ÿþ<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html><head><title>Chris Henige - The Portal Project</title> <meta name="Description" content="Studies on the Fabric of the Medieval Church"> <meta name="Keywords" content="medieval, architecture, church, construction, building, sculpture, stained glass"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <link href="defabrica.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> </head> <body bottomMargin="0" leftMargin="0" topMargin="0" rightMargin="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"> <div id="outercontainer"> <div id="uppercontainer"> <div id="leftcolor"></div> <div id="rightcolor"></div> </div> <div id="navigation"> <ul id="navlist"> <li><a href="index.htm">Home</a></li> <li><a href="vitae.htm">Vitae</a></li> <li><a href="Projects.htm">Projects</a></li> <li id="active"><a href="portalproject.htm" id="current">The Portal Project</a></li> <li><a href="defabrica.htm">De Fabrica</a></li> <li><a href="photography.htm">Travel Photography</a></li> <li><a href="contact.htm">Contact</a></li> </ul> </div> <div id="innercontainer"> <div id="leftbox"><strong>Rationale</strong><p>No comprehensive resource exists at present documenting the complete body of portal sculpture in France. During preliminary investigation into what such an endeavor would entail, it became evident that although it may be possible to assemble varied images of these portals through a variety of individual and disparate photographic sources, the result would be neither systematic nor comprehensive.</p><p>The ultimate goal of The Portal Project is to document photographically and in a comprehensive and systematic manner all French portals which contain significant sculptural components. This body of photographs would be distributed via The Portal Project web site, providing a  one-stop resource for scholars of French architectural sculpture.</p> <strong>Scope</strong> <p>Because of the sheer number of examples, it seems logical and practical to divide the project into a number of phases, beginning with the most significant types, and moving to the least significant types. This would provide the most immediate access to the most useful examples for scholarship. These  phases would include the following:</p> <ul><li>Phase 1: Portals which include figural sculpture in the tympanum, archivolts, lintels and/or jambs (over 400)</li> <li>Phase 2: Portals which include figural sculpture only in the form of historiated capitals (not yet counted)</li> <li>Phase 3: Portals which are entirely geometric in their design, lacking figural sculpture entirely (not yet counted)</li></ul> <p>Within each portal, it seems logical to be as comprehensive as possible given the presence of the investigators at the physical location of the portal. In other words, as long as we re there, we might as well do it right the first time in order to avoid additional visits. This would include the following:</p> <ul><li>A. General shots of the portal as a whole</li> <li>B. Individual shots of the major  fields of the portal (i.e. tympanum, lintel, left and right archivolts, left and right jambs, left and right socles, trumeau)</li> <li>C. Individual shots of  scenes within each field (i.e. Annunciation, Visitation, etc...)</li> <li>D. Individual shots of each and every figure</li> <li>E. Details of faces and drapery as warranted</li></ul> <p>Three photographers, each responsible for given sections of a particular portal, could make fairly short work of each portal.</p> <strong>Coding System</strong> <p>It will be necessary to develop a useful and comprehensible coding system for the various parts of the sculpted portal, so that individual images can be easily located within the portal by the user. To avoid an additional layer of identification, it will be sensible to identify each portal as a separate entity, even if it is part of a group of portals at one end of a building. </p> <strong>Dissemination</strong> <p>The principal form of dissemination will be through The Portal Project web site. This will allow for full-color images, as well as high-resolution images with a zoom feature. At present, the best option is to create a MySQL database with all of the pertinent information, and output that data in various ways using PHP. This will allow the greatest flexibility in design and allow for search functionality. The following will be considerations for design:</p> <ul><li>1. How will the user wish to search for data?</li> <li>2. How will the results be presented to the user?</li> <li>3. The user should be able to select various images for comparision</li> <li>4. The user should be able to zoom in on images to see the highest level of detail</li></ul> <p>In addition to the raw database feature, users will have the opportunity to create and post essays drawn from analysis of the data. These essays will be screened by the investigators to insure reasonable academic content, but no effort will be made to suppress any particular viewpoints. The intent is to create an open forum for the exchange of ideas.</p> <p>An additional form of dissemination is being considered  the inclusion of a new volume in the Ark of God series by John James, one of the principal investigators. This series already addresses the sculpted capitals of the Gothic period, and extending this to include portal sculpture is not completely outside the scope of James project.</p> <strong>Timeline</strong> <ul><li>Fall 2010  Identification of all known sculpted portals in France which include figural sculpture; creation of database and input of relevant data; prototyping output pages</li> <li>Spring 2011  Continued input of relevant data into the database; Planning and coordination of itinerary for visiting identified portals; Presentation of the project at the Colloquium</li> <li>Summer 2011  Photographing all identified portals</li> <li>Fall 2011  Processing of photographs and integration of images into database</li></ul> </div> <div id="rightbox"><img src="France092014.jpg"><br><br>North Portal<br>Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire<br>13th century<br> </div> </div> <div id="footer"><br><a href="index.htm">Home</a></div> </div> </body></html>