Published in Art, Criticism and Mysticism

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“Bright is the noble work; but, being nobly bright, the work should brighten the minds, so that they may travel, through the true lights, to the True Light where Christ is the true door”. This phrase was inscribe by orders of Abbot Suger (c. 1081-1151) in one of Saint-Denis Abbey’s bronze doors. It emphasizes the anagogical character, provided by Suger to art, at the basilica’s reconstruction. In this philosophical and religious process, described by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, in the fifth century, the medievals ascend from the physical light, the material, to the spiritual light, immaterial, guided by Art, and then reach elevation. It is a continuous, cyclical movement, produced by the arduous search of entitys towards the Being. In order to accomplish such aesthetic investigation, we propose to analyze three extracts from the Liber de Rebus in Administratione Sua Gestis, by Suger, in which the Abbot describes the reasons of his idealized and directed reedification at Saint-Denis. More specifically, the first addition to the church and the santuary’s doors (I, XXV – De ecclesiæ primo augmento, XXVII – De portis fusilibus et deauratis). Based on them, we intend to defend the hypothesis that, to reform the Abbey with a new aesthetic (later to be known as gothic), Suger used art to convey his interpretation of Christian theology, and so materialize, artistically, tangible means by which one could ascend from the material to the immaterial. By creating this anagogical atmosphere that, by the contemplation of the materials forms occurs the contemplation of the immaterial, of the immutable, Suger managed to express artistically, at the abbey, the celestial hierarchy.