Chapter 19

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Adamy, _Architektonik des gotischen Stils_. Corroyer, _L’Architecture gothique_. Enlart, _Manuel d’archéologie française_. Hasak, _Einzelheiten des Kirchenbaues_ (in _Hdbuch d. Arch._). Moore, _Development and Character of Gothic Architecture_. Parker, _Introduction to Gothic Architecture._ Scott, _Mediæval Architecture_. Viollet-le-Duc, _Discourses on Architecture_; _Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française_.

+INTRODUCTORY.+ The architectural styles which were developed in Western Europe during the period extending from about 1150 to 1450 or 1500, received in an unscientific age the wholly erroneous and inept name of Gothic. This name has, however, become so fixed in common usage that it is hardly possible to substitute for it any more scientific designation. In reality the architecture to which it is applied was nothing more than the sequel and outgrowth of the Romanesque, which we have already studied. Its fundamental principles were the same; it was concerned with the same problems. These it took up where the Romanesque builders left them, and worked out their solution under new conditions, until it had developed out of the simple and massive models of the early twelfth century the splendid cathedrals of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in England, France, Germany, the Low Countries and Spain.

+THE CHURCH AND ARCHITECTURE.+ The twelfth century was an era of transition in society, as in architecture. The ideas of Church and State were becoming more clearly defined in the common mind. In the conflict between feudalism and royalty the monarchy was steadily gaining ground. The problem of human right was beginning to present itself alongside of the problem of human might. The relations between the crown, the feudal barons, the pope, bishops, and abbots, differed widely in France, Germany, England, and other countries. The struggle among them for supremacy presented itself, therefore, in varied aspects; but the general outcome was essentially the same. The church began to appear as something behind and above abbots, bishops, kings, and barons. The supremacy of the papal authority gained increasing recognition, and the episcopacy began to overshadow the monastic institutions; the bishops appearing generally, but especially in France, as the champions of popular rights. The prerogatives of the crown became more firmly established, and thus the Church and the State emerged from the social confusion as the two institutions divinely appointed for the government of men.

Under these influences ecclesiastical architecture advanced with rapid strides. No longer hampered by monastic restrictions, it called into its service the laity, whose guilds of masons and builders carried from one diocese to another their constantly increasing stores of constructive knowledge. By a wise division of labor, each man wrought only such parts as he was specially trained to undertake. The master-builder--bishop, abbot, or mason--seems to have planned only the general arrangement and scheme of the building, leaving the precise form of each detail to be determined as the work advanced, according to the skill and fancy of the artisan to whom it was intrusted. Thus was produced that remarkable variety in unity of the Gothic cathedrals; thus, also, those singular irregularities and makeshifts, those discrepancies and alterations in the design, which are found in every great work of mediæval architecture. Gothic architecture was constantly changing, attacking new problems or devising new solutions of old ones. In this character of constant flux and development it contrasts strongly with the classic styles, in which the scheme and the principles were easily fixed and remained substantially unchanged for centuries.

+STRUCTURAL PRINCIPLES.+ The pointed arch, so commonly regarded as the most characteristic feature of the Gothic styles, was merely an incidental feature of their development. What really distinguished them most strikingly was the systematic application of two principles which the Roman and Byzantine builders had recognized and applied, but which seem to have been afterward forgotten until they were revived by the later Romanesque architects. The first of these was the _concentration of strains_ upon isolated points of support, made possible by the substitution of groined for barrel vaults. This led to a corresponding concentration of the masses of masonry at these points; the building was constructed as if upon legs (Fig. 105). The wall became a mere filling-in between the piers or buttresses, and in time was, indeed, practically suppressed, immense windows filled with stained glass taking its place. This is well illustrated in the +Sainte Chapelle+ at Paris, built 1242-47 (Figs. 106, 122). In this remarkable edifice, a series of groined vaults spring from slender shafts built against deep buttresses which receive and resist all the thrusts. The wall-spaces between them are wholly occupied by superb windows filled with stone tracery and stained glass. It would be impossible to combine the materials used more scientifically or effectively. The cathedrals of Gerona (Spain) and of Alby (France; Fig. 123) illustrate the same principle, though in them the buttresses are internal and serve to separate the flanking chapels.

The second distinctive principle of Gothic architecture was that of _balanced thrusts_. In Roman buildings the thrust of the vaulting was resisted wholly by the inertia of mass in the abutments. In Gothic architecture thrusts were as far as possible resisted by counter-thrusts, and the final resultant pressure was transmitted by flying half-arches across the intervening portions of the structure to external buttresses placed at convenient points. This combination of flying half-arches and buttresses is called the _flying-buttress_ (Fig. 107). It reached its highest development in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in the cathedrals of central and northern France.

+RIBBED VAULTING.+ These two principles formed the structural basis of the Gothic styles. Their application led to the introduction of two other elements, second only to them in importance, _ribbed vaulting_ and the _pointed arch_.

The first of these resulted from the effort to overcome certain practical difficulties encountered in the building of large groined vaults. As ordinarily constructed, a groined vault like that in Fig. 47, must be built as one structure, upon wooden centrings supporting its whole extent. The Romanesque architects conceived the idea of constructing an independent skeleton of ribs. Two of these were built against the wall (_wall-ribs_), two across the nave (transverse ribs); and two others were made to coincide with the groins (Figs. 98, 108). The _groin-ribs_, intersecting at the centre of the vault, divided each bay into four triangular portions, or _compartments_, each of which was really an independent vault which could be separately constructed upon light centrings supported by the groin-ribs themselves. This principle, though identical in essence with the Roman system of brick skeleton-ribs for concrete vaults, was, in application and detail, superior to it, both from the scientific and artistic point of view. The ribs, richly moulded, became, in the hands of the Gothic architects, important decorative features. In practice the builder gave to each set of ribs independently the curvature he desired. The vaulting-surfaces were then easily twisted or warped so as to fit the various ribs, which, being already in place, served as guides for their construction.

+THE POINTED ARCH+ was adopted to remedy the difficulties encountered in the construction of oblong vaults. It is obvious that where a narrow semi-cylindrical vault intersects a wide one, it produces either what are called _penetrations_, as at a (Fig. 109), or intersections like that at b, both of which are awkward in aspect and hard to construct. If, however, one or both vaults be given a pointed section, the narrow vault may be made as high as the wide one. It is then possible, with but little warping of the vaulting surfaces, to make them intersect in groins c, which are vertical plane curves instead of wavy loops like a and b.

The Gothic architects availed themselves to the full of these two devices. They built their groin-ribs of semi-circular or pointed form, but the wall-ribs and the transverse ribs were, without exception, pointed arches of such curvature as would bring the apex of each nearly or quite to the level of the groin intersection. The pointed arch, thus introduced as the most convenient form for the vaulting-ribs, was soon applied to other parts of the structure. This was a necessity with the windows and pier-arches, which would not otherwise fit well the wall-spaces under the wall-ribs of the nave and aisle vaulting.

+TRACERY AND GLASS.+ With the growth in the size of the windows and the progressive suppression of the lateral walls of vaulted structures, stained glass came more and more generally into use. Its introduction not only resulted in a notable heightening and enriching of the colors and scheme of the interior decoration, but reacted on the architecture, intensifying the very causes which led to its introduction. It stimulated the increase in the size of windows, and the suppression of the walls, and contributed greatly to the development of _tracery_. This latter feature was an absolute necessity for the support of the glass. Its evolution can be traced (Figs, 110, 111, 112) from the simple coupling of twin windows under a single hood-mould, or discharging arch, to the florid net-work of the fifteenth century. In its earlier forms it consisted merely of decorative openings, circles, and quatrefoils, pierced through slabs of stone (_plate-tracery_), filling the window-heads over coupled windows. Later attention was bestowed upon the form of the stonework, which was made lighter and richly moulded (_bar-tracery_), rather than upon that of the openings (Fig. 111). Then the circular and geometric patterns employed were abandoned for more flowing and capricious designs (_Flamboyant_ tracery, Fig. 112) or (in England) for more rigid and rectangular arrangements (_Perpendicular_, Fig. 134). It will be shown later that the periods and styles of Gothic architecture are more easily identified by the tracery than by any other feature.

+CHURCH PLANS.+ The original basilica-plan underwent radical modifications during the 12th-15th centuries. These resulted in part from the changes in construction which have been described, and in part from altered ecclesiastical conditions and requirements. Gothic church architecture was based on cathedral design; and the requirements of the cathedral differed in many respects from those of the monastic churches of the preceding period.

The most important alterations in the plan were in the choir and transepts. The choir was greatly lengthened, the transepts often shortened. The choir was provided with two and often four side-aisles, and one or both of these was commonly carried entirely around the apsidal termination of the choir, forming a single or double _ambulatory_. This combination of choir, apse, and ambulatory was called, in French churches, the _chevet_.

Another advance upon Romanesque models was the multiplication of chapels--a natural consequence of the more popular character of the cathedral as compared with the abbey. Frequently lateral chapels were built at each bay of the side-aisles, filling up the space between the deep buttresses, flanking the nave as well as the choir. They were also carried around the _chevet_ in most of the French cathedrals (Paris, Bourges, Reims, Amiens, Beauvais, and many others); in many of those in Germany (Magdeburg, Cologne, Frauenkirche at Treves), Spain (Toledo, Leon, Barcelona, Segovia, etc.), and Belgium (Tournay, Antwerp). In England the choir had more commonly a square eastward termination. Secondary transepts occur frequently, and these peculiarities, together with the narrowness and great length of most of the plans, make of the English cathedrals a class by themselves.

+PROPORTIONS AND COMPOSITION.+ Along with these modifications of the basilican plan should be noticed a great increase in the height and slenderness of all parts of the structure. The lofty clearstory, the arcaded triforium-passage or gallery beneath it, the high pointed pier-arches, the multiplication of slender clustered shafts, and the reduction in the area of the piers, gave to the Gothic churches an interior aspect wholly different from that of the simpler, lower, and more massive Romanesque edifices. The perspective effects of the plans thus modified, especially of the complex choir and _chevet_ with their lateral and radial chapels, were remarkably enriched and varied.

The exterior was even more radically transformed by these changes, and by the addition of towers and spires to the fronts, and sometimes to the transepts and to their intersection with the nave. The deep buttresses, terminating in pinnacles, the rich traceries of the great lateral windows, the triple portals profusely sculptured, rose-windows of great size under the front and transept gables, combined to produce effects of marvellously varied light and shadow, and of complex and elaborate structural beauty, totally unlike the broad simplicity of the Romanesque exteriors.

+DECORATIVE DETAIL.+ The mediæval designers aimed to enrich every constructive feature with the most effective play of lights and shades, and to embody in the decorative detail the greatest possible amount of allegory and symbolism, and sometimes of humor besides. The deep jambs and soffits of doors and pier-arches were moulded with a rich succession of hollow and convex members, and adorned with carvings of saints, apostles, martyrs, and angels. Virtues and vices, allegories of reward and punishment, and an extraordinary world of monstrous and grotesque beasts, devils, and goblins filled the capitals and door-arches, peeped over tower-parapets, or leered and grinned from gargoyles and corbels. Another source of decorative detail was the application of tracery like that of the windows to wall-panelling, to balustrades, to open-work gables, to spires, to choir-screens, and other features, especially in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (cathedrals of York, Rouen, Cologne; Henry VII.’s Chapel, Westminster). And finally in the carving of capitals and the ornamentation of mouldings the artists of the thirteenth century and their successors abandoned completely the classic models and traditions which still survived in the early twelfth century. The later monastic builders began to look directly to nature for suggestions of decorative form. The lay builders who sculptured the capitals and crockets and finials of the early Gothic cathedrals adopted and followed to its finality this principle of recourse to nature, especially to plant life. At first the budding shoots of early spring were freely imitated or skilfully conventionalized, as being by their thick and vigorous forms the best adapted for translation into stone (Fig. 114). During the thirteenth century the more advanced stages of plant growth, and leaves more complex and detailed, furnished the models for the carver, who displayed his skill in a closer and more literal imitation of their minute veinings and indentations (Fig. 115). This artistic adaptation of natural forms to architectural decoration degenerated later into a minutely realistic copying of natural foliage, in which cleverness of execution took the place of original invention. The spirit of display is characteristic of all late Gothic work. Slenderness, minuteness of detail, extreme complexity and intricacy of design, an unrestrained profusion of decoration covering every surface, a lack of largeness and vigor in the conceptions, are conspicuous traits of Gothic design in the fifteenth century, alike in France, England, Germany, Spain, and the Low Countries. Having worked out to their conclusion the structural principles bequeathed to them by the preceding centuries, the authors of these later works seemed to have devoted themselves to the elaboration of mere decorative detail, and in technical finish surpassed all that had gone before (Fig. 113).

+CHARACTERISTICS SUMMARIZED.+ In the light of the preceding explanations Gothic architecture may be defined as that system of structural design and decoration which grew up out of the effort to combine, in one harmonious and organic conception, the basilican plan with a complete and systematic construction of groined vaulting. Its development was controlled throughout by considerations of stability and structural propriety, but in the application of these considerations the artistic spirit was allowed full scope for its exercise. Refinement, good taste, and great fertility of imagination characterize the details and ornaments of Gothic structures. While the Greeks in harmonizing the requirements of utility and beauty in architecture approached the problem from the æsthetic side, the Gothic architects did the same from the structural side. Their admirably reasoned structures express as perfectly the idea of vastness, mystery, and complexity as do the Greek temples that of simplicity and monumental repose.

The excellence of Gothic architecture lay not so much in its individual details as in its perfect adaptation to the purposes for which it was developed--its triumphs were achieved in the building of cathedrals and large churches. In the domain of civil and domestic architecture it produced nothing comparable with its ecclesiastical edifices, because it was the requirements of the cathedral and not of the palace, town-hall, or dwelling, that gave it its form and character.

+PERIODS.+ The history of Gothic architecture is commonly divided into three periods, which are most readily distinguished by the character of the window-tracery. These periods were not by any means synchronous in the different countries; but the order of sequence was everywhere the same. They are here given, with a summary of the characteristics of each.

EARLY POINTED PERIOD. [_Early French_; _Early English_ or _Lancet_ Period in England; _Early German_, etc.] Simple groined vaults; general simplicity and vigor of design and detail; conventionalized foliage of small plants; plate tracery, and narrow windows coupled under pointed arch with circular foiled openings in the window-head. (In France, 1160 to 1275.)

MIDDLE POINTED PERIOD. [_Rayonnant_ in France; _Decorated_ or _Geometric_ in England.] Vaults more perfect; in England multiple ribs and liernes; greater slenderness and loftiness of proportions; decoration much richer, less vigorous; more naturalistic carving of mature foliage; walls nearly suppressed, windows of great size, bar tracery with slender moulded or columnar mullions and geometric combinations (circles and cusps) in window-heads, circular (rose) windows. (In France, 1275 to 1375.)

FLORID GOTHIC PERIOD. [_Flamboyant_ in France; _Perpendicular_ in England.] Vaults of varied and richly decorated design; fan-vaulting and pendants in England, vault-ribs curved into fanciful patterns in Germany and Spain; profuse and minute decoration and cleverness of technical execution substituted for dignity of design; highly realistic carving and sculpture, flowing or flamboyant tracery in France; perpendicular bars with horizontal transoms and four-centred arches in England; “branch-tracery” in Germany. (In France, 1375 to 1525.)