Gezicht op de toren van Saint-Laurent in Rouen 1877

Henri Alexandre Saffrey etched this view of the Saint-Laurent tower in Rouen, capturing the Gothic architecture dominating the skyline. The tower, with its soaring vertical lines, embodies mankind’s reaching towards the divine. Think of the Tower of Babel, a shared motif across cultures, symbolizing ambition and the quest for higher understanding, yet also carrying connotations of hubris and eventual fall. In this context, the religious tower represents the same striving for transcendence, but within the bounds of faith and divine will. The image is static, but conveys feelings of awe and reverence, of stability amid the flux of everyday life, engaging viewers on a subconscious level with the symbolic weight of architecture through time. This motif—the tower—is a testament to how cultural memory is not linear but cyclical. Across different times and places, it resurfaces, evolves, and takes on new meanings, reflecting our eternal quest for meaning.