Reims on Fire: War and Reconciliation between France and Germany
As the site of royal coronations, Reims cathedral was a monument to French national history and identity. But after German troops bombed the cathedral during World War I, it took on new meaning. The French reimagined it as a martyr of civilization, as the rupture between the warring states. Despite a history of mutual respect, the bombing of the cathedral caused all social, scientific, artistic, and cultural ties between Germany and France to be severed for decades. The resulting battle of words and images stressed the differences between German Kultur and French civilisation. Artists and intelligentsia caricatured this entrenched cultural dichotomy, influencing portrayals of the two nations in the international press. 
 
This book explores the structure’s breadth of meaning in symbolic, art historical, and historical arenas, including competing claims over the origins of Gothic art and architecture as national style and issues of monument preservation and restoration. It highlights how vulnerable art is during war, and how the destruction of nation-al monuments can set the tone for international conflict—once again a timely and pressing issue. Thomas W. Gaehtgens articulates how these nations began to mend their relationship in the decades after World War II, starting with the courageous vision of Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer, and how the cathedral of Reims was eventually transformed into a site of reconciliation and European unification.
 

1127291973
Reims on Fire: War and Reconciliation between France and Germany
As the site of royal coronations, Reims cathedral was a monument to French national history and identity. But after German troops bombed the cathedral during World War I, it took on new meaning. The French reimagined it as a martyr of civilization, as the rupture between the warring states. Despite a history of mutual respect, the bombing of the cathedral caused all social, scientific, artistic, and cultural ties between Germany and France to be severed for decades. The resulting battle of words and images stressed the differences between German Kultur and French civilisation. Artists and intelligentsia caricatured this entrenched cultural dichotomy, influencing portrayals of the two nations in the international press. 
 
This book explores the structure’s breadth of meaning in symbolic, art historical, and historical arenas, including competing claims over the origins of Gothic art and architecture as national style and issues of monument preservation and restoration. It highlights how vulnerable art is during war, and how the destruction of nation-al monuments can set the tone for international conflict—once again a timely and pressing issue. Thomas W. Gaehtgens articulates how these nations began to mend their relationship in the decades after World War II, starting with the courageous vision of Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer, and how the cathedral of Reims was eventually transformed into a site of reconciliation and European unification.
 

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Reims on Fire: War and Reconciliation between France and Germany

Reims on Fire: War and Reconciliation between France and Germany

by Thomas W. Gaehtgens
Reims on Fire: War and Reconciliation between France and Germany

Reims on Fire: War and Reconciliation between France and Germany

by Thomas W. Gaehtgens

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Overview

As the site of royal coronations, Reims cathedral was a monument to French national history and identity. But after German troops bombed the cathedral during World War I, it took on new meaning. The French reimagined it as a martyr of civilization, as the rupture between the warring states. Despite a history of mutual respect, the bombing of the cathedral caused all social, scientific, artistic, and cultural ties between Germany and France to be severed for decades. The resulting battle of words and images stressed the differences between German Kultur and French civilisation. Artists and intelligentsia caricatured this entrenched cultural dichotomy, influencing portrayals of the two nations in the international press. 
 
This book explores the structure’s breadth of meaning in symbolic, art historical, and historical arenas, including competing claims over the origins of Gothic art and architecture as national style and issues of monument preservation and restoration. It highlights how vulnerable art is during war, and how the destruction of nation-al monuments can set the tone for international conflict—once again a timely and pressing issue. Thomas W. Gaehtgens articulates how these nations began to mend their relationship in the decades after World War II, starting with the courageous vision of Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer, and how the cathedral of Reims was eventually transformed into a site of reconciliation and European unification.
 


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781606065709
Publisher: Getty Publications
Publication date: 07/10/2018
Edition description: 1
Pages: 296
Product dimensions: 6.25(w) x 8.75(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Thomas W. Gaehtgens is the director emeritus of the Getty Research Institute.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 The Shelling of Reims 11

The German Occupation of Reims 11

The Miracle on the Marne 16

The Cathedral on Fire 20

The German High Command's Justification 31

Chapter 2 The Cathedral in the Crossfire of the Media 35

The Case of Louvain 35

The Gothic Coronation Cathedral 38

Joan of Arc 39

Reaction in the French and International Press 50

German Censorship 55

The Protests of French Intellectuals 58

"An die Kulturwelt!" 63

Images of the Burning Cathedral 67

Barbarians, Huns, and Vandals 83

Kultur versus Civilisation 98

Chapter 3 The Myth of the Gothic in France 109

Romantic Rediscovery 109

Gothic as a National Style 111

Joris-Karl Huysmans's La Cathédrale 113

Émile Mâle and the Renouveau Catholique 114

Marcel Proust's "La Mort des Cathédrales" 118

Charles Morice and Auguste Rodin-The Presence of the Gothic 120

Maurice Barrès and the Historic Preservation Law of 1913 128

Chapter 4 Gothic Style as German Art 135

The Completion of Cologne Cathedral 135

French Gothic and German Gothic 139

Gothic and the Nordic Race 142

Chapter 5 The Origin of the Kunstschutz 147

Art Protection and Propaganda 147

Intellectual Estrangement 155

The Language of Propaganda 159

Germany, the Classic Land of Historic Preservation 162

On the Highest Authority 164

Vandalistic Catholicism 167

The Final Report 169

A Tragic Accident? 172

Chapter 6 Restoring the Cathedral 175

A Landscape of Ruins 175

Pierre Antony-Thouret's Photography of the Destruction in Reims 177

The Cathedral as a Memorial to the Fallen 186

Tourism to the Ruins 191

The Cathedral Restored 199

Paul Léon and Henri Deneux 202

The Reopening, July 1938 210

Chapter 7 The Lieu de Mémoire of Franco-German Friendship 217

Franco-German Reconciliation: Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer in Reims 217

Acknowledgments 229

Notes 231

Bibliography 252

Illustration Credits 278

Index 279

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