Amiens Cathedral: The 'Grand' of France's Largest Gothic Cathedrals
Amiens Cathedral is the largest Gothic cathedral in France, and when I first laid eyes on it, I realized I had underestimated just how big this 'largest' really was!
Surrounding Environment:
The cathedral can be seen from many directions in the city, but what's more distinctive is that the area around the cathedral still retains historical residences from various eras, especially along the river, it's just like traveling back to the Middle Ages.
Because the cathedral is a stone building with significant cultural importance, it is easy to be properly preserved, but the residential buildings around the cathedral have changed with the times. Amiens is a rare city that allows us to see the contrast between the cathedral and the residences from the era when the cathedral was built.
Facade:
The stunning facade of Amiens Cathedral, with its sculpture groups and flying buttresses, is overwhelming. The ranks of saints on the portal arches are four circles more than Notre-Dame de Paris and three more than Reims Cathedral, truly deserving of being the largest in France, with a focus on density.
The king's gallery at Notre-Dame was also damaged during the French Revolution, but in Amiens, you can see an original and complete version.
Similarly experiencing the Reformation, comparatively speaking, French Gothic cathedrals, from the inside out, are more original and it's evident from the evolution of architectural and decorative styles that the influence of the Reformation weakens the further south you go. Art and architecture here clearly become authentic records and evidence of history, these are the living history beyond the books.
Architectural Structure:
The complexity of the exterior flying buttresses of Gothic cathedrals is directly proportional to the height and spatial area of the interior voids. This is a technical determinant that often makes Gothic cathedrals tall, achieving the exceptionally grand characteristic of the interior space.
For photographers, the grandness of the cathedral's interior space means that you cannot express its height with a wide-angle lens, but can only capture its depth with a telephoto lens.
There are many cathedrals, but there are few that make me feel so insignificant, as if I were in a dark and dense forest. As a pinnacle of medieval Gothic architecture, it truly takes the flying buttresses and interior ribbed vaults to the extreme, such a vast space, yet supported by only four rows of columns, with less obstruction inside and a wider view. This astonishing grandeur can be seen from the contrast between people and the building in photos.
Relics:
A mountain is not renowned for its height but for the presence of immortals; prestigious cathedrals must have some relics. The relics of Amiens Cathedral are quite impressive; it's the skull of Saint John, which was taken by the French from Byzantium during the Fourth Crusade, the very head that was chopped off at the behest of Salome by King Herod. The authenticity of these events is hard to verify today, but generally, cathedrals still confidently claim that what they have is the real deal.