CATHEDRAL OF ST. MARTIN (Detail)Here is a painting of sandstone, in a much different manifestation than seen at the Grand Canyon in Arizona. This painting depicts a tower and flying buttress on the cathedral of St. Martin in Colmar, Alsace, France. Technically, it is a "church" and not a true "cathedral," since the bishop was never based here, but its massive size merits the name. It is a beautiful Gothic structure built of gray, pink, and beige limestone, between 1245 and 1356. Its various roofs are covered with multi-colored tiles, which I may feature in another work.
Colmar, in the early 1300s, was beset with a series of natural calamities—severe winters, poor crops, and then the plague—which were tragically (if not somewhat predictably) blamed on the local Jews. There was a pogrom, and some of the carvings on the exterior reflect this period in the form of "Judensäue"—obscene depictions of Jews and sows. One is quite shocked to come upon these unexpectedly.
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