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Transept aux bras arrondis et ajourés

English translation: fretwork

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07:14 Sep 14, 2011

French to English translations [PRO]
Architecture / Historical church architecture

French term or phrase: Transept aux bras arrondis et ajourés

In a list of features of a cathedral. Context is just the list: "Croisée du transept et maître-autel du XVIIIe siècle.
***Transept aux bras arrondis et ajourés.***Chapelle Sainte-Catherine, peinture murale du XVIe siècle représentant..." I get the 'rounded arms' of the transept, but what would "ajourés" be here, please? Thanks in advance.

Nicky Over KudoZ activity Questions: 280 (none open) (14 closed without grading) Answers: 49 United Kingdom
Local time: 17:03

English translation:fretwork

Explanation:
ie "Transept with rounded arms and fretwork" for example

Fretwork is normally used for wood or metal, but occasionally for stone, see
"Stone Cross
Limestone. E face: Tall plain shaft with inserted tablet dated 1821. There is a small panel of fretwork at the top of the shaft".
http://www.crsbi.ac.uk/search/feature/4_Other/site/id-cl-kil...

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Note added at 38 mins (2011-09-14 07:52:47 GMT)
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OPENWORK is another possibility, see for example http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-308823-princethor...

Selected response from:

Catharine Cellier-Smart
Local time: 20:03

Grading comment

Selected automatically based on peer agreement.
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

Summary of answers provided

2 +3

fretwork

Catharine Cellier-Smart

Transepts with round ends and "diaphanous" upper wall elevation

Christopher Crockett

Summary of reference entries provided

openwork

Miranda Joubioux

Discussion entries: 1

Answers

22 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +3

fretwork

Catharine Cellier-Smart
Local time: 20:03
Works in field
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 16

Grading comment

Selected automatically based on peer agreement.

7 hrs confidence:

Transepts with round ends and "diaphanous" upper wall elevation

Explanation:
Noyon is an "Early Gothic" cathedral, characterized by the delightful experimental developments in the new style during the 2nd and 3rd quarter of the 12th c., one of which are its round-ended transepts

http://www.noyon-tourisme.com/Decouvrir/Noyon-et-son-patrimo...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b0/Pla...

(an experiment which was also tried --on one transept-- at Soissons, slightly later)

Also experimental (though this was an experiment which had a much longer life, in many other regions beyond the Ile-de-France) was the "diaphanous" treatment of the wall, here seen on the exterior of the clerestory of one of those transepts

http://www.medart.pitt.edu/image/France/noyon/Noyon-ext-002-...

and --if you look closely enough at this elevation drawing-- on the interior as well (the transept is on the far left, the apse of the central vessel on the right):

http://www.medart.pitt.edu/image/France/noyon/df371noy.jpg

See the "doubling" of the surface of the wall right in front of the windows above the (blind) triforium, with a kind of colonnade frorming a "screen" in front of the (glazed) back wall ?

There is something of that "doubling" sensibility (the Early Gothic architects seem to have been just "playing" with various ideas) to be seen in the straight bays of the choir, at the gallery level (there, below the triforium).

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Note added at 9 hrs (2011-09-14 16:37:13 GMT)
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Of course, "diaphanous" simply --literally-- means "Permitting the free passage of light and vision; perfectly transparent; pellucid." [OED]

And, indeed, "diaphanous," in this fundamental sense, might be called one of the primary characteristics of virtually all "mature" Gothic buildings of the 13th and later centuries (at least in the "cradle" of the style in Northern France):

http://picardietourisme.com/images_new/contenu/portrait-pica...

in which the very stones themselves themselves seem to dissolve into walls of glass:

http://soulmoxie.typepad.com/.a/6a00e5502eb25b88330134898902...

But "diaphanous" has an additional (and somewhat specialized) usage among Art Hysterians, who sometimes apply it, not just to "openwork" (or, Catherine's "fretwork"), but also to the "diaphanous shell" which is to be seen in parts of Early Gothic Noyon (if you look closely enough) and, as I said, in quite a few other, later, Gothic buildings.

Burgundian Gothic examples are particularly legion; here's St. Peter's of Troyes (c. 1250s?):

http://lh4.ggpht.com/-ldI36kIsDoQ/RWQ_Hrw1ABI/AAAAAAAAAUM/-E...

By boldly enlarging the height of the triforium and glazing its back wall (instead of it being a blank, "dark" wall of stone) and treating the triforium colonnade as a lacy screen of relatively thin stone tracery, the architect has created a "diaphanous shell" within the wall structure, further dissolving the wall with this trick of seeming immateriality.

That's what we have --in germ (c. 1160s)-- at Noyon, an idea which is brought to fruition in the "Court Style" of Louis IX in the 1230s and later decades.

Christopher Crockett
Local time: 12:03
Specializes in field
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 71

Reference comments

50 mins

Reference: openwork

Reference information:
Any work, esp. ornamental, characterized by perforations.
Dictionary of Architecture and Construction
Harris

Miranda Joubioux
France
Specializes in field
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 58

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Transept aux bras arrondis et ajourés

English translation: fretwork

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Transept aux bras arrondis et ajourés

English translation: fretwork

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