Do not let us lose sight of the fact that beneath this poem of stone
there is a foundation of knowledge based on a close and comprehensive
study.
To-day I understand it. As a result of study, one truth after another
comes to light. At the outset one is lost before these marvels. Where
is one to begin studying? One's thoughts and one's admiration rise like
clouds. The mind makes prodigious leaps to grasp again what it already
knows, to combine it with the recently acquired knowledge, to attempt to
draw conclusions which simplify and generalize the study, and thus to
discern the fundamental law.
For a long time during my youth I thought, like many others, that Gothic
art was poor. I was so ungrateful during the first enthusiasm of my
liberty! I learned to understand its grandeur only through traveling.
Observation and work led me back to the right road. In the course of my
efforts I have grasped the meaning of the thoughts of the masters. My
persistent work was not futile, and, like one of the Magi, I have at
last come to bow in humble reverence before them.
A true artist must penetrate the primordial principles of creation; only
by understanding the beautiful does he become inspired, and that not
through a sudden awakening of his sensibilities, but by slow penetration
and perception, by patient love. The mind need not be quick, for slow
progress should imply precaution in every direction.
The Gothic builders are the greatest observers of nature that have ever
existed, the greatest realists, despite all that professors and critics
say to the contrary. They call them idealists. They say the same of the
Greeks and of all artists whose profound knowledge has enabled them to
borrow their effects and charm from nature. Idealists! That is a term
which signifies nothing and merely confounds cause and effect.
Builders of the Middle Ages, you independent scholars, models of a
profound intelligence, this is what our age has found as an explanation
of your masterpieces!
I have devoted my whole life in endeavoring to catch a glimpse of
the rules, the secrets of experience, which you transmitted to one
another, and it is only now, when my days are numbered, that I am at
last grasping the synthesis of beauty. To whom shall I confide the
fruit of my research? Some future genius will gather it. The cathedral
is eternal, rising toward the sky. When we think it has attained its
ultimate height, it rises again higher still, like a mountain of truth.