Dom Bellot`s Architecture Theory

Transcription

Simmins, Vers une théorie de l'architecture de Dom Bellot, p. 1 .
Dom Bellot: Towards a Theory of Architecture
«À moi les hommes dont le coeur bat pour la vérité, parce que la vérité est Dieu!»
(Dom Guéranger, premier abbé de Solesmes)
«Apprendre que mes enfants vivent dans la vérité, rien ne m'est un plus grand sujet
de joie!» (l'apôtre Jean)
«L'art véritable c'est l'union harmonieuse de l'idéal et de la nature. L'art exprime la
réalité, mais la réalité transfigurée par l'idéal.» (Dom Bellot)1
Bellot's monastic profession was more important to him than anything else in his life. This
should be emphasized if one wants to understand his theories concerning architecture. One
can, of course, respond to Bellot’s architecture without having any knowledge of his theories
concerning the spiritual connotations of architecture—in the same way that, for example, nonChristians respond to Gothic architecture from an aesthetic point of view, or non-Muslims
can appreciate the subtle geometric harmonies characteristic of mosques. Nonetheless, as
soon as one accepts the proposition that for Bellot the spiritual life was of fundamental
importance, one is led towards a deeper level of significance. The goal of this chapter is to
offer such a deeper appreciation of his architecture, by attempting to retrace some of the
main aspects of his architectural theory.2 This chapter is only a beginning: Dom Bellot's
theory of architecture is complex, and much remains to be said on the subject.3
Dom Bellot was an amalgam of three supposedly distinct traditions. His training in
the École des Beaux-Arts gave him a knowledge of rational planning, and of the properties
of materials; his detailed knowledge of Viollet-le-Duc made him aware of the rich tradition of
writings on architectural proportions, and a commitment to developing an architecture of his
Simmins, Vers une théorie de l'architecture de Dom Bellot, à &, p. .
own day; and his training in theology imparted to his work a conviction that architecture
should serve anagogic ends.
Dom Bellot's theoretical stances were shaped during a period of remarkable richness
in French liturgical reform movements. He was influenced both by the spiritual renewal
movement specific to the Benedictines, initiated by Prosper Guéranger at Solesmes during
the nineteenth century. Some observations by the author Yves Sjöberg are apposite at
this point:
«Dom Bellot est la figure même du moine bâtisseur, ressucité
en plein xxe siècle. Il faut lui rendre justice et comprendre ce
que pouvait avoir d'audacieux son attitude à une époque où le
pastiche et l'eclectisme archéologiques se combinaient pour
produire des édifices mort-nés.
«Sous l'influence de Dom Meslay, constructeur de Solesmes,
Dom Bellot a retrouvé l'accent, l'esprit des maîtres-d'oeuvres
du Moyen Age. Il renoue avec la tradition vivante, perdue
depuis plusieurs siècles».4
Bellot was also shaped by, and played an important role in, the larger French
Roman Catholic reform initiatives of the early twentieth century. Two theorists appear to
have made the most significant contributions to these debates: the philosopher-theologian
Jacques Maritain; and the Roman Catholic artist-activist Maurice Denis.
Maurice Denis contributed to these debates both through his example and through
his writings. His 1922 book Nouvelles Théories is a compendium of his views on the
subject of a renewed spirituality in France, comparable to that found in the age of
cathedrals.5 Quoting from a 1913 essay entitled «Le sentiment religieux dans l'art du
moyen âge,» 6 Denis asked rhetorically: «Qu'est-ce donc qui nous touche dans l'art du
Moyen Age? Je réponds: c'est sa jeunesse d'âme, sa sincérité, sa naïveté, c'est la
simplicité du rapport qu'il établit entre la nature et nous.»7 Continuing in the same vein, he
observes: «Ni la perfection théologique du sujet...ni la foi qui est de toutes les époques du
christianisme, ni le hiératisme, ni le symbolisme, ni l'allégorie dogmatique ne suffisent à créer
l'oeuvre d'art religieux supérieure. Il faut autre chose, il faut que l'instrument, que l'art luimême soit conforme à l'esprit chrétien. Oui, ce que nous aimons, c'est que cet art soit un
langage dépourvu de tout orgueil et de toute espèce de rhétorique, un langage qui parle
directement à nos sens, à notre sensibilité, à notre raison, et sans autre intermédiaire que
l'objet naïvement et gauchement représenté.»8 Expressing a sentiment common to many
of the post-World War I reform movements, he remarked, «Dans le domaine du sentiment
religieux, le mensonge est insupportable plus que partout ailleurs.»9
At precisely the same time (1919), the theologian Jacques Maritain published his
magnum opus, Art et Scholastique.10 This book is of crucial importance in understanding
the neo-Thomist conceptions of beauty that underlay the period. Expressing an opinion
shared by most if not all French Roman Catholic intellectuals, Père Pie-Raymond
Régamey observed that Maritain's Art et Scholastique «...eut une importance historique
hors de pair en notre domaine, ayant mis au point, selon la doctrine de saint Thomas, les
principes qui animèrent les pionniers de la renaissance.»11
In a section of Art et Scholastique entitled «L'art et la beauté,» Maritain wrote that:
«Le beau est ce qui donne la joie, non pas toute joie, mas la joie dans le connaître; non pas
la joie propre de l'acte de connaître, mais une joie qui surabonde et déborde de cet acte à
cause de l'objet connu. Si une chose exalte et délecte l'âme par là même qu'elle est
donnée à son intuition, elle est bonne à appréhender, elle est belle. La beauté est
essentiellement objet d'intelligence, car ce qui connaît au sense plein du mot, c'est
l'intelligence, qui seule est ouverte à l'infini de l'être. Le lieu naturel de la beauté est le
monde intelligible, c'est de là qu'elle se descend.»12
According to Maritain, any evidence of proportional systems in architecture would
give proof of the intelligence of the artists who created the work—and intelligence was a
clear demonstration of Divine Order: «Tout ordre et toute proportion d'autre part est oeuvre
d'intelligence. Et ainsi, dire avec les scolastiques que la beauté est le resplendissement de
la forme sur les parties proportionnées de la matière, c'est dire qu'elle est une fulguration
d'intelligence sur une matière intelligemment disposée. L'intelligence jouit du beau parce
qu'en lui elle se retrouve et se reconnaît, et prend contact avec sa propre lumière.»13 As
Maritain remarked, «Si vous voulez faire une oeuvre chrétienne, soyez chrétien, et cherchez
à faire oeuvre belle, où passera votre coeur; ne cherchez pas à 'faire chrétien'.»14
Making Christian art Christian again preoccupied many artists and writers of this
period, not just Maritain. Many authors of the period comment on the crucial role that Bellot
played in these efforts to establish an an art that was by its very nature fundamentally
Christian. With a philosophical outlook informed by Maritain's theories, a group of artists
and architects, Bellot among them, came together in 1919 to form l'Arche. Denis wrote the
preface for l'Arche's first publication.15 «L'Arche se réfusera donc à toute espèce de
truquage et de faux,» observed Denis.16 Joseph Pichard, founding editor of l'Art Sacré in
1935, commented in detail on Bellot's contribution to the sacred arts during this period.17
Bellot was on the adminstrative committee of the review, along with the Perret brothers,
Robert Mallet-Stevens, Paul Claudel, and Fathers Régamey and Couturier. Pichard
evidently knew Bellot's work quite well, and quotes approvingly from some of Bellot's
principles concerning the principles of religious art. Régamey, another founding member of
l'Art Sacré, commented frequently on sacred art in the twentieth century, and in 1952
brought together his ideas in a work entitled Art Sacré au xxe siècle?18 Régamey listed
Bellot among a select group of religious reformers during this period, remarking: «Nous
supposons connu l'immense travail accompli au cours des ces trente années et même
depuis 1890. On en saurait vouer une trop vive gratitude à ses principaux artisans, les
Denis, Desvallières, Bellot, Charlier, M. Brillant, Doncoeur, Paul Jamot, Louis Rouart.»19
Régamey remarked: «Entrer dans l'Église, c'est s'enfoncer dans une double profondeur,
celle de son âme à soi-même qui cesse de se dissiper aux régions de la dissimilitude, et
celle de la communauté fraternelle, toutes deux découvertes dans le profondeurs de
l'amour divin. L'Église est dans la Cité le lieu où les hommes accèdent à leur propre vérité
dans un dépassement d'eux-mêmes en Dieu et en leurs frères. Elle est le foyer d'une
ferveur contagieuse qui doit gagner la Cité entière. Elle n'est pas la centrale d'une
propagande: elle est une fraternité qui donne à ceux qui en vivent l'expérience de l'amour
divin: ce que les autres perçoivent de cette vie est d'une conviction irrésistable. Tel est
l'appel de l'Église à la Cité.
«Il va sans dire que les moyens des arts sont inadéquats à un tel program, le sont
d'une façon dérisoire.»20
That Bellot shared these views is clear from a number of sources—from the Propos
to his designs themselves. He rarely put matters more succinctly than in a newspaper
article written during his lecture tour to Québec. Here are his thoughts as reported in a
Sherbrooke journal, the Tribune21:
La beauté est une partie inhérente à la constitution des êtres.
Tout ce que Dieu a créé dans la nature l'a été dans des formes
déterminées. Le beau est d'autant plus sûr qu'il reste dans le
domaine de la simplicité et du naturel. Aux premières
époques d'art, les rapports entre l'art et la nature furent très
étroits, et les conceptions des contemporains de ces belles
époques furent belles dans leur simplicité commes des
organes détachés de l'homme. Malheureusement petit à petit
l'homme, fier de ses trouvailles, dédaigne de plus en plus la
création et perdit de plus en plus le contact avec sa soeur la
Nature créée comme elle par Dieu: tous les mouvements, tous
les moments de l'être humain viennent dans une abstraction de
l'esprit autrement dit d'un rêve. L'esthétique ne fut plus
inspirée par la nature, mais formée de rencontres purement
cérébrales, ou chaotiques, incapable de s'accorder avec la
réalité extérieure, et n'ayant de prise que sur les concepts
intérieures, c'est-à-dire avec des idéologies dont le plus grand
danger est qu'elles se trouvent sous la coupe despotique du
désir au lieu de ne chercher que le beau par le vrai et le bien.
Le bon goût est le fruit d'une solide expérience. Il n'admet que
les données éprouvées par la lutte, celles qui s'adaptent au
maximum à la réalité.
To Bellot, geometry's immutable verities were related in kind and form to the workings of
the Divine.
Bellot evidently felt that such goals were particularly appropriate for the Benedictine
Order, and commented to his disciple Dom Côté that Benedictines had always worked to
achieve perfection in their architecture—both for the honor of their Order, and for the glory of
God:
Chez nous [les bénédicins] dans nos monastères il ne faudrait
avoir, si possible, que des choses parfaites. Ce n'est pas que
dans le calme et par la réfléxion que l'on peut essayer de les
réaliser..22
Proportions in architectural history
It is hardly surprising that Bellot and others who shared his attitudes should have
been fascinated by the way that proportional systems had been employed in architectural
practice. As the twentieth-century American architect and expert in proportional systems
Claude Bragdon aptly remarked, «If a work of architecture is, in the well-known phrase,
'frozen music', it is so only by reason of a harmonious relation subsisting between its
various parts—otherwise it is only frozen noise».23 The connection between nature,
architecture, and beauty, has frequently been stressed by observers. In the words of one
twentieth-century critic, «...beauty shows herself in a manner surprisingly allied to
mathematics, for no medium exists through which beauty can be disclosed to the senses
but depends ultimately upon proportion for its success’.24 Even more succinctly, one
author, citing St. Thomas, remarks, «Beauty is a word of God»,25 while another author has
it, «Beauty is that which pleases in mere contemplation», observed St. Thomas.26
The architects of Egypt, and those of Islam, utilized complex geometric proportional
systems to control their designs. Equipped with no more than a rope (used to generate
circles, triangles, squares, rectangles, and their diagonals), architects developed complex
proportional systems based on regular geometrical forms. These skills were developed
later by architects in the West, particularly in the Middle Ages forward. But when do
proportional systems a pragmatic design tool, and when do they have an underlying
additional symbolic meaning? The literature divides on this point. Two contrasting attitudes
to the use of proportions in architecture have been present since Greek scientists first
discovered these relationships. For Euclid, the complex manner in which geometric
relations repeated themselves in regular geometric forms demonstrated that geometry was
a practical science. But for Pythagoras, certain among these proportions, in particular, the
Golden Section, were a source for mystical and esoteric meditation, and its secrets were
only revealed to a select brotherhood. On the one hand, certain scholars have declared that
proportional systems were just a working tool of architects. On the other hand, there exists
a quasi-mystical literature, based partly on Pythagoras, but intensifying in German and
French literature of in the 19th century, and extending into the mid-twentieth century in France
and the United States, that stresses the numerological, esoteric, and symbolic meaning of
proportional systems.27
Perhaps one of the reasons for the esoteric quality of the debates is because the
practical techniques regarding the use of proportional systems were jealously guarded,
particularly during the middle ages. Maurice Vieux, for instance, has convincingly argued that
medieval masons passed along secret information regarding geometry by means of
mnemonic songs, and shared rituals.28 Vieux argues that Masons wanted to keep the
secrets of developing proportional relationships to themselves, as a means of
guaranteeing their continued domination of the chantier.29
It should be noted, however, that not all scholars agree concerning the extent to
which proportional systems, particularly the more abstruse ones, were employed during
the middle ages. Eric Fernie, for example, in an article written on the use of geometric
systems in English medieval architecture, has argued convincingly that from a square most
of the most practical design elements could be derived.30 Fernie remarks, «while aspects
of the subject can be dauntingly complicated...the calculations required for large parts of the
subject are childishly simple»...31
Viollet-le-Duc, while an expert in proportional systems, did not regard them as a
recipe book. Instead, they were a supple system, modifiable according to the specific
needs of each commission. This attitude, as much as anything else, Bellot absorbed from
Viollet-le-Duc's writings. Selon Viollet-le-Duc, «...les proportions ne sont pas un canon
immuable [comme a prétendu Quatremère de Quincy] mais une échelle harmonique, une
corrélation de rapports variables, suivant le mode admis.» 32
The Golden Section—a ubiquitous yet mysterious geometrical ratio
«Geometry has two great treasures,» remarked Kepler (1571-1630); «one is the
theorum of Pythagoras [569-500 BCE]; the other, the division of a line into extreme and
mean ratio. The first we may compare to a measure of gold; the second we may name a
precious jewel».33 The Golden Section is the means by which a line of any length may
be divided into absolute and mean length—a proof that Euclid devised.34 Reputed to be
a ratio particularly favored by the Greek sculptor Phidias, early in this century the Golden
Section was given the shorthand designation φ, the Greek letter that Phidias's name begins
with.
The Golden Section is truly ubiquitous: it is seen in all regular geometric forms, and is
, also may be found in Nature, particularly in the phylotaxis of plants. Ever since antiquity
its unique properties have attracted the vital interest of geometers, mathematicians, and
architects. In the words of a twentieth-century writer, «Is it not perhaps true that there
resides in the Golden Rectangle some occult beauty which makes it superior to all other
rectangular forms»?35 Expressing a similar sentiment, the poet Paul Valéry once
observed, «Quel poème que l'analyse de φ»!36 As to why precisely this ratio is preferred
by humans, no one knows. But experiments have shown that more people prefer this
ratio than any other.37
The writings on the Golden Section might be divided into the following categories:
1) classic texts in geometry and mathematics (e.g., Euclid, Pythagoras), where this ratio and
its properties was first described, and (especially in the case of Pythagorus) its esoteric
wonders remarked upon;
2) books on medieval architectural theory and freemasonry wherein the virtues of the
Golden Section are hinted at but its specific properties seldom described;
3) how-to books that show how the Golden Section is generated, and how it may be
employed in systems of design;
4) writings that seek to demonstrate that the Golden Section is a frequent organizing
principle of Nature, seeing its ratios in the forms of flowers, etc.;
5) writings that seek to find the Golden Section in all aspects of living forms and physical
laws of the universe, and connect this with metaphysical currents in esoteric writings and
astrology.
The list above progresses from the most easily and reasonably applicable to
architecture to the least. After reading quite a number of such works, I formed the opinion
that much of the writing on this subject is either incomprehensible or incredible, or both.
To provide but one example, one writer sets out to demonstrate that the Golden
Section not only, he asserts, underlay the design of the pyramids, but also may be linked
to states of the soul.38 Discussing the √5 rectangle, for instance, a form that has the
Golden Section rectangle embedded within it, the author writes, «Nous avons vu qu'en
Symbolisme numéral, cinq était le nombre de l'Incarnation. Placé sous la racine carrée, le 5
va 's'enfouir au coeur des choses. √5 devient ainsi le résultat de l'Incarnation, c-est-à-dire,
l'Incarné, le Divin en nous, l'Esprit dans la matière.» This is a long way from Euclid, and it is a
long way from architecture as well. This is pyramidiocy. But its esotericism is by no means
unusual.39
Indeed, some writers adopted an ironic tone to comment on what became in the
twentieth century (at precisely the time Bellot was working) a veritable mania for the Golden
Section. D. Neroman's inaptly named Le Nombre d'or à la portée de tous, published in
1946, begins with a contrived dialogue between two people concerning the uses of the
Golden Section. Béatrice, although attractive, is not quite proportioned correctly:
Oui, tout le monde est d'accord qu'elle [Béatrice] est belle mais
qu'elle est affligée d'un manque d'équilibre indéfinissable.
En effet.
Eh bien! ce déséquilibre est dû à ce qu'elle a le nombril trop
bas; elle a trop de buste et passe assez de jambes. C'est la
hauteur du nombril qui règle les proportions du corps humain; le
rapport entre la hauteur totale du corpos et la hauteur du
nombril au-dessus du sol doit être égal au Nombre d'Or; sinon,
le sujet est 'disproportionné', c'est-à-dire en dissonance avec la
'divine proportion', donc avez [sic—avec] le canon de
beauté.40
And yet, while such texts point out how the fascination with the Golden Section could
get out of hand, there can be no doubt that this is a unique ratio, ubiquitous in geometry and
mathematics, and can be derived at by using many quite different geometrical and
mathematical techniques. Here follow the main ones. There are three important points in a
Golden Section, labeled A, B, and C, with C (the Golden Section) lying between A and B
with a ratio of 1.618 with relation to the whole. The proportion is such that AC/AB =
CB/AC (fig. 6.1). This relationship is most easily established by using a compass. To find
the location of C based on a given segment AB, find the mid-point of AB and call it M.
Construct a segment equal in length to MB and place it perpindicular to B, and call it BD.
Now connect D, take a compass and draw an arc with D as its centre so that it passes
through B. Swing the arc so that it intersects AD, calling the intersection E. Now draw
another arc with centre at A and passing through E. Swing so that it intersects AB; that
intersection will be C.
The ratio can also be derived from a circle (fig. 6.2). If a pentagon is derived from a
circle (simply by dividing it into 72 degree arcs, or else by successive sweeps of the
compass), the Golden Section is found in in any crossing point of the diagonal. To provide
an example of the interesting interlocking structral parallels that one encounters in a study of
Φ, in a regular pentagon inscribed in a circle, the relationship of the radius of the escribed
circle to the radius of the inscribed circle is 1:.809. If this fraction is multiplied twice, one
arrives at 1:1618, or the Golden Section.
The Golden Section is also found in sub-divisions of more complex geometric
forms. Pythagoras's school was responsible for defining five regular convex solids (known
now as Platonic solids): tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, icosahedron (a polyhedron having
twenty faces), and the twelve-sided dodecahedron. They liked the last of these especially:
its twelve regular facets were sometimes thought to correspond with the twelve signs of the
zodiac, and each pentagonal face was associated with the Golden Section—because the
point of intersection of two diagonals divides each in the Golden Section. The Golden
Section can also be derived from a square, by taking drawing a diagonal to half of the width
of the square and extending this line down to form a new bottom line (fig. 6.3).
The Root Rectangles
The root rectangles are derived first from a square's diagonal, and then from the
diagonals of each successvie rectangle (fig. 6.4). The √2 rectangle has a numerical ratio of
1:1.4142. The √3 rectangle has a ratio of 1:1.1732. The √4 rectangle has a ratio of 1:2.
The √5 rectangle has a ratio of 1:2.236. Another way of expressing it is that a √5 rectangle
is composed of a Golden Section rectangle, plus its recicprocal, or 1.1618 plus .618. The
√5 rectangle is the most versatile, and contains the Golden Section rectangle within it.
Within the √5 rectangle is found in the centre a square; on either side is a Golden Section
rectangle.41
Whirling Square Rectangles and Logarithmic Spirals
The whirling or additive square rectangle is developed from the √5 rectangle (fig.
6.5). If a square is removed from the short side, another Golden Section rectangle
remains, and so on, to infinity. It is a beautiful and unexplainable process, and one that
provides a great deal of flexibility in design. The logarithmic spiral, in turn, is derived from
the whirling square (fig. 6.6).
The 3-4-5 Triangle and the Golden Section
Egyptian surveyers registered a right angle by dividing a cord into knots of three
segments in the ratio 3:4:542. When the ends are brought together to form a triangle, a
right angle is formed. Golden Section relationships abound—and so do Fibonacci
approximations (fig. 6.7).
The Hexagram and the Golden Section
If one draws two equilateral triangles and establishes the diagonals, one can then
establish the radii. The crossing point is a Golden Section (fig. 6.8) This appears to have
been a technique particularly favored by Odilo Wolf on whom more presently.
The Golden Section and Fibonacci43
Numerically, the Golden Section is equivalent to 1:1.6803. It is sometimes stated
that the numerical equivalent of the Golden Section is the ratio developed from the
Fibonacci44 or summation series, which is the sum of the immediately two preceding
numbers (1,3,5,8,13,21, 34, 55, etc.). Some scholars writing in architectural circles have
confused the Fibonacci series as being precisely the same as Golden Section.45 This is
not precisely correct, however. Rather, they are an approximation of the Golden Section
that gets closer to 1.61803 the higher the numbers. The true equation of 1.61803 does not
occur until the following sequence:
16/9
=1.7777
453/280
=1.6178
733/453
=1.6181
21282/13153
=1.6180340
Thus while it is correct to speak of the Fibonacci series as being an approximation of φ,
there is a point when the ratios become exactly Golden Section—another instance of the
remarkable properties of this form.
Dynamic Symmetry
During the twentieth century, a number of authors explored ancient art, and also
nature, and found in both places ample evidence of proportional systems. The American
writer Jay Hambridge developed a term that he termed 'dynamic symmetry', by which he
meant, «...the root rectangles, the rectangle of the whirling square [the Golden Section
rectangle], and compound shapes derived by subdivision or multiplication of either the
square root forms or the rectangle of the whirling square.»46 According to Hambridge, the
key feature was the logarithmic spiral, because it imparted dynamism to geometry.
Interestingly, Hambridge argued that the √5 rectangle was in fact much more common than
the Golden Section ratio, at least in ancient art. By the time we reach authors such as
Hambidge, we are in a world where proportions reign in all forms of nature and of art.
Similar sentiments are expressed in French scholars of the period, notably Matila Ghyka,
who published a series of books with essentially the same goals as Hambidge's—to
demonstrate that proportions underly all meaningful art and architecture.47 But the term
dynamic symmetry, although popular at the time, does not seem to have borne the test of
time.
Viollet-le-Duc and Hendrik Petrus Berlage
The first important source for Bellot's knowledge of proportional systems was
Viollet-le-Duc. Here is what Bellot observed about Viollet-le-Duc in the Propos:
Avec la formation architecturale donnée par mon père et
augmenté de celle de l'École des beaux-arts, c'est Viollet-leDuc qui m'a le plus influencé. Il m'a fait apprendre la logique et
la sincérité de l'architecture français du Moyen Age
improprement appelé gothique. Lorsque j'ai passé mon
examen de diplôme, je connaissais sur le bout du doigt le
dictionnaire du grand restaureur de nos églises. Avec lui j'ai
appris à méditer l'archéologie; et j'ai vu que faire de l'architecture
romane ou gothique sans en avoir comris l'esprit et dégagé les
principes, copier des ornements gothiques dans des
conditions différentes de celles où se trouvaient les
constructeurs du Moyen Age, ce n'est plus faire de
l'architecture, mais un simple travail manuel.48
It is somewhat mysterious why Bellot does not mention Hendrik Petrus Berlage,
whose work at the beginning of the century on proportional systems was well-known.
Berlage published a number of design studies focusing on the medieval systems of
Quadratur and triangulatur (fig. 6.1).49
The School of Beuron
In the Propos, Bellot refers to the school of Beuron, in Germany as having exerted a
considerable influence on his own interest in developing a system of proportions.50
Beuron, of medieval Augustinian foundation, was closed early in the 19th century and
refounded 1863 by Benedicines. Beuron was elevated to an abbey in 1868, and despite
being repressed by German laws between 1875 and 1887, became known during the
late nineteenth century as an important art centre.51 It is now the head of Beuroner
Congregation, with filiations all over the world, including Japan and Chile, but mainly in
Germany.
The main figure in the Beuron school was Peter (later Father Desiderius) Lenz
(1832-1928), who had training as an architect and sculptor in Munich before he became a
monk at Beuron.52 Under Lenz's powerful influence, two painters who also became
monks at Beuron developed a recognizable form of artistic and architectural expression that
became known as the Beuron school.53 Maurice Denis seems to have known Lenz; this
may be inferred by a painting that he executed of the monk, surrounded by his accolytes
and the attributes of his arcane discipline (fig. 6.10). This suggests that there may well have
been fairly close contact between these artists working to forward the ends of sacred arts
reform.
Lenz and his followers strove to create a new school based on the primitivism and
genuineness of earlier cultures, particularly the pre-Golden-Age Greeks and the Egyptians,
with perhaps also some debt due to the Italian artists of the Quattrocento and to Rome of
the twelfth century. What Lenz derived from these schools was a sense of order and
hieraticism based on obvious dependence on geometric modules.54 Order, he believed,
should be valued over all other artistic qualities. In his 1912 work Ästhetik der Beuroner
Schule55, for example, he remarked, «Gott ist der Gott der Ordnung. Das Geordnete,
Feste, Sichere, Harmonische ist es ja, was Vertrauen, Ehrerbietung erweckt und sogar die
Unterwerfung leicht macht...Es ist darum die Unruhe einer Gottheit ganz unwürdig und
zweckverfehlend»56 Lenz executed a number of arcane diagrams showing the
relationship between hexagrams, circles, and the human form (fig. 6.11).
Father OdiloWoff, an Austrian Benedictine who had some as-yet unclear relations
with the Beuron school, wrote an important book that seems to have helped Bellot put his
own interests in proportions into a theological context.57 Wolff executed a number of plan
analyses of medieval buildings that purport to show that the hexagram system underlay
their forms.58 A triangle with sides of sixty and thirty degrees was also an important part of
Wolff's system. Bellot recognized a consanguinity between Wolf, the Behron works, and
his own: each strove for an expression that was timeless, that which did not change, rather
than the ephemeral, that which did change.
Numerous examples could be adduced of Bellot's dislike for works of art that sought
to depict immediate changing sensations. His negative comments in the Propos regarding
Impressionism are quite revealing in this respect: «Un bon chrétien peut faire de
l'Impressionisme, c'est-à-dire chercher à traduire l'agrément de la lumière sur les corps: mais
on ne conçoit pas d'art chrétien impressioniste» (Propos, 82-3). In other words, the goal of
the artist who professes to be Christian is to look beyond apparences to seek the truth of
matters that do not change. Making a similar point, he remarks in the Propos: «La nature
n'est pour nous qu'un dictionnaire, disait Delacroix;» and, further on the same page,
«Commencée dans les sens, la perception du beau s'achève dans l'intelligence» (Propos,
73). To Bellot, as for the monk-artists at Beuron, a religous art worthy to be called thus
would seek to expound the larger truths of qualities that are forever true—reason,
geometry, order, balance—as opposed to the smaller truths of the changing instant.
Bellot: The Two-fold significance of Proportions: Practical tool, and symbol of
Divine Order
Tthe subject of proportional systems in architecture is not simply a matter of retracing
the presence of the Golden Section. Other ratios are equally important. In the case of
Bellot, it become apparent that he was indebted to several of these—not only to the classic
systems described by the ancients and such beloved writers as Viollet-le-Duc, but also
more abstruse systems, particularly those practiced by his fellow architect-priest brethren at
the monstery of Bueron.
Dom Bellot attached a great deal of importance to the use of proportional systems in
architecture—both because of the order that they imparted to the work, and also because
of the underlying symbolism that he attached to this order. He devoted one chapter of the
Propos to proportions, and his work bears witness to the use of the Golden Section and
other proportional systems. But in his case, the symbolism had a particular significance, one
related to his vocation as a priest and his perception of the role of the Divine operating in
the world.
We are fortunate to possess some of Dom Bellot's original sketches used during his
1934 lectures in Québec (fig 6.13). These show that he was indeed an adept in the
manipulation of proportional systems. In addition to showing how the Golden Section could
be devised according to Euclid's formula, he drew the whirling rectangle, and the geometrical
means of drawing a pentagon. He also occupied himself with some more subtle
demonstration points. These included the relationships between φ and its reciprocals—the
obvious ones, such as .618, .382, and 1.236, but also more uncommon ones such as
0.236. One of the most original is a drawing based on two equilateral triangles joined
together at their bases (so the point extends in either direction).
The significance of the «équerre mystérieuse»
Given that Dom Bellot was an adept at employing both the Golden Section as well
as root rectangles, and had become aware of these ratios through a wide variety of sources,
how did he actually employ them in his architectural designs? The answer to this question is
not yet certain, but it seems clear that what he termed the «équerre mystérieuse» (fig.
6.14) ought to be taken into consideration. Apparently, he regarded this as a matter of
some secrecy, something to be communicated to only his adepts. Just as Jesus had
difficulty in communicating obvious truths to his disciples, Dom Bellot found it difficult to
communicate the techniques of employing the équerre. To Dom Côté, for example, he
once remarked,«Pour vous servir de l'équerre—c'est tout un 'job.' Il faut y être initié nous en
reparlerons.»59 A figure of this square, drawn by Dom Côté, shows that the fundamental
form is derived from the 3:4:5 triangle—which, as we have shown above, was known to
antiquity, and also to Viollet-le-Duc. From this triangle a number of other relationships were
established. For example, the base line is divided into the classic Golden Section cut, as
described in Euclid; also present are the √5 rectangle, the square, an equilateral triangle, and
a circle. The outer perimeter is a √2 rectangle, and fractional relationships of the key ratios
are also seen. But what is shown here is essentially the system described by Euclid. It's
not particularly sophisticated to the initiated, and pales before the systems employed by
Berlage and Wolff.
How might this équerre actually have been employed? I would suspect that this
équerre was a teaching device intended for Bellot's student, rather than something Bellot
employed himself: having internalized the lessons of deriving proportional systems, he
would not have required such a mechanical system. In practice, as Bellot observed to
Côté, it is difficult to describe in words what can be achieved by using a set square,
compass, and triangle on a base line. The author has observed architects working on
drafting boards, and typically a series of coordinating points are established immediately. In
the case of Bellot, a triangulated crossing system based on the Golden Section features
prominently in his architectural drawings. From these starting points, a number of specific
ratios could be developed—again, not limited to the Golden Section, but also including root
rectangles and their fractional equivalents. As he remarked to Côté, the system was used
to provide one with enough knowledge to be liberated from it.
Still, one needs to return to the point that proportions played a dual role in Bellot's
work—symbolic as well as practical. That there was a practical side to the use of
proportional systems becomes clear from his letters to Dom Côté. For example, when
Dom Côté started to gain mastery over the techniques of employing the Golden Section,
he attempted to apply this ratio in every conceivable relationship within a design. Dom
Bellot critiqued Dom Côté's designs with increasing exasperation, remarking that one
shouldn't look to the Golden Section as a recipe. For example, he observed to Dom
Côté, «Vos tracés selon φ sont bien. Comme tout le monde vous en êtes, cela se voit, un
peu l'esclave, vous vous libérerez petit à petit....»60
One more letter to Dom Côté provides additional evidence of Bellot's pragmatic
approach to architecture. Bellot suggested that one should not become a slave to any
material (as, for example, Perret was enthralled by concrete); the architect should be
pragmatic, not doctrinaire. Speaking of the proposed materials to be used at Saint-Benoîtdu-Lac, Bellot observed to Côté:
...Par raison d'économie vous dites que tout se ferait en
brique? Peut être; cela dépend des ressources de l'endroit.
La question transport jouera ici un rôle important. Les 'laïcs' en
architecture croient trop souvent que c'est selon une formule
que l'on trouve la vraie solution—pour eux bâtir c'est chercher
dans un catalogue et trouver l'article adéquat à la situation. Or
c'est de tout autre façon qu'il faut procéder—il faut connaitre bien
des formules, bien des procédés, je dirais même des
trucs—en même temps que les grands principes—mais la
cohabitation en notre tête de toutes ces idées doit être
emprunté de la plus paraite cordialité.
"La vrai art peut être appelé un art sans condamnation.
Je m'explique. Pour Perret par ex. qui a fait l'église de
Raincy—il n'y a que le béton, c'est une thèse—il ferait si c'était
possible les serrures et les vitraux en béton—ce qui n'est pas
béton il le condamne même si un autre matériau était ou
meilleur marché ou à prix égal plus fastueux. Ce que Perret fait
pour le béton d'autres le font pour la pierre. La bonne pierre
comme ils disent. D'autres seraient tentés de le faire pour la
brique.
"La vraie sagesse c'est de se servier de tout ce que l'on
a à sa disposition, en sachant mettre tout à sa place, selon sa
nature, selon l'effet à obtenir, et pour arriver le mieux possible,
tout au point de vue résistance qu'au point de vue aspect,
avec un minimum de dépense.
"Songez qu'au total c'est cela la 'Sagesse' de
l'Architecte. Sagesse—Sapientia—Sapere—goûter—et
savoir distinguer le meilleur.—En chaque occasion ce sont
comme des vins qui nous sont offert et c'est à nous d'en
designer le apte à la situation du moment (des vins sont en
l'occurrence les matériaux vous le devinez). Soyez donc
souple. Si quelque chose ne vas pas en long cherchez en
large. Sachez saisir les occasions—elles sont souvent offertes
par les difficultiés. Ce sont elles qui nous font réfléchir et nous
rendent ingénieux.61
If Bellot utilized proportional systems as a pragmatic tool, there can also be no
doubt at all that they possessed symbolic meaning for him. The symbolic meaning was
consistent with his religious vocation, and even more particularly, with the neo-Thomist
strand of Roman Catholicism in the twentieth century that, as we have seen, exerted such
an important influence on his formative years. We may quote again from a letter to Dom
Côté to demonstrate this point. Arguing that even a simple form could be beautiful, he
revealed to Dom Côté why this could be possible—due to the employment of a Golden
Section proportional system in the design:
J'ai envoyé à votre Révérend Père Prieur trois photos
d'une aile du Monastère de Vanves; c'est en briques [tandis
qu'à cette époque Dom Crenier songeait de bâtir le monastère
à Saint-Benoît-du-Lac en pierre de champs], mais il me paraît
absolument impossible de faire plus simple, il n'y a
uniquement que des trous dans un mur, et cela est agréable,
pourquoi? parce que bien proportioné. Car plus une chose
doit être squelettique, plus la proportion joue, plus il faut jongler
avec φ. C'est pourquoi je me suis arraché les derniers cheveux
qui me restent, quand j'ai lu en votre lettre cette phrase
effarante; 'Je regrette de ne povoir utiliser de la section φ car la
question φ oblige à trop de sacrifices.'; Mais c'est justement
que parce qu'il n'y a à faire qu'une chose très très simple, que la
proportion joue un rôle. Je dirais, le seul rôle à jouer, ou alors le
dernier des Enterpreneurs est plus capable que vous, pour
faire ce travail. Dans un beau visage il y a autant de matière
que dans un très vilain. Qu'est-ce qui fait la beauté, l'harmonie
des éléments qui la composent. Et pour une belle maison,
c'est la même chose. Ce ne sont pas les petits ornaments
qu'on peut y ajouter qui la font belle; il n'y a que les vieux curés
'gothiquarts' qui ont cette fause notion de l'art. A Vanves, j'ai
comme Chapitre, une pièce de 10 m x 10 m environ. D'abord
j'avais pensé la couvrir de quatre pouces en béton. Puis en
étudiant, j'ai vu que si je mettais une colonne au milieu, ce qui
est très traditionnel et que j'en fasse partir des arcs rayonnants,
je ferais une réele économie, alors je n'ai pas hésité, 'bon
marché d'abord.' Or ce qui est le plus économique est celui qui
fait le plus d'effet. LE BEAU N'EST PAS LE CHER. Ce qu'il
faut c'est étudier et sortir des matériaux, la quintessence de ce
qu'ils peuvent donner. La Création nous en montre l'exemple,
avec des moyens très très simples.. Dieu a partout dispensé
la splendeur, et le tout y est proportionné comme nulle part
ailleurs.62
It is a pity that Bellot was never filmed at the drawing board: it must have been a
sight to see him, with his pencil and set square flying. To the uninitiated, it would have
appeared like magic indeed. To the initiated—and those who shared his religious
beliefs—the underlying logic of proportional systems was a flexible means to an important
end: to ensure that order reigned in an unruly world.
Color
In the Propos, Bellot treated color and light together in one lecture, remarking that
they were «éléments nécessairement requis par toute beauté humaine» (Propos, 81).
There is a powerful theological undercurrent to Bellot's approach. Proportions represented
the underlying order of the Divine; color and light represented the transitory, the human,
nature, and the seasons. This was to Bellot nothing less than a recognition of «...un
mouvement de l'âme». (Propos, 83). To Bellot, light and color together were the elements
that represented the soul's time on earth. It is ironic, therefore, that even sensitive observers
of Bellot's work often seem to have missed the point. 63 I maintain that one cannot
understand the significance of Bellot's proportions if one does not see the way that this
theory interlocked with his use of color and light. It is of no coincidence that Bellot did not
want to add additional religious works, such as frescoes, to his churches: this would detract
from the symbolic significance of the ensemble.
If we have established that color and light had an important symbolic role to play in
Bellot's architectural universe (the archangel to proportion's angel), where precisely did
Bellot derive his approach to polychromatic effects? Bellot achieved polychromatic effects
in his buildings by using two complementary but separate techniques: contrasting materials;
and raked mortar joints. The former interest seems to have much in common with
architecture from the mid-nineteenth-century forward, while the latter technique is very difficult
to link with specific traditions in architecture. Bellot used colored masonry joints both on the
external masonry, and inside on the brick walls. The exterior masonry joints at Saint-Benoîtdu-Lac are either red, yellow-ochre, or a neutral untinted hue. The majority of the courses
are treated in the neutral hue; ochre joints are used to demarcate vertial pier distinctions, and
red joints are used to demarcate window heads and other decorative sculptural motifs. The
external mortar courses are quite thick—perhaps 5 centimetres—and finished flush with the
wall plane, with the result that the different hues may be discerned easily by those who look
for them, but they do not sautent aux yeux. The brickwork inside was treated slightly
differently. The mortar joint were raked so as to make it lower than the surrounding brick
courses by ten millimetres—a distance that nonetheless results in an effective shadowline
being created. Often several hues were used. At Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, Bellot used at least
four different tinted mortars: buff, green, red, and black.
It has sometimes been asserted that Bellot’s architecture is “Mozarabic” in its
sensibility.64 What did Bellot take from Spain? When and where did he learn about this
country, and which periods was he interested in? Some believe that Bellot may have
spent his formative years in Spain. In conversation with the monks at Saint-Benoît-du-Lac,
and in particular with the noted franco-American Benedictine monk and historian Dom Oury, I
was assured that Dom Bellot's brother, also an architect, spoke Spanish without an accent.
But this is difficult to prove, and in any event I do not see a close connection between Bellot
and Mozarabic archtitecture.
Perhaps a closer comparison might be drawn between Bellot's architecture and that
of the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí. Like Bellot, Gaudí's work is richly and idiosyncratically
polychromatic. But does the comparison go beyond general similarities? Bellot does not
mention Gaudí in the Propos.
Moreover, Gaudí's intererest in polychromy is not
precisely the same as Bellot's: Gaudí uses contrasting materials, but does not seem to
employ tinted mortar joints.65 Nor—and this is a telling distinction—does Bellot appear to
have employed models at all in his architectural practice. Gaudí, on the other hand, used
models extensively. Thus while not in any way excluding the possibility that Bellot may
have drawn from Gaudí's work, I find no way of examining the question meaningfully. But in
my opinion this comparison has been too loosely drawn, and there are no real close links
between Spanish architecture and Bellot. Perhaps both architects might in fact be equally
indebted to Viollet-le-Duc, rather than Bellot on Gaudí. Or perhaps, as I will argue below, it
was the polychromatic architecture of France that provides the source for his attitudes
towards color.
The 1830s witnessed a precocious scholarly interest in the historic use of color in
architecture.66 Students at the École des Beaux-Arts such as Henri Labrouste showed
that classical architects had employed color to a greater extent than had been believed.
The debates on this subject continued through the 1850s, with the somewhat suspect
reconstructions of J.-L. Hittorff. These researches paralleled the work of Viollet-le-Duc,
among others, who explored the use of polychromy during the Middle Ages. Certain
churches, such as Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris and the Sainte-Chapelle, also in Paris,
were redecorated, with interiors renovated in richly polychromatic hues.67
Victorian architects working in England were interested in permanent constructional
polychromy and sought inspiration from several countries, as described, for example, in the
works of Owen Jones and G.E. Street, to name but two.68 A similar interest was seen in
Second Empire France, where several lavish books on the subject were published,
notably those by Pierre Chabat, which appeared during the 1880s.69 During this period in
French architecture—figs. 6.15-16 are typical—many buildings were erected using
differently colored brick courses. Jules Saulnier's work has become well-known in recent
years, but it is important to note that many other French architects were also working in a
similar vein.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, German scholars had published several
astonishingly comprehensive historical surveys on the subject, although no German
publication extends its discussion to embrace the contemporary French work singled out
by, for example Chabat.70 There continued to be books on the subject in the early
twentieth century, for example, Leon V. Solon's 1924 book, Polychromy: Architectural and
Structural Theory and Practice.
When all these traditions are considered, I am inclined to discount the putative
connections with Gaudí, and think it more appropriate to place Bellot's work more directly in
line with the tradition of nineteenth-century French polychromatic brickwork, as described in
the publications by Pierre Chabat. Here is found the same interest in geometrically
patterened, multicolored brick work. Color was a means, not an end: it humanized the
architecture of reason.
Conclusions
For Bellot, architecture served a larger reality than what could be discerned by the
ordinary senses. As a priest, and a monk—as a priest shaped by Maritain and other
Idealist philosophers, and as a Benedictine monk—Bellot held that architecture should reflect
an immutable order, and sould strive after perfection. Only the Divine is perfect; but
architecture conceived of with respect to proportional systems could allude to and reflect that
perfection—a sort of Imitatio Deo. Utilizing proportional systems was as close as architects
could come to reflecting the Divine here on earth. But Bellot was too much of a natural
engineer to apply his system of proportions without careful thought, and modification where
necessary: his exasperated letters to Dom Côté with respect to the latter's enthusiastic but
rote application of proportional systems provide proof of this. And, finally, Bellot was also
an architect who thought very carefully of the users of his buildings. He designed buildings
in response to local climates, and local building materials. This is another reason why he
would notmechanically apply proportional systems71 . The care that Bellot took in
considering proportions, light, and color, proves that for him architecture was a sort of earthly
paradise—one that would be made as inspirational as possible, while contemplating the
Divine world that he believed would be his and his brothers' eventual destination.
Reference Notes
1
Une citation de Dom Guéranger, citée sans source précise, en la préface par Jean Prou,
Abbé de Saint-Pierre de Solesmes, dans Dom Louis Soltner, Solesmes & Dom
Guéranger (1805-1875) ([Solesmes]: Saint-Pierre de Solesmes, 1974), n.p.; citation de la
Bible: III Jn, 4; citation de Dom Bellot, Propos, p. 72.
2 Je dois ici reconnaitre les travaux importants qu'a fait récemment le Dom Rochon à SaintBenoît-du-Lac sur le sujet des théories de Dom Bellot. Voir, à ce sujet, Dom Jean Rochon,
«L'esprit d'un moine bâtisseur: Dom Paul Bellot, 1876-1944», Chercher Dieu, Publication
des Moines de Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, no. 16 (printemps 1994): 11-39.
3 Institute Français d’Architecture, Dom Bellot: Moine-Architecte,1876-1944 (Paris:
Éditions Norma, 1996), et Peter Willis, Dom Paul Bellot, Architect and Monk, and the
Publication of Propos d’un bâtisseur du Bon Dieu, 1949 (Newcastle Upon Tyne: Elysium
Press Publishers, 1996).
4 Yves Sjöberg, «Dom Bellot et l'architecture de brique»,Mort et resurrection de l'art sacré, Église et temps présent, 8 (Paris: Bernard Grasset,
1957), 82-86, p. 83.
5 Maurice Denis, Nouvelles théories sur l'art moderne, sur l'art sacrée, 1914-1921 (Paris:
Rouart et J. Watelin, 1922).
6 «Le sentiment religieux dans l'art du moyen âge», 1913, rpt. Nouvelles théories, 135167.
7 Nouvelles théories, p. 151.
10 Jacques Maritain, Art et scholastique 1919, 1920 (Paris: Louis Rouart et fils, 1935).
11 P[ie]-R[aymond] Régamey, o.p. «Bilan de l'Époque», Art sacré (mars-avril 1948), 52.
12 Maritain, Art et Scholastique, 35-6.
13 Maritain, Art et Scholastique, 38-9.
14 Maritain, «L'Art Chrétien,» Art et Scholastique, 115.
15 «Objet religieux et objet d'art», Préface pour l'Arche, 1919, rpt. Nouvelles théories,
pp. 244-252.
17 Joseph Pichard, L'art sacré moderne (Paris and Grenoble: B. Arthaud, 1953); et
L'aventure moderne de l'art sacré (Paris: Spes, 1966), en particulier, chapitre 2, «On bâtit
de nouvelles églises, 1920-1939.»
18 P[ie]-R[aymond] Régamey, o.p. Art Sacré au xxe siècle? (Paris: Éditions du Cerf,
1952).
19 Régamey, Art Sacré? Annexe II, p. 439.
20 Régamey, Art Sacré? p. 35.
21 «La notion du beau par Dom Bellot», Sherbrooke Tribune, 29 June 1939, n.p.,
collection des Archives de SBL.
22 Bellot à Dom Côté, 11 janvier 1942, p. 1, Archives de SBL, Fonds Claude Côté,
Correspondance, Lettres de Dom Bellot, 1938-1943, SBL23J.
23 Bragdon, Frozen Music, 41.
24 Samuel Coleman and C. Arthur Coan, Proportional Form: Further Studies in the
Science of Beauty, Being Supplemental to Those Set Out in Nature's Harmonic Unity
(New York and London: G. Putnam's Sons, The Knickerbocker Press, 1920), xvi.
25 Huntley, The Divine Proportion, 58.
26 Cited in E.F. Carritt, The Theory of Beauty, 4th ed. (Methuen, 1937), p. 6, cited in
Huntley, p. 59.
27 Ralf Weber and Sharon Larner, «The Concept of Proportion in Architecture: An
Introductory Bibliographic Essay», Art Documentation (Winter 1993): 147-154.
28 Maurice Vieux, Les secrets des bâtisseurs (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1975).
29 Vieux, Les secrets des bâtisseurs, 69-70.
30 Eric Fernie, «A Beginner's Guide to the Study of Architectural Proportions and
Systems of Length,» In Medieval Architecture and its Intellectual Context: Studies in Honor
of Peter Kidson, Eds. Eric Fernie and Paul Crossley (London: Hambledon Press, 1990):
229-238.
31 Fernie,. «A Beginner's Guide», 230.
32 Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire, «Proportion».
33 H.E. Huntley, The Divine Proportion: A Study in Mathematical Beauty (New York:
Dover Publications Inc., 1970), 23.
34 The problem of finding Golden Section of a straight line solved in Euclid, II, 11. Let a
line AB of length l be divided into two sections by the point C. Let the lengths of AC and
CB be a and b respectively. If C is a point such that l:a as a:b, C is the Golden Section of
AB.
35 George Birkhoff, Aesthetic Measure (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1933), 27-28.
36 Cité sans source précise, dans Matilda Ghyka, Le nombre d'or: rites et rhthmes
pythagoriciens dans le développement de la civilisation occidentale (Paris: Nouvelle
Revue Française, 1931), 7.
37 Huntley, Divine Proportion, p. 64: the results of German investigator Gustav Fechner's
1876 research on personal preference of rectangles.
38 Théo Koelliker, Symbolisme et nombre d'or: le rectangle de la genèse et la pyramide
de Khéops (Paris: Les Éditions de Champs-Élysées, 1957), 47.
39 D. Neroman, Le nombre d'or à la portée de tous (Paris: Ariane, 1946).
40 Neroman, Le nombre d'or, 2.
41 Claude Bragdon, The Frozen Fountain: Being Essays on Architecture and the Art of
Design in Space (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1932), et aussi son autobiographie, More
Lives than One (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1938).
42 Huntley, Divine Proportion, 43-44.
43 Huntley, Chapter XI, "The Fibonacci Numbers," 141-150; see also IV, "Phi and FiBonacci," 46ff.
44 After Leonardo Fibonacci (filius Bonacci), alias Leonardo of Pisa, 1175-?. He brought
Arabic numeral system to west, among other achievements.
45 For example, Lesley Milner, «Warkworth Keep, Northumberland: A Reassessment of
its Plan and Date», in Medieval Architecture and its Intellectual Context, 219-228.
46 Jay Hambidge, Dynamic Symmetry: The Greek Vase (New Haven, Conneticut: Yale
University Press, 1920), 30; voir aussi The Elements of Dynamic Symmetry, 1919 (New
York: Brentano's, 1926; and Dynamic Symmetry in Composition, as used by the Artists
(New York: Coward-McCann, 1923).
47 Voir, par exemple, Matila C. Ghyka, Esthétique des proportions dans la nature et dans
les arts, 10e édition (Paris: Gallimard, 1927); Le nombre d'or: Rites et rythmes
pythagoriciens dans le développement de la civilisation occidentale, 2 tomes: I, Le
Rythmes; II; Les Rites (Paris: Librairie Gallimard, Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue
Française,1931); et Essai sur le rythme (Paris: Librairie Gallimard, Éditions de la Nouvelle
Revue Française,1938). Sur la planche XV, Ghyka appèle les √rectangles «rectangles
dynamiques». Voir aussi M[iloutine] Borissavliévitch, Le nombre d'or et l'esthétique
scientifique de l'architecture (Paris, 1952), rpt en anglais, The Golden Number and the
Scientific Aesthetics of Architecture (New York: Philosophical Library, 1958).
48 Cité dans «L'esprit d'un moine bâtisseur: Dom Paul Bellot (1876-1944)», par Père
Jean Rochon, en Chercher Dieu , no. 16 (printemps 1994): 12.
49 Hendrik Petrus Berlage, «Quadratur und Triangulatur», in Grundlagen und Entwicklung
der Architektur (Berlin: Julius Bard, 1908).
50 Bellot, Propos, p. 109: «...je reçus quelques images de Beuron, l'Abbaye Benédictine
Allemande où travaillait le R.P. Didier Lentz [sic—Lenz]; puis peu après, on me donna un
modeste fascicule traitaint de ses théories.» It is not clear which publication Bellot is referring
to, but it is possible that he might have meant a book by Abel Fabre, Pages d'art chrétien:
études d'architecture, de peinture, de sculpture, et d'iconographie, which was published,
according to a note in the 1927 edition in the monastery, p. vi, in five separate fascicules
between 1910 and 1915. The fifth chapter of Fabre's book, "La Décoration Moderne,"
discusses Lenz's work in some detail, pp. 575-582 (pagination from the 1927 edition).
See also Josef Kreitmaier, s.j., Beuroner Kunst: Eine Ausdrucksform der Christlichen Mystik,
1914 (?), fourth and fifth enlarged edition (Freiburg: Herder, 1923). Kreitmaier (p. xvii)
cites a publication by Fabre on the Beuron school which apparently appeared in Paris in
1913 in what may have been a journal entitled Pages d'Art Chrétien.
51 See P. Ansgar Dreher, "Zur Beuroner Kunst," in Beuron, 1863-1963: Festschrift zum
hundertjärigen Bestehen der Erzabtei St. Martin (Beuron/Hohenzollern: Beuroner
Kunstverlag, [1963?]), 358-394. For complete illustrations of the fresco cycle at Beuron, as
well as for a few limited views of architecture, see Kreitmaier. The first plate of Kreitmaier's
book shows a reproduction of a painting by Maurice Denis of Lenz, sitting before some
geometric figures and with a compas in his hand—which suggests strongly that this German
school was known in France among the group of Catholic artists that Denis associated with.
52 Voir Thieme-Becker Künstler Lexicon, XXIII, 64-65.
53 Fabre, p. 574: Peter Lenz took the name of Father Desiderius; the painter Jacques
Wuger became Father Gabriel; and Luc Steiner, also a painter, became Father Luc (the
patron saint of painters). As Fabre notes, this school was itself influenced by earlier 19thcentury religiously oriented painting confraternities, such as the Nazarine Brotherhood.
54 Lenz had an obvious interest in developing an art form based on underying geometric
principles. See, for example, Dreher, Beuron, 1863-1963, plate 4, Plan for a proposed
Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Berlin, 1871; and pl. 18, an idealized male and female
couple overlaid with geometric forms. The Berlin church project, a remarkable Egyptianinspired project with many sculptures on the facade, was apparently unrealized: for
elevations, see Kreitmaier, plates 35-36.
55 P. Desiderius Lenz, Zur Ästhetik der Beuroner Schule, Vienna and Leipzig, 1912. It is
possible that this text was published in an earlier French edition, since according to Fabre,
p. 580, in 1905 the painter Paul Sérusier prepared a French translation of this publication
entitled L'esthétique de Beuron.
56 Cited in «Kunst und Künstler im ersten Jahrhundert Beurons», Das hundertste Jahr: Zur
Hundertjahrfeier der Benediktiner in Beuron 1963, Herausgegeben von der Erzabtei St.
Martin, P. Coelestin Merkle, ed. ([Beuron]: Beuroner Kunstverlag [1963]), 115.
57 Propos, pp. 109-10: «Pour lui [Wolff], l'hexagone et le triangle à 60° avaient régi l'art de toute l'antiquité. Comme je commençais à étudier
l'Église de Quarr Abbey, en Angleterre, je me mis à l'école du R.P. Wolf [sic], et toute notre église à l'île de Wight est entièrement faite avec le
triangle à 60°, que j'avais soumis à une gymnastique acrobatique, pour trouver toutes les proportions de cette église...».
58 Odilo Wolff, Tempelmasse: das Gesetz der Proportion in den antiken und alt-christlichen Sakralbauten; ein Beitrag zur Kunstwissenschaft
und Ästhetik (Wien: Verlag von Anton Schroll & Co., 1912).
59 Bellot à Dom Côté, 1 septembre 1936, p. 2, Archives de SBL, Fonds Claude Côté,
60 Bellot à Dom Côté, 11 juillet 1936, p. 4, Archives de SBL, Fonds Claude Côté,
61 Bellot à Dom Côté, 27 décembre 1937, pp.1-3, Archives de SBL, Fonds Claude
Côté, Correspondance, Lettres de Dom Bellot, 1933-1937, SBL23J.
62 Bellot à Dom Côté, 31 mai 1935, pp. 1-3, Archives de SBL, Fonds Claude Côté,
63
Marie-Alain Couturier, o.p., «Le prieuré Sainte-Bathilde à Vanves», L'Art sacré, 2, no. 15 (janvier 1937): 22-23; et Marie-Alain Couturier, o.p. [1897-1954] La verité blessé (Paris: Plon, 1984), p. 156:
«Non! Dom Bellot n'est pas 'une très grand architecte.' La vraie grandeur détermine un certain accent, un certain style, même dans la médiocraté, même dans les erreurs».
64 Voir, par exemple, José Fernández Arenas, La Arquitectura mozárabe (Barcelona:
Polígrafa, 1972), and Manuel Gómez-Moreno, Îglesas mozárabes: arte español de los
siglos IX a XI, 2 tomes (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Históricos, 1919).
65 Of the many publications on Gaudí, one in particular has many detailed color
photographs of his decorative details. See Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) (Museo Español
de Arte Contemporáneo, Madrid, Mayo-Junio 1985).
66 See, for example, David Van Zanten, The Architectural Polychromy of the 1830's (New
York: Garland, 1977), a revision of the author's 1970 PhD thesis at Harvard.
67 Saint-Germain-des-Prés was repainted in bright hues starting in 1843. See SaintGermain des-Prés [et le château de] Chambord, Dossier technique No. 2 (Paris: Les
Dossiers Monuments Historiques, 1983), 69.
68 The literature on Victorian architects interested in polychromy is obviously too large to
enter into here. Two of the important sources of the period, however, might be singled out:
Owen Jones, The Grammar of Ornament (London: Day and Son, 1856); and George
Edmund Street, Brick and Marble in the Middle Ages (London: J. Murray, 1855).
69 For example, see, Auguste Racinet, L'ornament polychrome: deux cent vingt planches
en couleur, or et argent, contenant environ 4,000 motifs de tous les styles, art ancien et
asiatique, moyen âge, renaissance, XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles... 2 tomes (Paris: Firmin-Didot,
1888). Voir aussi Pierre Chabat, La brique et la terre cuite, 2 tomes Série I, (Paris:
V[euve] A. Morel et Cie, 1881); Série II, (Paris: Librairies-Imprimeries Réunies, n.d.); Rpt.
as Victorian Brick and Terra-Cotta Architecture in Full Color (New York: Dover Publications,
Inc., 1989).
70 For example, Alexander Speltz, Das Farbige Ornament aller historischen Stile: nach
eigenen Aquarellen herausgegeben von Alexander Speltz (Leipzig: K.F. Koehler, 19141923). This book was published subsequently in several English editions, but with blackand-white illustrations, e.g., The Styles of Ornament from Prehistoric Times to the Middle of
the XIXth Century: A Series of 3500 Examples arranged in Historical Order with
Descriptive Text for the Use of Architects, Designers, Craftsmen and Amaneurs by
Alexander Speltz,Translated from the 2nd German ed., rev. and ed. by R. Phené Spiers,
Rev. ed. (London: B.T. Batsford, 1910). At least two additional editions appeared, the
most accessible of which would likely be the Dover reprint of 1959, entitled The Styles of
Ornament and a reproduction of David O'Conor's translation from the 2nd German edition
(1906).
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Dom Bellot`s Architecture Theory

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