Part 10

“From the commencement of the thirteenth century architecture developed itself after a method completely new, in which all the parts deduced themselves--the one from the other--with an imperious rigour. Now, it is by the change of method that revolutions in sciences and arts commence. The construction commands the form; the piers destined to bear several arches divide themselves into as many columns as there are arches; these columns are of a diameter more or less substantial, according to the load which will rest upon them, rising side by side with them to the vaults which they have to sustain, their capitals assuming an importance proportioned to this charge. The arches are slight or thick, composed of one or more ranges of voussoirs, as dictated by their function. The walls, becoming unnecessary, in great structures disappear completely, and are replaced by window-openings decorated with stained glass. Every necessity becomes a motive of decoration. The roofs, the leading off of the water, the introduction of light, the means of access and circulation to the different stages of the building--even less important matters, such as iron-work, lead-work, ties, props, the means of warming and ventilation, not only are not concealed, as is so often done in our buildings since the sixteenth century, but are, on the contrary, frankly acknowledged, and contribute, by their ingenious combination and the taste which ever presides over their execution, to the enrichment of the architecture.[35] In a beautiful edifice of the commencement of the thirteenth century, splendid as we may think it, there is not an ornament to be spared, for each ornament is but the consequence of requirement satisfied.”

LECTURE IV.

The Thirteenth Century.

Mediæval architecture usually classified under heads of centuries--Actual points of change do not coincide with these divisions--Auspices for the development of the Early Pointed style--Great works in England and France--Artistic disturbance in Germany--Progress in Italy--Energy pervades every branch of art--Perfected Early Pointed a natural growth from Romanesque--Leading characteristics--Columns--Bases of Columns--Capitals--Plan of the abacus--Circular plan--Whence this arose--Moulded capitals--Windows--Bases of buildings--Cornices and foliated bands--Doorways--French and English compared.

In the two lectures I delivered during the last session, my object was to trace out the development of Pointed architecture from the Romanesque nucleus of the preceding age; to show how far this was the result of constructional necessities and the natural progression of art, and how far it was aided and furthered by external influences; and to illustrate the unity and grandeur of the artistic movement which, in so short a time, generated an art at once so original and so truly noble. My object on the present occasion will be to give a general sketch of that art when it had arrived at its culminating point, or rather during that wonderful century through which it reigned triumphant, rejoicing in the full attainment of the object of its strivings, and, proceeding from strength to strength and from beauty to beauty, filled the countries of Western Europe with creations at once new to art, and in many respects nobler than anything the world had previously seen.

Though it is convenient to classify our Mediæval architecture under heads of centuries, its points of change do not, in reality, coincide with such a division. It would, perhaps, be nearer to the fact if we classed the last quarter in each century with that which follows: thus, in this country the Norman style would be supposed, roughly speaking, to occupy the interval between 1075 and 1175; the Early Pointed style from thence to 1275; the Middle or Decorated periods from 1275 to 1375; and so on.

On this view of the case, a great deal of what I treated of in my last lecture belongs artistically to the present one, and a portion of what I am embracing under the head of the thirteenth century would better go with the fourteenth. As, however, I should wish to be as comprehensive as possible in defining the period of the unimpaired integrity of the style, I gladly extend it to the very end of the century, and will not quarrel with those who would dip a little into the succeeding one; for, though I prefer the strength and boldness of the works of the earlier part of the century, the style can hardly be regarded as complete if deprived of the more delicate productions which characterise its close.

In my last lecture I showed how, both in France and England, the last quarter of the twelfth century was occupied in bringing the earlier phase of Pointed architecture from a state of mere transition to one of full development and consistency, and how that the works of this period of especial earnestness in onward striding are characterised by a masculine vigour, scarcely equalled at any other stage.

We have now to view the Early Pointed style at the period of the full attainment of its aims, and when its endeavours were rather to amplify and to extend its means than to construct a style.

The thirteenth century commenced under the most favourable auspices for the development of the newly-created architecture. In France, both the secular and the ecclesiastical powers were in the highest state of prosperity; and if in England such was not the case with the Crown, and we were checked by a bad and mean-spirited King, it is clear that both the Barons and the Church were in a state of high prosperity, for, from the very opening of the century, we find works on the grandest scale to have been everywhere undertaken. Whether in the castle, the palace, the cathedral, the monastery, or the parish church, we find the newly-developed style to have been put largely into practice, so that scarcely a building of note fails to show the impress of the youthful art. Every great church must have its share of it; thus, at Canterbury, though they had just completed the eastern half in the style of the transition, the cloisters were added in the perfected manner. At York, again, the choir had been rebuilt in the last half of the preceding century; but the perfected style must have its sway, so the Norman transepts were rebuilt in it. At Lincoln the transformation of style had commenced under St. Hugh before the close of the twelfth century, and before 1280, but small vestiges of the Norman structure remained. At Ely the century commenced with the building of the western porch, which was followed up by the magnificent eastern arm of the cathedral. At St. Alban’s the gigantic Norman church had not been completed much more than half a century before its western façade was demolished and recommenced in the new style, in which one-half of the nave partook; and before the thirteenth century was finished the choir had also been rebuilt. At Durham the Norman church received the magnificent addition of the Chapel of the Nine Altars: at Fountains a similar addition was made, with an entirely new choir and many noble appendages. Wells Cathedral was almost rebuilt in the new style. Indeed, it is scarcely possible to single out any great church which does not more or less evince the influence of the great architectural movement which ushered in the thirteenth century. Its most complete work is the cathedral at Salisbury; and among its later creations we may enumerate the eastern portion of Westminster Abbey, the whole of Tintern Abbey, and the greater part of the once sumptuous church of St. Mary’s Abbey, at York; while its last decade produced some of the most exquisite gems of art, such as the tombs of Crouchback, of De Luda, and of Archbishop Peckham; the chapel of Ely Place, Holborn, and the Eleanor Crosses; so that, taken as a whole, the century can claim most of the noblest, as well as of the most elegant, productions of English art.

In France its pre-eminence is, if possible, yet more manifest. The century opened there under the fully established power of Philip Augustus, the most powerful monarch who had ruled France since the days of Charlemagne. In the days of his predecessor the English King had governed more French provinces than the King of France himself; but now the English

were almost entirely expelled, and this mighty monarch reigned without a rival. In his days commenced an almost general rebuilding (wholly or in part) of the cathedrals, excepting such as were of very recent date. The west façade of Nôtre Dame at Paris, the greater part of Rouen, of Rheims, of Amiens, of Coutance, of Bourges, the eastern half of Le Mans, and a list far too long to be enumerated, owe their grandeur to his reign, or those immediately following.

Towards the middle of the century the same work progressed gloriously under the auspices of St. Louis, and though slackened from actual satiety towards the close of the century, it was not really checked till the commencement of the English war.

As in England, the works thus produced evince masculine grandeur of the highest order at the commencement, and the most delicate beauty at the close of the century, while during its middle portion the two are united in the works of St. Louis. In Germany the works of this century evince great artistic disturbance. The change from the round to the pointed-arch style had been there resisted, while both in France and England it had been worked out to maturity. At the opening of the century, German architecture consisted of a highly-refined variety of Romanesque, with the partial use of the pointed arch, chiefly where suggested by constructional necessities. This, during the first quarter or more of the century, developed itself into an Early Pointed style, strictly German, and holding out promises of great force and originality--promises which were frustrated by the sudden inroad of French Gothic about 1250, after which, though Germany took a course still very much her own, it was one in a great degree severed from her noble early tradition, and emanating from the French graft rather than from the original stem.

Italy received her Pointed architecture from France and Germany, and mingled it freely with her Classico-Lombardic traditions. The union produced many noble and many incongruous developments. The lessons they offer must be used with caution; but Italy being the land of ancient art, the land of sculpture, of painting, of rich marbles, of mosaic work, and of municipal and other civic edifices, the graft of Northern art upon so prolific a stock has, as may readily be imagined, produced varieties which the circumstances of Northern nations would have rendered impracticable in its native lands; and the suggestions they offer, if judiciously used, are well calculated to add copiousness to the style in the hands of its modern revivers. Of this I may have occasion to say more hereafter.

The thirteenth century was to Mediæval art what the Periclean and Augustan ages were to the Greek and Roman; and in each case, though war and bloodshed are in themselves hostile to art, there can be no doubt that the excitement of the human mind, resulting from great national struggles, has tended to produce that advance in art which followed, in one case, the glorious assertion of national independence; in another, the conquest of the world; and in a third, the romantic and unselfish efforts of the Crusaders.

It was a period of deep-seated mental excitement, of a prodigious upstirring of the human intellect. Our learned men at the present day may smile at the quaint and imperfect erudition of these early periods of our civilisation, but they should remember that they were our days of _youth_, of _warmth_, and of rising vigour, while the more perfected literature of our own age may possibly be found to superadd to its maturity a few symptoms of old age.

This youthful energy pervaded every branch of art; everything seemed to experience a new, a generous, and vigorous impulse. All Europe became filled with the productions of the newly generated art; every city became a repertory of noble and sublime architecture, and every town and village became possessed of productions equally beautiful, if more modest in their pretensions; while the intervening country was studded over with castles and monastic establishments, in which the same majestic art displayed itself in ever-varying forms, each suited to meet their different requirements.

Nothing is more difficult than to describe a perfected art. My last two lectures traced out the gradual construction of Pointed architecture, and its transition from the preceding style. This was comparatively easy; but to describe it when it had attained perfection is far less so.

The fact is that there is neither in France nor in England any very marked difference between the styles during the later period of its transition, and when perfected beyond that unity and consistency of parts which indicate maturity. In France, particularly, this is the case; for neither had the style there continued long to evince its transitional state by the retention of strictly Romanesque features--unless the square abacus can be so designated--nor did it, when perfected, throw off, as in England, that one detail which to our eye seems a relic of transition. The later transition and the earlier perfected specimens seem in France to be the same art, a little more developed and more homogeneous, rather than to have many describable points of difference. In England the change of the abacus from the square to the round form makes the distinction more marked, so that English examples at the opening of the thirteenth century always appear later and more advanced than contemporary French ones. I instanced in my last lecture four early examples of perfected Early English: the eastern transept of Lincoln, completed about 1200; the eastern chapels at Winchester, about 1204; the western portals at St. Alban’s, finished about 1205; and the western porch or Galilee at Ely, finished about 1214. None of them show any remains of transitional character, and all having the English round capital in full development, appear to the English eye more advanced than such works as the western portals of Nôtre Dame at Paris, which are, if anything, somewhat later in date. In this country, in fact, the form of the abacus is the distinguishing feature between the transition to the perfected style, while in France there is no such distinction to be found. The difference is more one of feeling, which the practical eye perceives at once without being able to define.

Though I speak of the Early Pointed as a newly-generated art--as it in effect was--it must never be forgotten that it is a distinct and natural growth from the pre-existing Romanesque. The more I study old examples the more obvious does this appear. Take either France or England alone, and you may from either construct, _ad libitum_, unbroken _catenæ_ of examples, showing step by step the natural and logical growth of the new style out of the old; and that without any essential imported element (for the Byzantine capital, which was the parent of the Gothic one, was an accidental, though a happy, importation).

This progressive growth was but the practical realisation of three great aims towards which the Romanesque architects were ever striving--the perfecting of their arcuated and vaulted construction, the increase of the altitude of their proportions, and the general adding of refinement and elegance to their details. Thus, if you take the internal bay of a Norman cathedral, and simply set yourself the task of increasing its height in a given proportion, the result will be a Gothic bay, for the arches cannot participate in the increased elevation without becoming pointed. If the details are further refined, it becomes an ordinary transitional design; and if the process is carried on a little farther, it becomes a perfected Early Pointed work--the distinction between transition and perfected Early Pointed being merely the carrying on of the process by which the former was generated out of Romanesque. This fact, which all who look closely into it must see, was what led a talented writer to say that Early Pointed was only Romanesque improved. He meant this as an argument against it as compared with the still succeeding styles; but I confess, for my own part, while feeling strongly the truth of the observation, and highly appreciating the importance of some of the subsequent developments, I do not the less admire the glorious productions of the Early style from seeing in them the evidences of the vigorous stock from which they have sprung.[36]

It will be seen, by enumerating the leading characteristics of Pointed architecture, that the great majority of them were already perfected, or, at least, brought to that reasonable and consistent state of development which stops short of excess and exaggeration, at the commencement of the thirteenth century.

The pointed arch had obtained universal predominance, though without involving the rejection of the semicircular or the plain segment, where circumstances called for them; the general predominance of the vertical line was acknowledged, without running into the excess of underrating the horizontal; lofty and aspiring proportions prevailed, though not to the extent of exaggeration, and without unreasonably asserting their claims in works of a humbler class; the subdivision of arches into orders, and the clustering of the pillars, so as to satisfy the eye that each member of the arch was severally supported, had arisen during the Romanesque period, and was now carried out still more systematically and with greater elegance; and the system of making the bases and capitals face in the direction of the insisting arch-rib, which had also arisen early, was (in France at least) very generally adhered to. The distinction between constructional and decorative pillars--one of the great characteristics of the Gothic style, both Round and Pointed--was carried to its fullest extent; the vaulting system was perfected, though retaining its normal simplicity; and the corresponding system of buttress (solid or arched) and pinnacle, which are the necessary accompaniments of a perfect arcuated style, had been brought to perfection; the continuity of line was acknowledged sufficiently to suggest a feeling of natural growth of the parts one from another, from the bases of the shafts to the bosses of the vaulting, but without that sacrifice of force and of all salient points which became the vice of later styles.

The principle of rendering the useful features ornamental was fully developed; as an instance of it--the doorways, the only parts of the exterior which _must_ of necessity be seen from close at hand, were rendered magnificent beyond all former precedent, and became the vehicles of noble sculpture, and the great exponents of the objects of the building, whether religious or secular. The windows now became great characteristic objects, not only from their richly painted glass within, but as leading architectural features, both within and without. The bell towers became glorious structures, rendering the cities conspicuous throughout the whole surrounding district, and making every village a distinct and beautiful point in the landscape. The same principle obtained in all secular structures. The castles of the nobility became truly noble structures, glorious for the stern grandeur of their external aspect, and for the massive beauty of their internal architecture; the gates and defences of cities partook of the same severe grandeur; while the street fronts, the town halls, and other civic buildings, displayed architectural characteristics, modest or grand, as suited their several purposes. In Italy, where municipal institutions were more developed, noble street palaces were erected; and everywhere the architecture, whether viewed in the mass or in its details, was suited, as by an unerring instinct, to the objects on which it was exercised.

The decorative system of the architecture had also been brought to great perfection. The mouldings were refined without losing boldness or strength--in fact, were strong or delicate, as suited their position; the foliated carving had arrived at very high perfection, and was of a kind perfectly new--the magnificent creation of the artistic mind; sculpture was often profusely used in connection with architecture, and if not of that perfectly studied symmetry which satisfies the academic critic, it evinces a boldness of conception, a quickness of invention, and an unaffected grandeur of sentiment, which our modern sculptors would do well to emulate, while it is eminently suited, by its rigid lines and severe force, to architectural purposes.

It would be absurd to attempt, in a single lecture, to give any detailed description of the architecture of this great period; nor is it necessary, as no style is so familiar to those whose attention has been at all turned to such subjects; I will, however, take a few of its leading points, and call attention to some of their characteristics.

I will begin with the _Column_. In no feature is the difference between Classic and Gothic architecture so strongly marked as in the column. In the former, one general idea alone prevailed--the round shaft with a capital, and with or without a base. In the latter this normal type is equally admissible and equally honoured, but, in addition to it, an almost endless list of forms are introduced. In the first place the round column is converted at pleasure into the octagonal or other polygonal form--this is a mere variety of the normal type; then either the round or the polygon is flanked by four smaller shafts, attached or detached, and these subsidiary shafts may be increased in number, subordinated one to another, both in size and salience, and may be all attached, all detached, or the attached and detached shafts may be used alternately or in any other order in the same pillar.

Then, again, instead of the cylindrical pillar, we may have four cylinders united in one, and these may in their turn be made the nucleus round which detached or attached shafts may be grouped: or we may have two or more separate cylindrical main shafts carrying the load, and may group subordinate ones round them; and again, we may take other forms of nucleus--as the square, the canted square, or a pier with receding orders--and place our shafts round them; and, finally, we may form groups in which no specific form of nucleus is to be traced, but which consist of shafts arranged with reference to the superincumbent arch alone.

The number of changes which may be rung on these varieties of pillar are absolutely endless, though it is not desirable to indulge too much in the more intricate forms of grouping, but, as a general rule, to keep to forms which are naturally suggested by the duties the pillar is designed to perform. When detached subsidiary shafts are used, it is somewhat unnatural to joint them in their length without introducing some visible means of tying them to the main pillar within. This necessity gave rise to the use of the moulded band, which forms so beautiful a feature in the pillars of this period. It is sometimes made of brass, but more usually of stone or marble.

The bases of columns throughout the Romanesque period were most usually founded on some traditional variety of the Attic base. The resemblance is often obscure, but in many cases very close.