A 1,000-year smile on a blue-black Tournai limestone face sculpted with three others on the circular bowl of the 11th century baptismal font in the early Gothic Cathedrale Notre-Dame at Laon, Aisne, Hauts-de-France, France. The faces may depict the four Evangelists - or perhaps the four biblical rivers of the Garden of Eden.
Laon, Aisne, Hauts-de-France, France: oval eyes, a flattened nose and a tight-lipped smile from about 1,000 years ago … this time-ravaged face pitted with scratches and scrapes is one of four sculpted in blue-black Tournai limestone on the circular bowl of the baptismal font in the south transept of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Laon. The four crudely carved faces are believed by scholars to represent either the four Evangelists, saints Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, or perhaps the rivers of the Garden of Eden or Paradise detailed in the Old Testament Book of Genesis: the Pishon, Gihon, Tigris or Chidekel and the Euphrates or Phirat. Opinions also diverge on whether the 11th century font should be included in lists of Tournai fonts actually made in and around the Belgian town, examples of which survive in France, Belgium, Germany and England. Although the font is broadly similar to those made at Tournai, it perhaps belongs to a wider artistic tradition known as Mosan: the style found in a larger Meuse valley area stretching through the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. The Laon font probably survives from an earlier Romanesque church on the hilltop site that was largely destroyed by fire in 1112. Laon Cathedral, built between 1150 and 1230, is contemporary with Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris and is one of the most important and stylistically unified examples of early Gothic architecture. Laon lost its status as a bishopric during the 1789 French Revolution, but although the building has only held the status of a parish church since 1802, it is still universally known as Laon Cathedral.
Size: 2592px × 3872px
Location: Laon, Aisne, Hauts-de-France, France.
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: 11th, aisne, art, artistic, baptismal, belgium, biblical, blue-black, book, carved, carving, cathedral, cathedrale, cathedrals, catholic, century, chidekel, christian, christianity, crudely, , de, eden, enigmatic, euphrates, evangelists, eyes, face, font, france, french, genesis, gihon, hauts-de-france, historic, john, kerr, laon, limestone, luke, mark, matthew, mediaeval, medieval, meuse, mosan, northern, notre-dame, paradise, phirat, picardy, pishon, pitted, primitive, region, religious, river, rivers, roman, scratched, sculpted, sculptural, sculpture, south, st, staring, stone, style, symbolic, terence, testament, tigris, tournai, tradition, transept, valley
