Vincent's Arles by Linda Seidel

Author:Linda Seidel [Seidel, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: TRV000000 TRAVEL / General, TRV009050 TRAVEL / Europe / France, ART015100 ART / History / Modern (late 19th Century to 1945), BIO001000 BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Artists, Architects, Photographers
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2023-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

Seeing Stories

Despite the destruction occurring all around the cathedral, the portal’s carvings stayed intact, the figures not losing “a nose or a finger,” a feat Henry James called “one good mark for the French Revolution” (figures 30 and 31). Those on the inner corners represent the holy men to whom the church was serially dedicated, Stephen on the right and Trophimus on the left. They are accompanied by eight apostles, shown in pairs on the outer portions of the portal’s front face and on both sides of the entry. Together the figures and the accompanying friezes recount a story of the Church’s origins and mission that would have been accessible to local viewers as well as visitors coming from afar, but has become difficult for current visitors to understand, given the density of its scriptural, theological, and historical references.

Trophimus, the evangelizer of Provence and purported first bishop of Arles during a period of Roman rule, appears in episcopal regalia as an icon of strength and sobriety, agent of the area’s earliest conversions. The staff he holds, and the miter raised over his head, define his stature and identify his earthly mission: advancement of the cause of Christianity in a still-Roman world. His attributes announced the elevated status of the building within which his remains were preserved. In the early fifth century, Arles had been made the seat of a bishop, retaining that distinction until early in the nineteenth century. Figures of John and Peter stand next to Trophimus on the sidewall of the entry; all are carved in marble, the shared material connecting Arles’s first bishop with Jesus’s earliest followers (figure 32).

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