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Duke Chapel is a work of art. But it is no museum.
There are no curator’s notes posted beneath the stained-glass
windows to reveal their history, no commentaries beside the stone
carvings to explain their symbolism. In some ways this is good: The
Chapel is so rich in treasures that any attempt to annotate them on-site
would end up wallpapering the nave with explanatory plaques. Unfortunately,
it also means that the thousands of people who come to the Chapel
each year miss much of what it has to offer.
About a year ago, university administrators decided it
was time to remedy the situation. Since the Chapel is such an icon,
they determined that a new book on the subject—a tribute in words
and pictures—would be valued by many people who remember it fondly
from their student days, attend services or performances there now,
or have simply heard of its beauty and made the trip to see it for
themselves.
Over the ensuing months, the four of us who were charged
with bringing the book to life—Chris Hildreth and Les Todd of
University Photography, Lacey Chylack and I of Duke’s Office
of Creative Services—found ourselves doing many unanticipated
things in its service: scaffold-scaling, turret-climbing, elevator-braving,
woodwork-dusting, and mouse-hunting, to name a few.
Call it divine inspiration. The more we learned about
the Chapel, the more we realized the wonderful opportunity the book
presented: to give others the thrill of discovering anew a familiar
treasure. This should not be just a pretty coffee-table book, we decided.
It begged to be a course in Duke Chapel Appreciation.
The artists and craftsmen who built Duke Chapel lavished
their talents on it, and there are interesting and delightful details
crammed into every corner. Yet many lovely works of art are so high
up you can hardly see them; others hide in areas inaccessible to the
general public; and even the ones in plain sight—like the blue
devil, artists’ signatures, and amusing scenes in the stained-glass
windows—are so profuse they’re nearly impossible to take
in during a single visit (or even a dozen).
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| Gothic heights:
photographer Chris Hildreth, atop one of the four 50-foot scaffolds
used to capture clerestory windows |
Determined to capture these elusive
gems, the photographers received special permission to move chandeliers
and pews in order to bring in four fifty-foot-tall scaffolds. For
a fortnight they worked from these perches, Michelangelo-like, often
coming in at 5:30 a.m. to catch the best light. Mollie Keel, the Chapel
hostess, lent us keys to the turrets so we could get at the stunning
warrior windows that climb the staircases inside. Sam Hammond ’68,
M.T.S. ’96, the university carillonneur, took us up in the creaky
old elevator—currently closed to visitors—to see the now-defunct
museum in the tower.
It was a privilege to be given the time and access to
explore the Chapel in full, and one we did not take lightly. Because
we thought it would be a shame to keep any of these beautiful objects
out of sight any longer, we kept documenting them—ultimately
portraying every stained-glass window and nearly every charming wooden
figure in the place.
Finding the Chapel’s treasures is one thing. Understanding
their significance is quite another. You can admire the twenty-two
statuettes lining the chancel, but it’s much more interesting
to know that a particular one is Doubting Thomas, and the thing in
his hand that looks like a wilted stick is actually the Virgin’s
Girdle (or belt), which Mary supposedly let down from heaven to prove
to him her ascension. When you’re staring at a small forest of
intricate carving, to know that somewhere in there (legendarily, anyway)
is a churchmouse crafted by a witty woodworker. When you’re looking
at the statues gracing the front entrance, to know that one of them
mistakenly portrays Sir Edward Coke instead of Thomas Coke. (In an
ecclesiastical context, this is an error as egregious as hanging a
picture of Trajan the Roman emperor instead of Trajan Langdon in a
gallery of Duke basketball greats.)
The history that illuminates the Chapel’s treasures,
that transforms symbols into stories, was derived from a variety of
sources across Duke and beyond. Information came from those who know
the Chapel best—University Archivist William E. King ’61,
A.M. ’63, Ph.D. ’70, Hammond, Dean of the Chapel Will Willimon,
and others; some from subject experts and reference materials; and
a great deal from boxes in University Archives, where you can find
such things as the signatures of the Chapel’s first wedding party
and letters explaining why the stained-glass designer was fired.
As we all grew more intimately acquainted with Duke Chapel
through research and observation, we began to see it as much more
than a beautiful building. It is a world within walls—a capsule
of university history, a teacher of church history, a celebration
of centuries of art and architecture, a vibrant center of university
and community life.
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