The Final Two: Notre Dame & Saint-Séverin

Paris France layover

My rosary, in the last couple of years, has gotten some heavy use. I noticed that the Miraculous Medal in the middle is losing it’s pewter color, it has brassy highlights from my thumb constantly rubbing it. Some of the links have been pinched together hard with pliers to keep them from coming apart, others are bent in the middle making the beads not even, some links have been replaced with different colored ones that I have swapped from other things… It’s a well used tool that is like a friend.

That is what I found in Saint-Séverin in Paris. It felt like my rosary.

And that is, for some reason, what I expected in Notre Dame.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it is a beautiful church in a gorgeous square, even with the cranes, and construction, and some barricades. You can’t keep a building like that from shining.

I really couldn’t visualize what it would look like on the interior, and for some reason, I really didn’t go there with my imagination.

That is, until on one of our flights with Air France, I watched the documentary “The Lost Tombs of Notre Dame (that’s just a brief article, see if you can find the film online) and I think that polluted my imagination.

The most fascinating thing to me was the discovery of the shards of the medieval rood screen (the barrier between the choir and the nave). My mind jumped to the books I used to read as a kid about medieval Europe, the knights, the art, dragons… that I think it was more in my mind than reality.

And when you get there, the amount of tourists standing in line is insane (pro-tip—do what my wife did and get a reservation, it was free and very streamlined, I just walked in at my booked time.)

And you walk into this grand and beautiful space, that is packed with people moving in a circle around the church (follow the arrows) and you have a half an hour to do so.

Notre Dame has this strange sort of feeling to it. It is like an art museum with some of the most beautiful religious pieces you have seen, it still kind of feels like a church (there were prayer candles and people going to confession), and a tourist attraction all in one. And when you’re with that many people in lines, you don’t feel the reverence for the worship part, but more of the awe for the beautiful things inside.

My favorite part, was getting back out, finding a small coffee shop right next to it, and having a croissant and a coffee with my wife.

And then we started to walk around and ran into Saint-Séverin.

And this was a Church! You walk in and you can imagine going to Mass in this space, you can feel the reverence, the history, the importance of the Church.

This is another Gothic church that construction was started on in 1230. There was a fire in the church and it was rebuilt and later enlarged, completed in the 17th century.

It is full of beautiful pieces of art, and history, but very few tourists.

Oh, and it has a crazy organ in the back.

Saint-Séverin is an absolute must (and try to go to Mass there, I wish we could’ve).

These were the last two churches on this trip. I technically started with Sacred Heart in Alamosa, CO because I went to Mass there, but really the photography and thinking about art start with San Xavier near Tuscon. San Xavier was my absolute favorite, followed by Saint-Séverin; they’re different styles, but both ornate. The level of craftsmanship is astounding in these two buildings. San Francisco in Rancho de Taos, and the Our Lady of Guadalupe in Conejos, CO and Sacred Heart are beautiful in this clean and simple way. Notre Dame? The feeling of church is buried behind the feeling of it being a museum.

I started doing this though to explore art and architecture for a higher purpose, to see these structures and pieces with my eyes to learn how I can better inform my creative life.

My takeaways on this trip: light and simple (San Francisco) is joyful (and easier to replicate in photography).

Dedication to detail and craft is awe inspiring (San Xavier, Notre Dame, Saint-Séverin). You can see the link between art, craft, and belief in the fine art of these churches. And that is something that I have to think about how to carry over to my own work.

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