Photos of Gargoyles on Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris
Now since we were already visiting Notre Dame on the Ile de la Cite, we had to take some high definition photographs of the world famous Gargoyle statues that are found on this Gothic cathedral.
View of Gargoyle on flying buttress at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris
With this first photo you can see a close up view of a Gargoyle statue on the end of a flying buttress, and these buttresses were added as additional supports to the Gothic architecture of the Notre Dame Cathedral, along with the added benefit of helping shed rain water away from the church structure.
Photograph showing row of Gargoyles on flying buttresses at Notre Dame Cathedral
Now, a Gargoyle, like those you can see in this photo, is a stone carved statue style of grotesque, or mythical creature that is designed to have an open mouth as a spout to let rain water shed away from a building, and these were very popular in medieval times, on Gothic edifices and on churches.
Close up photo of flying buttress Gargoyle at Notre Dame
In history Gargoyles were often grotesque creatures that were meant to ward off evil spirits and keep them away from churches, and when flying buttresses were being used on a building, they often had a trough, or gutter, carved out to disperse more rain water away from building through the statues mouth, just like you can see from this close up photo of the south side of Notre Dame Cathedral.
Gargoyle statues found on the eastern facade of Notre Dame Cathedral
We took this HD photo looking at the eastern end of Notre Dame that also has flying buttresses with Gargoyles attached, and if you follow the trough, or gutter, up to the side of the main structure you will see a stone down pipe with its outlet hole, which lets water travel down from the upper balcony and roofline.
View of Gargoyles on Notre Dames South facade
The word Gargoyle, or gargouille in French, is generally a basic translation from the Latin for gullet, and if you look carefully at the nearest Gargoyle in this image, you can see its mouth open to form a spout, plus these particular ones on Notre Dame Cathedral also have troughs in the elongated bodies in order to allow rain water to flow off the building even more efficiently.
Underside view of Gargoyles on Notre Dame Cathedral South side
The Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral is probably the most famous Gothic building that has Gargoyles, which are the elongated mythical creatures you can see in this photo, yet many people often get the name confused with Chimera, which are entirely different features found on this historical building that are only ornamental statues.
Notre Dame Cathedrals Gargoyle on flying buttress
Here is another close up photo we took looking up to one of the Gargoyles on Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral, which as you can tell, has unusual and beautifully carved features for this mythical creature that has become a famous part of the history of churches and cathedrals, yet these are present on many buildings including more modern ones and in different forms, but still maintain the same purpose of hundreds of years ago.
Gargoyles on South East corner of Notre Dame Cathedral
The Notre Dame Gargoyles are famous throughout the world, and there are so many of them that we could not keep a count of how many we saw, but many have had to be restored over the years, yet they still serve the same purpose of protecting the architecture of this historical building, just like the eleven you can see in this photo.
Photograph showing two Rows of Gargoyles on Notre Dame in Paris
With this photo we were looking along the south facade of Notre Dame Cathedral, with its Gargoyles, and if you look closely you can see two sets, or rows, of these that are located on two different levels of this historical building.
Gargoyle sculptures along the South facade of Notre Dame Cathedral
Again, we were still looking up at the south facade of this Gothic cathedral, and as you can see from the angel of this photograph, these Gargoyles really do protrude quite some distance from the edge of the brickwork and walls, which in turn helps protect not only the architecture, but also the foundations from water damage as well.
