the universe. In romantic myelography, H *a
fig- 13 Theoretical model for the Easter
Christianity was thought to have originated from a reinterpretation of mystery cults, an *<D
*<s
candlestick for Notre-Dame de Paris, s s
o
origin that had been progressively repressed in the development of the Church but would designed and drawn by Viollet-le-Duc,
Ì
occasionally resurface, as in the creation of the Gothic cathedral. Viollet-le-Duc reacquaints Dictionnaire du mobilier. 3

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