History of art . only for those who do not feel that all things humancontain Christianity, and precede and survive it, as itis anti-Christian only for those who do not sense theway in which Christianity remains human.^ The cathe-dral is human and traditional and revolutionary, andprofoundly opposed to the principle of authority in ^ Stated in the modern form, the problem is without meaning. Peopleare still discussing as to whether the builders of the cathedral were notanticlerical. When will they begin to understand that every rise oflife in the breast of the masses shatters the dogma of yeste
History of art . only for those who do not feel that all things humancontain Christianity, and precede and survive it, as itis anti-Christian only for those who do not sense theway in which Christianity remains human.^ The cathe-dral is human and traditional and revolutionary, andprofoundly opposed to the principle of authority in ^ Stated in the modern form, the problem is without meaning. Peopleare still discussing as to whether the builders of the cathedral were notanticlerical. When will they begin to understand that every rise oflife in the breast of the masses shatters the dogma of yesterday, even whenit celebrates it.^* Whether they are freemasons or not is of no image makers of the Middle Ages are not freethinkers. They are freeinstincts. CHRISTIANITY AND THE COMMUNE 337 moral matters set forth by Christianity when it claimedto be definitively organized; we see this opposition inthe way that Gothic art expressed moral ideas in theform most accessible to our senses and translated. Poitiers (Palais de Justice) (end of the xivCentury). Jeanne de Boulogne, detail. into the language which is most purely that of thesenses, the dogmas which affirm the majesty of purespirit. It rehabilitates the nature of man, it rehabili-tates nature itself in the world where he lives. Itloves man for himself, weak and filled with an un- 338 MEDIAEVAL ART bounded courage, and it describes his paradise with thetrees, the waters, and the clouds which he sees when heraises his eyes or when he goes forth from the gates ofhis city; it tells of the vegetables full of earth and thefruits that are brought to him from the fields onmarket days by the domestic animals who sharehis lot. The cathedral, indeed the whole art of the ogive,realizes for a moment the equilibrium between thevirgin forces of the people and the metaphysicalmonument whose mold Christian philosophy had beenpreparing for a thousand years. But these forcesbreak the mold when they have attained their fullexpan
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