Soft Stone – Haiku 2024 #ThursdayDoors

Posted bySuzette BenjaminPosted inPoetryTags:
***Featured doors, Saint Gatien Tours Cathedral, France. Image credit: Mimohe | iStockphoto

sown in soft stone

towering kin raised apart

bonding together

**

**The Featured doors are Saint Gatien Tours Cathedral, France (1547 AD), Central Portal wood doors.

The featured doors are flanked by intricate and delicate stone carvings produced using a soft stone called limestone tuffeau sourced from the local region (Loire Valley).

The archivolts are inscribed with stone carvings of shrubbery, plants and leaves and further appointed with thirty small intricately carved statues of bishops and saints. The doors’ surrounding stonework was restored in the 19th century by sculptor Pierre Damie.

This is what author Henry James (author of: Turn of a screw, Portrait of a Lady…) had to say about Saint Gatien Tours Cathedral’s facade in his book “A Little Tour of France “(1884)-

“There are many
grander cathedrals, but there are probably few more
pleasing; and this effect of delicacy and grace is at
its best toward the close of a quiet afternoon,“

Wider angle, Saint Gatien Tours Cathedral. An image is below.

Saint Gatien, Tours Cathedral, France. Image credit: © Daniel M. Cisilino | Dreamstime

Trivia #1: Saint Gatien Tours Cathedral’s two towers are not exact. However, the builders’ ingenuity in incorporating flamboyant tracery in several architectural styles into the towers gives the appearance of “symmetry.” The first tower was completed in 1534 and the second, thirteen years later.

Trivia#2: Honoré de Balzac, the author famous for his critically acclaimed magnum opus “La Comédie humaine” (The Human Comedy), was born in Tours, France.

*Fun Fact: Did you know that the word “bourgeois” originated in Tours, France, back in the first century AD?

In those days, burgeis in the Old French language meant -“citizen” of a town. And a fortified city was called a burgus (the Latin root). In Tours, the citizens first used the term burg to refer to the defensive wall the Romans had constructed around the town in the first century AD. At a much later date, the derivative word “bourgeois” entered modern lexicons with a different meaning.

An aerial  view of Saint Gatien Tours Cathedral, France is below:

Saint Gatien Tours Cathedral, France. Image credit: JackF | iStockphoto

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Published by Suzette Benjamin

Positive thinker, inspirational, writer, faith

52 thoughts on “Soft Stone – Haiku 2024 #ThursdayDoors”

  3. Great post, that is surely a magnificent building, and your first trivia point led me to play spot the difference (and there are many) of the two towers. The Burg reference is interesting and deeply entrenched in British history (towns and cities across the land contain the word – Edinburgh, Middlesbrough, Bamburgh, Flamborough, Gainsborough, Jedburgh and so on).

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Yes, you are quite right there are many nuanced differences. (shapes, the size and depth of elements, the sp;acing etc) Quite remarkable how they thought so deeply of the building’s apperance.
      Yes! I did not think to extend the idea of burg to the names of cities. Great point. Thank you, Scooj! Have a good one!

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  5. Pingback: Soft Stone – Haiku 2024 #ThursdayDoors | Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News

    1. Thank you Dan. It is so interesting how words change their meaning in language in general. It is like language is one huge round of that game… you know, where one person is whispered a word and then the word is whispered to another and so on…and by the end of the exercise the original word is totally different. Its a miracle we understand each other…LOL.
      Thank you for your work hosting ThursdayDoors. Much appreciated.

      Liked by 1 person

  10. What a magnificent cathedral and its door! Love the skills used for creating such a gorgeous building. Your matching haiku is superb, Suzette!

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  21. Another breathtaking and fascinating destination. The cathedral’s twin spires remind me of the twin spires on Montana’s cathedral in Helena. Thank you Size the for sharing this unique French cathedral.

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