Refurbishment of Notre Dame: The Triumph of the Aesthetics of Emptiness and Nonsense
A 2013 photograph of the high altar in the choir of Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris.
It's a safe bet that Archbishop Ulrich and his acolytes never asked themselves about the transmission of the faith and the salvation of souls when approving these supposedly aesthetic choices.
The countdown to the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, which was consumed by flames in a terrible fire in April 2019, has begun, with the date of its inauguration now set for December 8, 2024. The reconstruction of the building is already well under way. The archdiocese has just unveiled another important part of the renovation plan: the replacement of the main pieces of liturgical furniture, whose outrageously modern aesthetic is struggling to win hearts.
To design the pieces that will take their place in the renovated cathedral, the archbishop of Paris has invited five carefully selected artists to take part in the competition—in reality, they were only known to a very small circle of insiders for having already worked on various contemporary projects. The presentation of their backgrounds, published in Le Figaro a few months ago, could reasonably have given cause for concern. Nicolas Alquin and his son, for example, claim to be involved in “an ongoing dialogue between the Judeo-Christian iconographic heritage and the influence of the primitive arts on contemporary Western art.” Guillaume Bardet, meanwhile, before turning his hand to liturgical furniture, defines himself as a ‘furniture designer’ working in the fields of interior architecture and town planning. And what about Constance Guisset, an outspoken feminist and progressive on social issues, a graduate of the Essec business school who specialises in ‘performative installations’—the content of which we’d be hard-pressed to explain? A few months ago, we alerted our readers to the fact that in the projects put forward by this committee of artists, the simple name of Our Lady was simply not mentioned.
And yet the programme drawn up by the church authorities to guide them sounded enthusiastic. “Beauty tells us about God,” explained Msgr. Olivier Ribadeau-Dumas, rector of the cathedral. “The soul of Notre Dame is the worship that takes place there. The interior design must make it possible for all visitors to have an encounter with Christ.” It is not certain that the final result of the competition corresponds exactly to this ambitious roadmap.
The final choice was announced by Mgr. Laurent Ulrich at the end of June, revealing what the cathedral’s five major pieces of liturgical furnishings would look like: the main altar, the ambo, the cathedra and two associated seats, the tabernacle, and the baptistery. Many Catholics, both in France and abroad, were stunned and bewildered as to how the highest authorities in the archdiocese of the French capital could have approved such a choice.
The artist chosen is ‘furniture designer’ Guillaume Bardet. It would appear that he did indeed ‘design furniture,’ but forgot in the process that it had a purpose other than furnishing a trendy bobo bar in eastern Paris.
Art historian Pierre Téqui, who is often called on by the press for his expertise on liturgical art issues, gives his views in the Catholic weekly Famille Chrétienne. While he welcomes the choice of “coherence,” i.e., the fact that one and the same artist was asked to produce all the pieces required, he can only express his distress—let’s be measured—at the final result, which unfortunately ticks all the boxes of the excesses that plague contemporary sacred art—if we can still use the words ‘art’ and ‘sacred’ to describe it. A minimalism that borders on the absurd, an aniconism that tramples on centuries of Catholic iconography rich in symbols and faces, a frightening inadequacy to the place that millions of believers around the world look to with faith and hope to be the lighthouse that shines in the ocean of our world losing meaning.
Let’s take the altar, for a start. Its appearance is quite similar to another of the artist’s creations, a bronze coffee table called ‘Coffee table’, except that this time it’s not a platform designed to house a mug of Fair Trade Arabica from Costa Rica, but the Most Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord. It was supposedly designed to meet Vatican II’s requirements for the celebration of Mass, but it doesn’t even meet this imperative, since it’s stuck on the edge of a petty marble platform that prevents people from going around it—or concelebrating.
The altar and ambo as designed by Guillaume Bardet. Photo: Diocese of Paris
The ambo, a new liturgical piece required for the celebration of the Mass ritual according to the 1969 missal, could have been a worthy successor to the pulpits of yesteryear. The pulpits have given rise to countless sculptural masterpieces, depicting the anguish of the believer’s heart as he contemplates his misery and hears the call of redemption. One might have dreamt that the ambo would become the setting for a powerful celebration of the Word of God. Not so. Instead, the ambo here at Notre Dame, as in so many other churches before it, has become a kind of minimalist lectern that the convention centre of an obscure suburban town would not disavow for its functionality and insignificance.
The cathedra, designed by Guillaume Bardet.
And what about the cathedra, the seat where the archbishop’s dignity is supposed to manifest itself? The model designed by Guillaume Bardet could quite easily be incorporated into the set of The Addams Family to serve as Uncle Fester’s seat, so evocative is it of a sinister inverted coffin.
The whole thing is naked and sinister. In the words of the philosopher Pascal, whose 400th birthday is being celebrated this year, “the eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.” We tremble, not because of a holy and dignified fear of God, but because of the abysmal emptiness of furniture that ostensibly chooses to remain mute, having evacuated all figurative elements. Revealingly, the order for the furnishings includes no crucifix, no representation of Christ crucified, as required by the new Roman Missal—not to mention the old one: “Likewise, on or near the altar, there shall be a cross, clearly visible to the congregation, bearing the effigy of Christ crucified. This cross should remain near the altar even outside liturgical celebrations, to remind the faithful of the Lord’s redemptive passion.” The gilded cross by sculptor Marc Couturier, which survived the fire, will be put back in place, but once again it is an empty, bare cross.
As Pierre Téqui rightly points out, Msgr. Ulrich’s choice is that of an aesthetic deliberately oriented towards rupture, refusing to “continue history by creating something contemporary that integrates the past rather than producing something new by condemning the old to museums.” The liturgical furnishings on offer to believers in 2023 have never been so disembodied and frighteningly complex in their apparent simplicity. It can only be understood with a great deal of explanation of the artist’s intentions—the paradox of a liturgical ‘sensibility’ that spends its time reproaching lovers of Tradition for a faith that is too ‘intellectual’ and ‘elitist.’ In reality, the archbishop’s choice reveals a much deeper malaise. It’s a safe bet that Archbishop Ulrich and his acolytes never asked themselves the question of the transmission of the faith and the salvation of souls when approving these supposedly aesthetic choices. What a waste of a religious site that is one of the most visited in the world.
History and heritage buffs will have no trouble searching the net to find engravings and photographs of what once was the venerable altar of Notre Dame. They can only mourn the fact that the fire, which so many believers around the world saw as the burning signal that the West was losing its soul, has not given rise to a re-creation, an artistic renewal capable of rekindling the flame of faith by placing it in the continuity of a grandiose, centuries-old heritage. So many illustrious souls, such as Chateaubriand and Claudel, have found their way back to Catholicism at the foot of the pillars of Notre Dame, not to mention the millions of strangers who have found or rediscovered grace under those noble Gothic arches. We can’t prejudge anything, but it seems rather unlikely that Mr. Bardet’s Coffee table is likely to create such mystical impulses, quite simply because beauty is one of the shortest paths to God, and the new furniture that is about to ‘adorn’ Notre Dame is rather dramatically lacking in it.
Hélène de Lauzun is the Paris correspondent for The European Conservative. She studied at the École Normale Supérieure de Paris. She taught French literature and civilization at Harvard and received a Ph.D. in History from the Sorbonne. She is the author of Histoire de l’Autriche (Perrin, 2021).
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Refurbishment of Notre Dame: The Triumph of the Aesthetics of Emptiness and Nonsense
A 2013 photograph of the high altar in the choir of Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris.
The countdown to the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, which was consumed by flames in a terrible fire in April 2019, has begun, with the date of its inauguration now set for December 8, 2024. The reconstruction of the building is already well under way. The archdiocese has just unveiled another important part of the renovation plan: the replacement of the main pieces of liturgical furniture, whose outrageously modern aesthetic is struggling to win hearts.
To design the pieces that will take their place in the renovated cathedral, the archbishop of Paris has invited five carefully selected artists to take part in the competition—in reality, they were only known to a very small circle of insiders for having already worked on various contemporary projects. The presentation of their backgrounds, published in Le Figaro a few months ago, could reasonably have given cause for concern. Nicolas Alquin and his son, for example, claim to be involved in “an ongoing dialogue between the Judeo-Christian iconographic heritage and the influence of the primitive arts on contemporary Western art.” Guillaume Bardet, meanwhile, before turning his hand to liturgical furniture, defines himself as a ‘furniture designer’ working in the fields of interior architecture and town planning. And what about Constance Guisset, an outspoken feminist and progressive on social issues, a graduate of the Essec business school who specialises in ‘performative installations’—the content of which we’d be hard-pressed to explain? A few months ago, we alerted our readers to the fact that in the projects put forward by this committee of artists, the simple name of Our Lady was simply not mentioned.
And yet the programme drawn up by the church authorities to guide them sounded enthusiastic. “Beauty tells us about God,” explained Msgr. Olivier Ribadeau-Dumas, rector of the cathedral. “The soul of Notre Dame is the worship that takes place there. The interior design must make it possible for all visitors to have an encounter with Christ.” It is not certain that the final result of the competition corresponds exactly to this ambitious roadmap.
The final choice was announced by Mgr. Laurent Ulrich at the end of June, revealing what the cathedral’s five major pieces of liturgical furnishings would look like: the main altar, the ambo, the cathedra and two associated seats, the tabernacle, and the baptistery. Many Catholics, both in France and abroad, were stunned and bewildered as to how the highest authorities in the archdiocese of the French capital could have approved such a choice.
The artist chosen is ‘furniture designer’ Guillaume Bardet. It would appear that he did indeed ‘design furniture,’ but forgot in the process that it had a purpose other than furnishing a trendy bobo bar in eastern Paris.
Art historian Pierre Téqui, who is often called on by the press for his expertise on liturgical art issues, gives his views in the Catholic weekly Famille Chrétienne. While he welcomes the choice of “coherence,” i.e., the fact that one and the same artist was asked to produce all the pieces required, he can only express his distress—let’s be measured—at the final result, which unfortunately ticks all the boxes of the excesses that plague contemporary sacred art—if we can still use the words ‘art’ and ‘sacred’ to describe it. A minimalism that borders on the absurd, an aniconism that tramples on centuries of Catholic iconography rich in symbols and faces, a frightening inadequacy to the place that millions of believers around the world look to with faith and hope to be the lighthouse that shines in the ocean of our world losing meaning.
Let’s take the altar, for a start. Its appearance is quite similar to another of the artist’s creations, a bronze coffee table called ‘Coffee table’, except that this time it’s not a platform designed to house a mug of Fair Trade Arabica from Costa Rica, but the Most Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord. It was supposedly designed to meet Vatican II’s requirements for the celebration of Mass, but it doesn’t even meet this imperative, since it’s stuck on the edge of a petty marble platform that prevents people from going around it—or concelebrating.
The ambo, a new liturgical piece required for the celebration of the Mass ritual according to the 1969 missal, could have been a worthy successor to the pulpits of yesteryear. The pulpits have given rise to countless sculptural masterpieces, depicting the anguish of the believer’s heart as he contemplates his misery and hears the call of redemption. One might have dreamt that the ambo would become the setting for a powerful celebration of the Word of God. Not so. Instead, the ambo here at Notre Dame, as in so many other churches before it, has become a kind of minimalist lectern that the convention centre of an obscure suburban town would not disavow for its functionality and insignificance.
And what about the cathedra, the seat where the archbishop’s dignity is supposed to manifest itself? The model designed by Guillaume Bardet could quite easily be incorporated into the set of The Addams Family to serve as Uncle Fester’s seat, so evocative is it of a sinister inverted coffin.
The whole thing is naked and sinister. In the words of the philosopher Pascal, whose 400th birthday is being celebrated this year, “the eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.” We tremble, not because of a holy and dignified fear of God, but because of the abysmal emptiness of furniture that ostensibly chooses to remain mute, having evacuated all figurative elements. Revealingly, the order for the furnishings includes no crucifix, no representation of Christ crucified, as required by the new Roman Missal—not to mention the old one: “Likewise, on or near the altar, there shall be a cross, clearly visible to the congregation, bearing the effigy of Christ crucified. This cross should remain near the altar even outside liturgical celebrations, to remind the faithful of the Lord’s redemptive passion.” The gilded cross by sculptor Marc Couturier, which survived the fire, will be put back in place, but once again it is an empty, bare cross.
As Pierre Téqui rightly points out, Msgr. Ulrich’s choice is that of an aesthetic deliberately oriented towards rupture, refusing to “continue history by creating something contemporary that integrates the past rather than producing something new by condemning the old to museums.” The liturgical furnishings on offer to believers in 2023 have never been so disembodied and frighteningly complex in their apparent simplicity. It can only be understood with a great deal of explanation of the artist’s intentions—the paradox of a liturgical ‘sensibility’ that spends its time reproaching lovers of Tradition for a faith that is too ‘intellectual’ and ‘elitist.’ In reality, the archbishop’s choice reveals a much deeper malaise. It’s a safe bet that Archbishop Ulrich and his acolytes never asked themselves the question of the transmission of the faith and the salvation of souls when approving these supposedly aesthetic choices. What a waste of a religious site that is one of the most visited in the world.
History and heritage buffs will have no trouble searching the net to find engravings and photographs of what once was the venerable altar of Notre Dame. They can only mourn the fact that the fire, which so many believers around the world saw as the burning signal that the West was losing its soul, has not given rise to a re-creation, an artistic renewal capable of rekindling the flame of faith by placing it in the continuity of a grandiose, centuries-old heritage. So many illustrious souls, such as Chateaubriand and Claudel, have found their way back to Catholicism at the foot of the pillars of Notre Dame, not to mention the millions of strangers who have found or rediscovered grace under those noble Gothic arches. We can’t prejudge anything, but it seems rather unlikely that Mr. Bardet’s Coffee table is likely to create such mystical impulses, quite simply because beauty is one of the shortest paths to God, and the new furniture that is about to ‘adorn’ Notre Dame is rather dramatically lacking in it.
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