Portail Saint-Trophime; Entrée Du Cloître, Arles, Église Métropolitaine de Saint-Trophime 1852

Charles Nègre captured this view of the Saint-Trophime portal in Arles using photography, a modern tool to document ancient iconography. The arched doorway is flanked by columns. This is a symbol that stretches back through Roman triumphal arches, representing power and dominion. Yet, here, it frames a sacred space. Consider the double doors themselves, reminiscent of Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, transitions, and endings. Janus was always depicted with two faces, looking to the past and to the future. These doors, too, suggest a threshold. They are not merely an entrance, but a psychological point of transformation. The portal persists, transformed in media yet consistent in symbolic impact, a constant rediscovery of forms.