Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Monday, 9 September 2024

The windows of Notre Dame Paris


One might well think that M.Macron the “President of the French Republic” had more than enough on his metaphorical plate at the moment with the constitutional mess he has managed to land the Fifth Republic in with his snap election. With political cannon to the right of him, and political cannon to the left of him, all trained on him as he potentially rides into the valley of political death, you would think he would avoid making any more enemies. 

However according to The Art Newspaper M. Le President of this avowedly secular state, so keen to separate State from Church, has inserted himself once more into the discussion around the restoration of Notre Dame de Paris. M. Macron has backed a proposal to replace the undamaged grisaille glass in medieval style installed by Viollet le Duc with works by modern artists…. This idea has not been well received. Anyone who has seen the Chagall window at Chichester will appreciate why. Consciously modern stained glass in a medieval building rarely works in such a setting, however skilled the modern artist.

The story is set out in the TAN article at Row over Notre-Dame’s stained glass re-ignites


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