Why Did Abbot Suger Feel That Art Had Great Value in Monasteries?

twelfth-century French cleric and historian

This article is most the French abbot. For the Guatemalan physicist, meet Eduardo Suger.

Not to be confused with Sugar.

Suger of Saint-Denis on a medieval window

Suger (French: [syʒɛʁ]; Latin: Sugerius; c. 1081 – 13 Jan 1151) was a French abbot, statesman, and historian. He once lived at the court of Pope Calixtus Two in Maguelonne, France. He later became abbot of St-Denis, and became a close confidant to King Louis VII, even becoming his regent when the king left for the 2d Crusade. Together with the rex, he played a part in the centralization in the growing French Kingdom. He authored writings on abbey construction and was i of the earliest patrons of Gothic architecture and is seen as widely credited with popularizing the fashion.

Life [edit]

Suger's family unit origins are unknown. Several times in his writings he suggests that his was a humble background, though this may just be a topos or convention of autobiographical writing. In 1091, at the age of ten, Suger was given as an oblate to the abbey of St. Denis, where he began his education. He trained at the priory of Saint-Denis de l'Estrée, and in that location first met the future king Louis Six of France. From 1104 to 1106, Suger attended another school, perhaps that attached to the abbey of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire. In 1106 he became secretary to the abbot of Saint-Denis. In the following year he became provost of Berneval in Normandy, and in 1109 of Toury. In 1118, Louis VI sent Suger to the court of Pope Gelasius II at Maguelonne (at Montpellier, Gulf of Lyon), and he lived from 1121 to 1122 at the court of Gelasius'south successor, Calixtus II.

On his render from Maguelonne, Suger became abbot of St-Denis. Until 1127, he occupied himself at courtroom mainly with the temporal affairs of the kingdom, while during the post-obit decade he devoted himself to the reorganization and reform of St-Denis. In 1137, he accompanied the time to come king, Louis 7, into Aquitaine on the occasion of that prince's marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, and during the 2nd Crusade served as one of the regents of the kingdom (1147–1149). He bitterly opposed the king's divorce, having himself advised the marriage. Although he disapproved of the Second Crusade, he himself, at the time of his expiry, had started preaching a new crusade.

Suger served as the friend and counsellor both of Louis Half-dozen and Louis VII. He urged the king to destroy the feudal bandits, was responsible for the royal tactics in dealing with the communal movements, and endeavoured to regularize the administration of justice. He left his abbey, which possessed considerable property, enriched and embellished past the construction of a new church building built in the nascent Gothic style. Suger wrote extensively on the construction of the abbey in Liber de Rebus in Administratione sua Gestis, Libellus Alter de Consecratione Ecclesiae Sancti Dionysii, and Ordinatio. In the 1940s, the prominent art-historian Erwin Panofsky claimed that the theology of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite influenced the architectural style of the abbey of St. Denis, though afterward scholars take argued against such a simplistic link between philosophy and architectural form.^[one] Similarly the supposition by 19th century French authors that Suger was the "designer" of St Denis (and hence the "inventor" of Gothic architecture) has been virtually entirely discounted past more contempo scholars. Instead he is by and large seen as having been a bold and imaginative patron who encouraged the piece of work of an innovative (but now unknown) master mason.^{[two] [3]}

A chalice once owned past Suger is at present in the collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Contribution to art [edit]

Abbot Suger, friend and confidant of the French Kings Louis 6 and Louis VII, decided in virtually 1137 to rebuild the great Church of Saint-Denis, the burial church of the French monarchs.^{[ citation needed ]}

Suger began with the West front, reconstructing the original Carolingian façade with its single door. He designed the façade of Saint-Denis to exist an echo of the Roman Arch of Constantine with its three-office partition and 3 large portals to ease the problem of congestion. The rose window above the Westward portal is the earliest-known such example, although Romanesque round windows preceded information technology in general form.^{[ commendation needed ]}

At the completion of the west front end in 1140, Abbot Suger moved on to the reconstruction of the eastern end, leaving the Carolingian nave in utilise. He designed a choir (chancel) that would be suffused with lite.^{[4] [v]} To achieve his aims, his masons drew on the several new features which evolved or had been introduced to Romanesque architecture, the pointed curvation, the ribbed vault, the convalescent with radiating chapels, the clustered columns supporting ribs springing in unlike directions and the flying buttresses which enabled the insertion of large clerestory windows.^{[ commendation needed ]}

The new construction was finished and dedicated on 11 June 1144,^{[half dozen]} in the presence of the King. The Abbey of Saint-Denis thus became the prototype for further building in the majestic domain of northern France. It is often cited as the first edifice in the Gothic style. A hundred years later, the erstwhile nave of Saint-Denis was rebuilt in the Gothic way, gaining, in its transepts, two spectacular rose windows.^[vii]

Suger was as well a patron of art. Amid the liturgical vessels he commissioned are a golden eagle, the Eleanor of Aquitaine vase, the King Roger decanter, a golden chalice and a sardonyx ewer.^{[ citation needed ]}

Writings [edit]

Suger became the foremost historian of his fourth dimension. He wrote a panegyric on Louis Vi (Vita Ludovici regis), and collaborated in writing the peradventure more impartial history of Louis VII (Historia gloriosi regis Ludovici). In his Liber de rebus in administratione sua gestis, and its supplement Libellus de consecratione ecclesiae Southward. Dionysii, he treats of the improvements he had fabricated to St Denis, describes the treasure of the church building, and gives an account of the rebuilding. Suger'southward works served to imbue the monks of St Denis with a taste for history and called forth a long series of quasi-official chronicles.^[8]

References and sources [edit]

References

1. ^ For a summary of the 'arguments confronting' Panofsky'south view, see Panofsky, Suger and St Denis, Peter Kidson, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 50, (1987), pp. 1–17
2. ^ Conrad Rudolph, Artistic Change at St Denis: Abbot Suger'due south Programme and the Early Twelfth Century Controversy Over Art, Princeton Academy Press, 1990
3. ^ Kibler et al (eds) Medieval French republic: An Encyclopedia, Routledge, 1995
4. ^ When the new rear function is joined to that in front,
   The church building shines, brightened in its center.
   For bright is that which is brightly coupled with the bright
   And which the new light pervades,
   Brilliant is the noble work Enlarged in our time
   I, who was Suger, having been leader
   While information technology was accomplished.
   Abbot Suger: On What Was Done in His Administration c.1144–8, Chap XXVIII
5. ^ Erwin Panofsky argued that Suger was inspired to create a physical representation of the Heavenly Jerusalem, still the extent to which Suger had whatever aims higher than aesthetic pleasure has been chosen into dubiousness by more contempo art historians on the ground of Suger's own writings.
6. ^ Honour, H. and J. Fleming, (2009) A World History of Art. 7th edn. London: Laurence Male monarch Publishing, p. 376. ISBN 9781856695848
7. ^ Wim Swaan, The Gothic Cathedral
8. ^ Anne D. Hedeman, "The Royal Image : Illustrations of the Grandes Chroniques de France, 1274–1422", Berkeley, Los Angeles & Oxford, University of California Printing, 1991, Introduction, pp3 - 6

Sources

• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Suger". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Printing. p. 48.
• "Suger", The Middle Ages, A Curtailed Encyclopedia, H.R. Loyn Editor, 1989 (ISBN 0-500-27645-5)
• Abbot Suger of St. Denis: Church and State in Early Twelfth-Century France. Grant, Lindy. Essex, UK: Addison Wesley Longman Limited, 1998. (ISBN 0-582-05150-nine); 2016 pbk edition.
• The Gothic Cathedral: Origins of Gothic Architecture & the Medieval Concept of Order (Tertiary Edition), Van Simson, Otto. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1988. Bollingen Series XLVIII. (ISBN 0-691-09959-six).
• "Suger, Abbot of Saint-Denis" Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, ed. Michael Kelly, 2nd ed., 6 v. (Oxford Academy Press, Oxford, 2014) v.6, p. 78-79

Run across also [edit]

• Gothic cathedrals and churches

Further reading [edit]

• Gerson, Paula Lieber (1986), Abbot Suger and Saint-Denis: a symposium, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, ISBN9780870994081 .
• Hunt, Patrick (29 January 2006), "Abbé Suger and a Medieval Theory of Light in Stained Glass: Lux, Lumen, Illumination", Philolog, Stanford University, archived from the original on 17 March 2016 .
• Suger (1992), The Deeds of Louis the Fatty, translated by Richard Cusimano; John Moorhead, Washington, D.C.: Catholic Academy of America Press, ISBN0-8132-0758-4 .
• Suger (1999), The Deeds of Louis the Fatty, translated by Jean Dunbabin .
• Suger (2018), Selected Works of Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis, translated past Richard Cusimano; Eric Whitmore, Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, ISBN9780813229973 .

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suger

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