West Front, Wells 1857

This photograph of the West Front of Wells Cathedral, taken by Alfred Capel Cure in 1854, captures the imposing facade adorned with rows of sculptures. These figures, carefully placed within niches, represent a celestial hierarchy, echoing the medieval worldview where the earthly and divine are intertwined. Consider the pointed arches framing each figure, a motif that reaches back to the ribbed vaults of Gothic cathedrals—structures designed to lift the gaze heavenward. We see echoes of this reaching for the divine in earlier Romanesque architecture, as if a collective yearning for transcendence has been etched in stone across centuries. This aspiration, so vividly expressed in the cathedral's upward thrust, mirrors a psychological impulse—a striving for meaning that resonates deeply within us. It is this enduring human quest for the sacred, embodied in stone, that transcends time, connecting us to our forebears.