Meryon Le Stryge

 

De Notre-Dame de Paris au Stryge : l’invention d’une image

https://journals.openedition.org/lha/257 

Notre Dame Cathedral Grotesque Le Stryge

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Repository

DigitalGeorgetown

Description

This grotesque, located on an angle along the gallery of the north tower of Notre-Dame, is one of a group of fantastical figures carved during the 19th C. restoration of the cathedral. This restoration was carried out between 1843-64 under the direction of Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (with Jean-Baptiste Lassus, until his death in 1857), chief architect for the Commission de monuments historique , France's agency for national preservation at the time. By the mid-19th C., the medieval gargoyles that had protectively spouted water away from the building had deteriorated. Inspired by Victor Hugo's 1831 book Notre-Dame de Paris (English: Hunchback of Notre Dame), Viollet-le-Duc replaced the gargoyles with chimères, as he called them, guardian-demons that, from an architectural viewpoint, are simply decorative. An 1852-54 series of etchings on Paris by artist Charles Meryon featured an image of the grotesque pictured here. Meryon showed it overlooking the city below; he named the print Le Stryge (The Vampire), and catapulted the stone carving to fame.

A brooding beast perches atop the Notre-Dame Cathedral. It gazes over Paris, looking utterly bored by the thrums of life in the city of love.

The decorative demon was created in by architect Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, who was responsible for the cathedral’s restoration during the 19th century. Contrary to popular belief, Le Stryge is technically a grotesque and not a gargoyle, as it does not act as a waterspout.

Though not a gargoyle, the structure is part of a rich architectural tradition. The concept of the chimera originates in the classical mythology of the Greco-Roman world and refers to a mythical beast that displays the physical characteristics of many creatures. In the Middle Ages, architects began to place sculptures of chimeras on cathedrals and churches, as it was believed their grotesque features would scare away evil spirits and even the devil. The chimera was therefore conceived to be a kind of architectural guard dog of holy places.

This architectural tradition was revived in the Victorian age, which was inspired by romantic ideas about the glory of former times, particularly the medieval era. Viollet-le-Duc was inspired by this movement and tried to consciously revive and pay homage to the past when designing Gothic ornamental features.

Le Stryge has often been called a “vampire” by Parisians, but it doesn’t actually bear any resemblance to one. It was intended to portray a generic demon.

Henri Le Secq near the 'Stryge' chimera, calotype, the whole image