translation studies. retrospective and prospective views

to the composition, the figure of Christ as Judge divided the space of the
tympanum in two halves while the figures of the redeemed and of the
damned were distributed accordingly to the right and left of Him. The
elongated spectre-like figures of both the blessed and the damned were
counterpoised to the dwarfish figures aligned in dramatic postures carved
on the lintel beneath Christ’s feet. These were “diminutive representations
of emotionally differentiated souls” (Seidel, 1999: 7) whose grieved, fearful,
miserable, cheerful, relieved or rejoicing poses communicated the condition
of their progress.
Contrasting the mobility and diversity in postures of all the sculpted
characters, the figure of Christ is represented in “an exceptionally passive
poise; the mandorla within which his flat form is poised separates him
from the events depicted in adjacent segments of the surrounding
semicircular fields.” (Seidel, 1999: 10-1) The figure of Christ, arms
spreading symmetrically to the right and to the left and pointing from
waist level to the polarized zones of the blessed and of the wicked,
functions more as a symbolical demarcation line and a hierarchical
ordering principle than as an active centre of divine retribution and
illumination. Viewed from a hierarchical perspective, the entire
composition reads as follows: Christ is the centre of all created world; the
angels who partake of His wisdom are the ones represented closer to Him
supporting from both below and above the frame which encapsulates His
body. Virgin Mary and John the Baptist are slightly sketched in the area
corresponding to the upper half of the Saviour’s body while the entire
humankind, both those who aspire to eternal life and those who are
condemned to eternal damnation occupy the lower half.
Unlike Autun, the thematic approach of the central west portal at
Chartres is the more luminous and peaceful vision of the Second Coming
and not the terrifying scene of the Last Judgement, which moves to the
central portal of the south transept. This change shows that, whereas the
Romanesque sculpture of the west portal emphasized the liminality of the
human existence wavering between eternal bliss and eternal damnation, the
Gothic sculpture highlighted the glorified image of God, the divine nature of
the Incarnated Son whom we all resemble. Placed above the ‘Sunset’ portal,
the figure of Christ in majesty is far different from the stiff lifeless
representation of the Saviour in the Autun tympanum. His hieratic
monumental figure has nothing of the unnatural almost ‘assembled’ body
we witnessed in Autun. The earlier effigy-like carving which reduced
Christ’s body to a mere flattened relief was replaced by the fully-fleshed
image of a radiant God whose resurrected body becomes the locus of eternal
life and of eternal bliss awaiting all human beings who believe in Him.
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