Cityscapes in Stone: Making and Meaning in Twelfth-Century Architectural Sculpture

The recent exhibition at the Musée nationale du Moyen Âge, in Paris, entitled “Naissance de la sculpture gothique,” brought welcome attention to architectural sculpture of the mid-twelfth century in France, while also revealing the continued French attachment to the post-medieval concept of “Gothic,” perhaps for Colonialist reasons. The works included or referenced in the exhibit include striking examples of representations of architecture in stone that belong or belonged to monumental buildings, like the cathedral of Chartres. While some representations of architecture famously describe specific structures, the miniature stone cityscapes that surmount twelfth-century story-telling capitals or the monumental figures flanking church doorways have more open-ended meanings. They may serve as a tool for sorting workshop practice, but the presence of miniaturized buildings above the heads of human figures provides a symbolic context for what goes on beneath. Some scholars have concluded that the small-scale cities were universally meant to evoke the Heavenly Jerusalem, but the roofed, towered, arcaded canopies have great specificity and imply the human labor of a built environment. In the twentieth century, these fictive architectures attracted the attention of a key theorist of medieval art, Jurgis Baltrušaitis. For Baltrušaitis, the diminutive buildings were the product of “a law of internal evolution,” but at the same time he noted that the “villes sur arcature” could surmount scenes of sin as well as salvation. The miniature cityscapes offer insights into the multivalent meanings of depicted architecture, as well as into the material culture of monumental sculpture.