I'm actually kind of surprised by how good the cathedral turned out. The interior stone was dingy and gloomy before, but now it's white and gleaming. The cleaned artworks have more "pop" to them. The whole interior is brighter and more cheerful-looking. Removing centuries worth of grime makes a difference.
The repair and renovation crews deserve a lot of applause for what they've accomplished. And the French government deserves credit for not finding a way to muck things up.
The new altar sucks, though. It's a Modernist nightmare. Its flat metal surface could pass as a griddle. When the priest was pouring oil on it, I half-expected him to start frying up some hash browns. This sort of modern ugliness--which unfortunately applies to some of the other accoutrements, too, not just the altar--is about how I expected the whole renovation to go.
But the building itself was fortunately spared that fate. It looks the best it has ever looked in my lifetime, and the workers did a fantastic job on it.
Perhaps a future generation can replace the altar and other Modernist doodads with something that's actually handsome.
Holy smokes, are you there right now? I saw pictures of it and you echo my thoughts about the new altar. The vestments too--we don't need confetti. We go to the traditional Latin Mass and it's always so reverent and beautiful.
ReplyDeleteHey, Vijaya. Thanks for stopping by and commenting. To answer your question, no, I wasn't there. And I'm neither French nor Catholic, so I don't really have a dog in this fight. But I have a reverence for tradition and traditional architecture, and I prefer beautiful things over ugly things, hence my comment.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I'd never seen a Catholic Mass before. Watching this one on YouTube was my first time.
I agree about the vestments. In fact, I was reminded of Saruman from The Lord of the Rings. Here's the relevant passage of Gandalf recounting his conversation with Saruman:
" 'For I am Saruman the Wise, Saruman Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colours!'
I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.
'I liked white better,' I said.
'White!' he sneered. 'It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken.'
'In which case it is no longer white,' said I. 'And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.' "