Chartres Cathedral and Bourges Cathedral initiated the two classic High Gothic styles. Chartres was imitated more, and it’s much better known. But Bourges Cathedral is arguably more beautiful. It’s pretty enough on the outside, but magic happens when you enter.
Classic Gothic naves are generally divided into three levels.
The arcade is the lowest level. The triforium is in the middle, and the clerestory is the level of windows at the top. The above picture is from Bourges Cathedral. But Bourges Cathedral offers much more when you enter.
The cathedral has two levels of arcade/triforium/clerestory. The lower level is against the outer wall. So when you enter, your gaze expands horizontally as well as vertically and frontally. If you only look ahead, the linear row of columns pulls your gaze towards the altar, as in most Gothic houses of worship.
But as you look to the sides, the perspective opens up and all spatial dimensions seem to dissolve into infinity. The effect is very spiritual–perhaps too spiritual for the Church and Crown, which were asserting their universal authority.
When you reach the altar and walk through the ambulatory that surrounds it, the multiple levels of arcade/triforium/clerestory enable light to enter from more spaces to amplify the feeling that the area is pervaded by divinity.
You can see this area from the inside in the above photo and from the outside in the below shot.
Chartres Cathedral has only one set of levels, along and above the inner columns. So the outer wall is blank and not as tall. This is the style that was imitated in the glorious cathedrals in Amiens, Reims, and Rouen, and which spread to many other countries. Their strictly vertical and frontal orientations draw your gaze towards the son of God and his place in the Christian Trinity.
This form was in line with both Church doctrine and King Philippe Auguste’s political centralization in the early 13th century. He was galvanizing the country to drive the English under King John out of France. But Bourges’s form is more subtle; it fills all spaces with divine light.
But this form was potentially subversive. By opening up the lateral gaze to divinity, it suggests that all things are spiritual without following established doctrine or politics.
Gothic cathedrals have a linear orientation. Lines of columns pull you towards the altar, and they also direct your gaze upwards and into the heavens. Bourges Cathedral also has these effects, but if you linger in it and look in all directions, the lines seem to dissolve into the light so that you feel that you’re absorbed in it. It’s not one of the most widely known Gothic cathedrals, so it doesn’t have nearly as many visitors. If you go there, you can have a profoundly spiritual experience with nothing to distract you.