Finally, the Assumption and Coronation of
the Blessed Virgin sums up, with an imaginative legend, this series of
Christian dogma perpetuated in stone.
But the medieval genius is many-sided, and never satisfied with that which
is beautiful alone; and this magnificent array of Christian carving would
not be complete to the mind of the medieval artist unless he had crowned
the angles of his buildings with a series of grotesque gargoyles and
allegoric statues, representing the streams that watered the earthly
paradise, while at the summit of the roof are niched angles bearing
instruments of music. As the rose is a peculiarity of Gothic churches, and
from its remarkable shape gives ample room for sculpture in stone, and
color in glass, so the rose at Rheims is among the most beautiful examples
of the kind, and illustrates the principle that the rose is intended to
light up high, remote and shadowy spaces in a long nave or aisle.
Above the great rose-window is a pointed arch in whose voussures are ten
statues, relating the history of David, while over this arch runs a band
of niches, forty-two in number, in which are colossal statues of the kings
of France from Clovis to Charles VI.
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