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Gothic, Romanesque or both?
by Andrew Seguin
 As the culmination of a unit on medieval Europe, Class 6 girls visited the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine last week with history teachers Lisa Moy and Hillary Chapman. The class divided in half so that one group could tour the cathedral while the other completed a medieval arts workshop that included gargoyle-making, stone carving, brass rubbing, weaving and illuminating manuscripts. Just an honest day’s work, really.
Mr. Chapman’s students took the tour first. Once they entered the cathedral’s crossing, their tour guide asked them, “Can you point to a Gothic arch?” Their arms shot toward the windows and vaulted ceiling like a mass of confused weather vanes, but each finger pointed to a Gothic arch, which is fittingly distinguished by a point at its apex. The girls then noticed that rounded Romanesque arches were prevalent inside the cathedral, too. The tour guide confirmed their analysis, revealing that Saint John the Divine is a modern cathedral that was begun in the Gothic style, continued in the Romanesque and remains unfinished.
The amalgam of the two styles was not lost on Lisa Moy’s students, either. After finishing in the workshop, they toured the crossing and rattled off the Gothic and Romanesque features on display, as well as other components of the cathedral related to medieval life. In one of the adjacent chapels, the girls were asked what they noticed. “The statues are painted,” one girl said, explaining that because cathedrals are dimly lit, a coat of bright paint can act as a light.
And after looking at a sculpture of a winged man with a sword, the tour guide asked, “Who has wings?” “Archangels,” the students responded. “Is it Gabriel?” one girl asked. It was the archangel Michael, but Ms. Moy was nonetheless pleased with the student’s response. “We studied Gabriel, who spoke to the prophet Muhammad, in our unit on Islam,” Ms. Moy said. “But I’m so happy she asked that, because she’s trying to make a connection. The girls have made a lot of connections between the things we’ve been studying.”
An opportunity to make those connections is one reason why field trips are such an effective teaching tool. They also provide a forum for the girls to grasp with their eyes and hands what they already know with their minds. As his students were sculpting gargoyles and chiseling limestone in the medieval arts workshop, Mr. Chapman said, “Now you can appreciate how much work went into those creatures around the door.” And Mr. Chapman could appreciate that when he said “creatures,” the girls knew that he meant grotesques, not gargoyles. Grotesques look like gargoyles, but gargoyles funnel rainwater away from a cathedral’s roof, and Saint John the Divine has a modern drainage system. The lesson? A cathedral with Gothic architecture need not have Gothic plumbing.
Click here to see a photo gallery of Class 6's trip
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