The
Commission des monuments historiques
In
France, Viollet-le-Duc encouraged intense scrutiny and documentation of
the nation’s architectural heritage, particularly of its cathedrals.
Séraphin Médéric Mieusement became the official photographer
of French architectural landmarks for the Commission
des monuments historiques in 1874. Over the next two decades,
he carried out an ambitious project to photograph every cathedral in the
country. His images provide important historical information as well as
lyrical images of ancient structures. Mieusement's view of the flying
buttresses of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Reims (left), for example,
is an invaluable record of the cathedral’s condition in the late-nineteenth
century, as well as a study of abstraction. After sustaining severe artillery
fire in World War I, lead from the roofing of the cathedral melted and
poured through the mouths of its gargoyles,
choking them. A subsequent restoration was effective in rebuilding the
great cathedral, but Mieusement’s image is a record of its unblemished
state.