Holding my Breath in Sainte-Chapelle

So, I will get to a more general report of my time in Paris, which was wonderful, but I wrote this little piece on Sainte-Chapelle in the moment, so I'll give it to you to read while I work on synthesizing my other thoughts.

I almost didn't come back to Sainte-Chapelle because, like I wrote about Michelangelo's David, the wonderful shock value it commands upon a first time encounter is almost totally lost after that. This is not to say that the church isn't beautiful on subsequent visits, it is just that you can never regain that first exclamatory "ahhhh" as you round the narrow medieval staircase, and enter into a space that on first glance appears to be made entirely out of stained glass. Even though I didn't have that experience this time, sitting near the door I got to witness the effects of other people's premiere experience with the chapel. A group of Japanese tourists came through and every single woman let out a little yell as they stepped inside.

What I like about Sainte-Chapelle is that it illustrates so clearly the intricacies of the design of the Gothic cathedral. It was once explained to me in class that the Gothic cathedral is supposed to be like a living organism,  with the pillars and lattice work acting as a skeleton, and the glass as the organs. Sainte-Chapelle's long delicate pilasters really do look skeletal, like a rib cage that holds the glass in place. On a day like today, when the sun passes from behind a cloud, and fills the whole space with light, the effect is like the church breathing, swelling with light and then exhaling as the sun fades away again.