"The Cathedral at Chartres."

Under the auspices of the Cercle Francais, M. Andre Michel, Conservator of Sculpture in the Louvre, lectured last evening in the Fogg Art Museum on "The Cathedral at Chartres." Professor Charles H. Moore introduced the speaker.

The now existing catherdral of Chartres was begun before the cathedral of St. Denis. Its construction has carried on from the middle of the eleventh to the latter part of the sixteenth century. The sculptures of the west portals and of the old tower belong to the twelfth century; those of the other portals, the north and the south, range from that period till into the fourteenth century; the new tower belongs to the sixteenth century.

After speaking of the buttresses which supported the triporium gallery of the especially large nave, the lecturer pointed out the architectural beauty of the west portal figures, their "sechereese" and lightness. The sculpturing, he said, is the best of its kind and was possible only at this time. He showed how much better the work on Chartres was than that of Aries, where the figures are heavy and uninteresting. He then displayed pictures of figures at the top of the columns of the portals showing their Gothic difference, and their individuality.

He next spoke of the beauty of the north portal and pointed out the improvement over the primitive art of the west portal in strength, of sureness of conception and execution, and in a similar manner described the south portal and its allegery, the creation, and the history of the six days.

M. Michel pointed out the development of architecture in the cathedral, as shown by the difference in the portals, especially by the figures in the south portals which were cut by skilled sculptors. The cathedral of Chartres, he thought the best monument of Gothic architecture of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.