Development and Character of Gothic Architecture/Chapter 1
CHAPTER I
DEFINITION OF GOTHIC
Since the decline of Gothic architecture the ideas which have prevailed respecting it have been for the most part confused and incorrect. Indeed, until within the last fifty years only the most vague notions of it were entertained even by students of architecture. The very name Gothic, though not wholly inappropriate, originated in a spirit of contempt, which naturally precluded any disposition to study attentively enough to understand it, this splendid manifestation of human genius. The architects and amateurs of the schools of Sansovino and Palladio in Italy, where the revival of taste for classic forms of art had set in as early as the time of Brunelleschi, could not be expected to admire anything so far removed from the spirit of the art which was in fashion with them. The manicra Tedesca, as they called such Gothic as they possessed—supposing Gothic art to be of German origin, because their own pointed style was an importation from Germany—was regarded by them as barbaric and without principles, in comparison with their grammatical Vitruvian orders. It was not unnatural that such distaste for the pointed style should be felt in Italy, for the style was foreign to Italian genius and Italian traditions. It had been adopted merely as a fashion, and the very modifications which the Italians wrought in it show how little suited it was to their wants. It is, indeed, impossible for a people possessed of an art, which is a natural outgrowth of their wants and tastes, and hence proper to them, to adopt and practise rationally, and to make their own, another art which is an outgrowth of other and different needs and predilections. The Greek and Roman types of building were not only the natural inheritance of the Italians, but they were the best for them as being suited to their climate and as supplying all their demands of convenience and taste.
On the north and west of the Alps the case was different. Here the traditions of classic art were not, in the same sense, an inheritance. The ancient forms of building had here been an importation. They had never here been wholly understood, and they were not well suited to the conditions of climate and of race. But the Gothic style which gradually took form in France was a natural outgrowth and expression of the genius of the people, and it was as well suited to them and- to the local conditions as the classic styles had been to the people and the climate of the South.
Yet here, too, at length, the fashion of distaste for Gothic set in—following the lead of the more natural Italian reaction,—though the change did violence to much that in architecture was proper to Northern temperament and Northern needs.
This fashion had its root in the prevalent, yet often insincere, feeling characteristic of an artificial state of society, such as that which Northern Europe, and especially France, exhibited at the end of the fifteenth century,—a state of society in which display of private wealth and pleasurable indulgence became the chief animating motives of an art that found its main expression in vast and luxurious private dwellings. In the former time private dwellings, even those of the rich, had been comparatively unpretentious and plain in character, while the Church edifice, the great centre of social and communal interest, and the product of the joint energy and enthusiasm of all classes, had been enriched by generous expenditure of toil and public and private treasure, but now it was the dwellings of the rich that chiefly demanded the services of art. The ambition of Charles VIII to possess a palace equal in splendour to those which he had seen in Italy, indicates the early stage of a movement which, gathering force under Francis I, and greatly stimulated by the genius of De L'Orme, reached its height in the sumptuous architecture of the reign of Louis XIV.
The taste for the new style was long confined to the upper classes. This architecture could never become really an architecture of the people; and the cities and, here and there, the church held out against it. But with the growth of artificial conditions the new fashion at length prevailed, and under its influence it was not strange that the Gothic monuments of the country were not only neglected and despised, but shamefully, and often irreparably, disfigured.
In England the taste for the pseudo-classic orders, fostered by the genius of such men as Inigo Jones and Wren, was not less hostile to Gothic. Any feeling for mediæval forms which had lingered on through the Elizabethan period was soon effectually quenched. Germany, though not quick to accept the Renaissance style, was also at length conquered by it. Everywhere some form, though often a travesty, of the revived classic taste prevailed. Gothic art became everywhere extinct.
Fashion, however, began after a while to change. In the course of the eighteenth century an antiquarian interest in pointed architecture was awakened and received a considerable stimulus from the zealous but ignorant advocacy of Horace Walpole. The attention of amateurs began to be directed towards existing monuments, and the publication (1780-1795) of Carter's volumes with measured drawings, followed before long by the works of Britton and Pugin, created an extensive, though not a discriminating taste for the long-abandoned pointed style. So undiscriminating, indeed, was this new interest that it long remained unproductive of good results. No just notion of the nature of Gothic was anywhere entertained. That it involved principles beyond those which were revealed to a superficial view nobody yet imagined. The whole subject of the modifications and transformations which pointed architecture had undergone at different periods in its history was shrouded in obscurity. No correct classifications had been made, and attention was, for the most part, directed to the later and least excellent varieties. Before there could be progress toward a true understanding of pointed buildings, it was necessary that the different forms which they had assumed should be examined and classified.
But at length this progress began. In the year 1817 appeared Rickman's first essay—An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of Architecture in England. This book did much to clear up the confusion that had prevailed, by pointing out that the differences of style which appeared in the English monuments might be broadly divided into three groups belonging, respectively, to three successive periods of construction. And, although Rickman's work was naturally imperfect and inadequate, its classifications were mainly correct, and it has served as a substantial basis for all subsequent study of the pointed architecture of England. So good was it, however, that the many other treatises which soon after appeared did little more than extend the field by bringing a larger number of buildings into notice. Professors Whewell and Willis, however, deserve to be mentioned as learned and able investigators who must always command the respect of students of architecture. Whewell, in his Notes on German Churches, did much to systematise methods of observation, and Willis, in his Architecture of the Middle Ages, and in his Essay on Vaulting, has given us a more thorough analysis of constructive systems than any other English writer, and has also rendered acknowledged service to the most able writers of the Continent. But neither of these authors succeeded in bringing out with clearness the essential principles of Gothic.
In the year 1851 was published Sharpe's Seven Periods of Church Architecture, which showed that Rickman's division of styles might be subdivided. But beyond this Sharpe did nothing to invalidate the correctness, in broad outline, of Rickman's work. As regards the true nature of Gothic, Sharpe himself, though a writer of much merit, did not possess a true conception. For he says, referring to the commonly received distinction between Romanesque and Gothic, which is merely that one employs round, and the other pointed arches, that he has "little hesitation in adopting this primary division as the groundwork" of his system.[1] And in his various other works, excellent as they are in many ways, he everywhere treats the subject of Gothic design as consisting merely in this and other peculiarities of detail. Of the considerable number of more recent English writers on Gothic art few, if any, have contributed towards a more just apprehension of its principles. English writers generally have understood by Gothic merely a style of building in which pointed arches take the place of round ones, and in which mouldings and other details are treated in a peculiar way. Hence, in treating of the evolution of Gothic, English writers, with hardly an exception, confine themselves to the consideration of these subordinate things. Even Sir Gilbert Scott, who has shown more insight than most others, quite fails to lay hold of the ruling principles and to exhibit them with clearness. And his son, Mr. G. G. Scott, even describes [2] incidentally some of these principles without emphasising them as fundamental.
A recent Belgian writer, regarding the subject from the English standpoint, has published a book, [3] in which it is assumed that Gothic consists in a purely decorative modification of the component members of a building. These members—capitals, bases, mouldings, etc.—he examines without due reference to their mutual adjustments and functional offices, and considers that the more they differ decoratively from corresponding members in the preceding styles, the more Gothic they are. For standards of Gothic form he points to those buildings in which such details depart most widely from the Romanesque types. And others which, in these features, retain the older characteristics he affirms to be on that account not Gothic.
In France the history of the revival of interest in Gothic seems to have derived its impulse from an influence transmitted from England. One of the earliest French writers to show an intelligent interest in the subject was M. de Caumont, who, however, equally with the authors already named, misconceives the nature of Gothic art. Thus, in treating of the transition, he says: "La révolution architectonique qui s'opérait durant la période transitionnelle ne consistait pas seulement dans la substitution de l'ogive au plein-cintre, mais aussi, comme nous le démontrerons, dans l'adoption d'un système nouveau de moulures pour la decoration, et dans l'abandon de la plupart des ornaments usités aux XIe et XIIe siècles." [4]
FIG 1. These conceptions of the nature of Gothic are inadequate. It is not by the consideration of such structurally unessential features that an understanding of the subject can be reached. By such approach it would be impossible to discover the principles of any art. The principles to be considered are constructive principles. They determine the nature and govern the entire fabric of every art. In architecture they are pre-eminently fundamental. In architecture mere forms apart from their functional offices and relations are not enough to enable us to apprehend the distinctive characteristics of styles. Semicircular forms instead of straight beams may, for instance, be used to bridge the spaces between the upright supports of a building without a result which would constitute between a building employing the latter form and one employing the former, a difference of architectural style. For an arch may be cut out of a single stone, as at A, Fig. 1, as it frequently is in the buildings of Central Syria, [5] where the constructive principle is, of course, that of the plain lintel, as at B, Fig. 1. 
FIG 2. Or the arch may be built up in horizontal courses of small stones, and thus be what is known as the offset arch (Fig. 2), like the gate of Ephesus, which is still on the principle of the lintel. It is not until the arch is constructed of separate stones cut into the shapes of voussoirs, when it comes to exert a lateral thrust which requires to be met by some opposing force, that we have a new constructive principle, the systematic employment of which in architecture constitutes a new style.
In a secondary sense, indeed, it may be admissible to speak of differences of style where there are no differences of constructive principle. Egyptian architecture is, in this sense, a style different from Greek, and arched Roman is a style different from Romanesque. The Romanesque may be broadly divided into two styles—the Eastern and the Western; and the variety of Western Europe may be said to be of one style in North Italy, of another in Southern Gaul, of another in Normandy and England, etc. While of pointed architecture it may be said that there are differences of style, or rather that there are many varieties, some of which are nearer to, and some more remote from, the type which alone is strictly entitled to be called Gothic. But it is only in a secondary sense that it is correct to speak thus of styles in which there are no fundamental structural differences. Pointed architecture is not, in the strict sense, a style distinct from that which is round arched; for pointed arches in apertures do not much differ structurally from round ones. Gothic architecture differs from Romanesque far more fundamentally than by the use of pointed arches in place of round arches, or by the substitution of one decorative system for another.
In the midst of such imperfect apprehension as has thus far generally prevailed, and as preliminary to what is to follow on the nature and origin of Gothic art, it will be well for us to seek a clear and unmistakable definition of it, in order that we may have a standard whereby to estimate the degrees of Gothic quality that may appear in the pointed architecture of different countries and at different epochs. Such a definition is afforded in the monumental work of M. Viollet-le-Duc, the Dictionnaire Raisonné de l'Architecture Française. He has therein given a profound and exhaustive illustration of Gothic. He has shown that Gothic architecture came into being as a result of the development of a new constructive system of building. A system which was a gradual evolution out of the Romanesque; and one whose distinctive characteristic is that the whole character of the building is determined by, and its whole strength is made to reside in a finely organised, and frankly confessed, framework, rather than in walls. This framework, made up of piers, arches, and buttresses, is freed from every unnecessary encumbrance of wall, and is rendered as light in all its parts as is compatible with strength in a system whose stability depends not upon any inert massiveness, except in the outermost abutments, but upon a logical adjustment of active parts whose opposing forces produce a perfect equilibrium. It is thus a system of balanced thrusts, as opposed to the former system of inert stability. Gothic architecture is indeed much more than such a constructive system, but it is this primarily and always. And so fundamental and far-reaching is this mode of construction as the distinctive principle of Gothic, that it may be taken as a rule that wherever we find it developed there we have a Gothic building, even though the decorative system connected with it may retain many of the Romanesque characteristics. And, on the other hand, wherever this principle of thrust and counterthrust is wanting there we have not Gothic, however freely the pointed arch may be used, and however widely the ornamental details may differ from Romanesque types.
The evolution of the Gothic system was gradual, and the final results were unforeseen when the first steps were taken. This is evident from the characteristics exhibited by the transitional monuments which remain. The first steps were taken early. Indeed, the beginnings of Gothic antedate considerably the period which is usually assumed as that of transition. The earliest functional grouping of supports in the churches of Northern Italy was, it would seem, the real beginning; though it was a beginning that was destined to remain unfruitful in its own locality. But there is reason to suppose that the Lombard buildings [6] of the early eleventh century were the sources from which the Normans derived a large share of their architectural inspiration. A comparison of the Church of San Michele of Pavia with that of the Abbaye-aux-Hommes of Caen would alone suggest this, even if we did not know that Lanfranc, who was Abbot of the Monastery when this church was building, had come from Pavia. The rudimentary principles of structure embodied in the churches of Lombardy seem to have been thus transmitted to the North, where they were rapidly developed, so that from San Michele of Pavia to the Cathedral of Amiens a logical and progressive series of changes may be traced.
Gothic architecture is thus in no sense an independent, though it is a distinct style. And hence it is not strange that the finest Gothic buildings should retain, as they do, many traces of the Romanesque elements out of which they were evolved. It is a mistake to suppose with M. Colfs that such lingering of older elements necessarily marks a building as wanting in Gothic character. On the contrary, such elements are natural to Gothic, which is an art not only derived from Romanesque, but which is Romanesque recreated. Every constructive member of a Gothic building exists, in rudimentary form, in a vaulted Norman building. Even the osseous system which distinguishes Gothic exists there in potency. But the creative principle of the new style is not in Norman art yet recognised, and the structural system does not yet frankly and independently exercise its functions.
It may help us to gain a more complete idea of Gothic briefly to review some of the steps in the process by which the transition was effected. And we may advisably begin with the first principles of arched construction.
I have already alluded to the fact that a new principle was introduced into the art of building when the arch exerting side thrusts was first employed. The most effective way to meet such thrusts is by some kind of external abutments. But the thrusts of arches may also be neutralised by downward pressure upon the walls where they operate. Both methods were employed by the Romans and by the Romanesque builders, as well as by the Gothic architects. In the case of a simple arched opening in a wall the thrusts are, of course, stayed in both of these ways. The lateral masses of wall act as buttresses, and the superincumbent masonry tends to overcome the side pressure by its weight. Where a space 
FIG 3. between two parallel walls is roofed over by a barrel vault the continuous side pressures, which would tend to overthrow the walls, are, in Roman constructions, met by thickening the walls enough to resist the thrusts—the extra thickness given for this purpose forming a continuous abutment. The walls in Roman buildings are also sometimes weighted by heavy masonry above the springing of the vaults. In Roman buildings of several stories, such as the Flavian amphitheatre (section, Fig. 3), the walls of the lower stories are enormously thick, and the vault pressures are further stayed by the weight of the walls above. The top story has no vault, and the weight of its thinner wall helps to maintain the stability of the vault below. By such massive masonry employed in this double way, the pressures of Roman vaults are much more than met. In the case of Roman intersecting vaults, like those of the Basilica of Constantine, the thrusts, instead of being continuous, as in the foregoing instance, are concentrated upon those points (a, plan, Fig. 4) from which the groins spring, where they are met by walls set across the aisles and dividing them into separate compartments. These walls are, of course, true buttresses in disguise. The compartments of the aisles are covered by barrel vaults springing from the dividing walls, and thus, having their axes at right angles to the side walls of the building, they exert no thrust upon these side walls, and consequently no external stays are required. Thus the buttress employed by the Romans was not a buttress pure and simple, devised to meet a side pressure with economy, as well as efficiency, and openly confessed as a functional member. They always contrived to arrange the plans of their buildings so that some of the enclosing or dividing walls should act as stays to their vaults, [7] or else they resorted to the methods before noticed of employing such vast thickness of wall as to secure stability by sheer inertia of material.
FIG. 4.
The Romanesque builders went a step farther in the development of the buttress, in accordance with their general progress in the art of construction. They at first placed a pilaster strip on the outside of the wall against the pressure that was to be met, treating it as a distinct functional member (Fig. 5). It is true that the 
FIG. 5. Romans had employed engaged columns in the same positions, but they had employed them for a decorative purpose only. And even in early Romanesque constructions the pilaster strip had little more than a decorative value. It did, indeed, stiffen the wall somewhat, this was the reason for its use, the walls of Romanesque buildings not having the great thickness that was common in Roman walls, but it had not projection enough to bear much vault pressure. It had, however, rarely to meet such pressure, except in the aisles where the vaults were of no great span. But though it was of slight efficiency in vaulted constructions, it yet had great value as marking the place where, in such constructions, additional strength was required by the walls. And in the later Romanesque, as vaulting became more general, the pilaster strip was developed into a true buttress (Fig. 6).
FIG. 6.A beginning was made in the direction of further progress when the Romanesque builders began to vault their naves. It was then found that the pilaster buttress against the clerestory wall was not enough to stay vaults of so much wider span than those of the aisles for which a buttress like that shown in Fig. 6 had been adequate. Expedients to augment the resistance of the clerestory buttress were accordingly resorted to which were destined ultimately to yield unforeseen results.
In the Abbaye-aux-Hommes at Caen the forms of the vaults—which date from the early part of the twelfth century, and are among the earliest that were constructed over a nave—were such as to exert powerful thrusts. That is to say, the arches of their groins were curves of low sweep, such as the Romanesque builders had derived from Roman intersecting vaults, and consequently of enormous push. To stay these vaults the expedient was adopted of constructing demi-barrel vaults, springing from the top of the aisle walls, and butting against the wall of the nave under the aisle roofs (Fig. 7). These demi-vaults were in reality concealed continuous flying buttresses. But they were flying buttresses of bad form, for only a small part of their strength met the thrusts of the vaults, the rest being exerted against the walls, between the piers, where no props were required, and where their effect would have been disastrous had not these walls been of excessive massiveness. The level of the abutment was, moreover, so low that it failed to meet the points where the thrusts were greatest. The precise chronological sequence of buildings in which the successive improvements on this mode of buttressing were made cannot be traced. But an illustration of the next step is afforded by the Abbaye-aux-Dames (Fig. 8), which seems to have been vaulted somewhat later than the Abbaye-aux-Hommes. [8] In this case, instead of
FIG. 7.
a continuous arch, or demi-vault, springing from the aisle wall, separate arches were established, springing from the aisle walls opposite the piers, and abutting against the piers only, where the thrusts of the vaults were gathered. But these arches still fell too low to be wholly effectual, and as the precaution was not taken to reinforce the buttresses of the aisle walls the supports have yielded, and the original vaults have been destroyed. But the same arrangement may be seen in the nave of the Cathedral of Durham where the original vaults remain. Their duration, however, is owing to the enormous massiveness of the construction rather than to the form of the support, which of itself is inadequate. Hence, though an important improvement was attempted in these instances, a satisfactory solution of the problem of the
FIG. 8.
buttress was not yet reached. The abutting arches of the Abbaye-aux-Dames and of Durham are indeed true flying buttresses, but they have not the character of such members in Gothic architecture, inasmuch as they are ill adjusted and are not externally apparent.
An advance of no less importance than this buttress development and an integral part of the growing system was the employment of independent arches, or ribs along the lines of the groins, projecting below the vault surfaces and in a measure sustaining them. Here, as in the case of the buttress, the Romans had employed a kindred principle, though in a most rudimentary way. They had constructed a framework of masonry to give strength to their vaults, [9] but with them this framework was buried in the thickness of the masonry instead of projecting from, or even appearing upon, its surface. It consequently failed to possess the important use of the rib system we are now considering, which, being quite independent of the vaults, serves as a strong centring, and prevents any rupture that may by any chance take place in one cell or compartment of the vault, from communicating itself to others. In addition to this, the employment of an independent support for each rib and arch to be carried—which constitutes the functional grouping of supports above spoken of—completed the structural improvements devised by the Romanesque builders.
We are yet far from the Gothic system. The inert principle of construction, the massive walls, the small apertures, and the horizontal lines of the Romanesque architecture make it still closely akin to the old Roman style. But there are rudiments in it already quickening with latent life, which will completely transform the Romanesque building. The evolution of the Gothic system consisted in gradually perfecting the rudimentary skeleton, so as to make it an independent structure. To every part a complete and independent working efficiency was to be given, and an appropriate artistic, as well as a mechanical value. All this was rendered possible to a far greater degree than it could otherwise have been by the introduction of the pointed arch, not as an ornamental feature in doors and windows, but as a constructive device in vaulting.
The properties of the pointed arch which enabled the Gothic builders to overcome difficulties in vaulting that had before been insuperable are that it exerts a less powerful thrust than the round arch, and that with a given span its crown may be made to reach any level. Its employment in the transverse arches of the vault raised their crowns so that, with arches of full semicircular sweep for the diagonals, the thrusts were greatly diminished. The vaulting of oblong compartments had before been attended with difficulties resulting from the fact that the height of the crown of a semicircular arch is determined by its span. In vaults over oblong compartments the crowns of the round arches which spanned the narrow sides would not reach the level of those 
FIG. 9. which spanned the longer sides. While if full semi-circular arches were used for the diagonals of such vaults their crowns would reach highest of all. Thus in Fig. 9 the height c d of the arch a c b is less than f e, the height of the arch a f g, which again is less than i h, the height of the arch a i j. A vault constructed upon such a system of arches must have an excessively domed form. To obviate this, in part, the expedient was adopted of stilting the narrow arches. The point of their springing was raised to a level considerably above the springing of the greater arches, so as to bring all the crowns nearer to the same height, and thus to reduce the amount of doming required. But even with this modification a vault over an oblong compartment, upon a system of round arched ribs, is excessively heavy, exerts powerful thrusts, and presents an awkward appearance. Oblong groined vaults, though sometimes constructed, were therefore usually avoided by the Romanesque builders, who, indeed, had rarely vaulted their naves, the portion of the building where, in North-Western Europe, oblong compartments most frequently occur. They contented themselves with vaulting the aisles whose compartments were commonly square, and where groined vaults, on round arches, were easily constructed and easily rendered secure. [10]
The introduction of the pointed arch, however, obviated these difficulties. It now became possible to construct groined vaults over oblong compartments without either doming or stilting, since the crowns of all the arches could be readily brought to the same level whatever their differences of span (Fig. 10).
FIG. 10. But it is important to observe that, in true Gothic, oblong vaults are never constructed upon ribs which all spring from the same level, and whose crowns all reach the same height. Other exigencies, which will be explained in the next chapter, stood in the way of so constructing them. True Gothic vaults are always, to some extent, both stilted and domed. But though full advantage of the pointed arch, in affording any height with any span, could not be taken, its introduction was a great help, and it gave a powerful stimulus to constructive invention.
With the reduced thrust of the vault, secured by the pointed arch, the volume of the external stays could now be much reduced, and new experiments soon led to their better adjustment. The flying buttresses were brought to bear more directly upon the points of greatest pressure, which were found to be at a higher level than those upon which the abutting arches of the Abbaye-aux-Dames and of Durham Cathedral had been brought to bear. In order to reach these points it was necessary to make the flying buttresses spring over the aisle roofs, and thus to become marked external features—as in St. Remy at Reims, St. Leu d'Esserent, St. Germain des Prés at Paris, and a few other early Gothic monuments which still retain their original flying buttresses. The vault ribs and the vaults themselves were now also made lighter. And finally the ribs were more closely grouped at their springing—being made to interpenetrate, more or less, by which means the pressures were concentrated to the utmost, while the sustaining shafts and piers, for which the best materials were selected, were reduced to a minimum of thickness. As this development of an independent framework progressed, the intervening walls, now no longer needed for the stability of the fabric, were also reduced in thickness; and the small apertures of the Romanesque style gave place to larger openings, which were gradually more and more enlarged, until they filled the entire space between the supports.
The general form and constructive features of a developed Gothic building may be summarised as follows:—
It will thus be seen that the full development of the Gothic system is brought out only where the plan of the building includes a central nave and side aisles. It was in such buildings that the system was evolved. The principle of the prop or brace, which the flying buttress embodies, as contrasted with the inert stay, which the solid Romanesque buttress embodies, is one of the most fecund principles of Gothic construction. By its use, in connection with that of the pointed arch in the ribs of the vault, is the Gothic attenuation of supports rendered possible. A single-aisled building, like the Sainte Chapelle of Paris, or the Chapel of St. Germer, may, indeed, be strictly Gothic as far as it goes. For it may, as these buildings do, consist of a completely functional skeleton, though not a highly organised one, upon which everything else depends. When the system was once developed in buildings of three or more aisles, it was natural to employ a simpler form of it in the construction of buildings of simpler plan. But it is unlikely that architecture like that of the Sainte Chapelle would ever have come into being had buildings of so simple plan only been required. It was the need of vast stone-roofed churches, such as could not be constructed without aisles, that stimulated the genius of the Gothic builders, and led to the remarkable results that fill us to-day with wonder and admiration.
Such is the structural character of Gothic architecture. But it was not in constructive invention alone that the genius of its builders found expression. Before the time of Gothic art, a genuine artistic aptitude,—an aptitude which found expression in graphic and plastic, no less than in constructive art, had been manifested in the Northern genius. But the painting and sculpture of the Northman were at first rude and uncouth, often extremely so; and this rudeness has been widely held to characterise Gothic art also. But rudeness is by no means a characteristic of Gothic, which is not a product of unmixed Northern genius. For, by the time that Gothic architecture had begun to take form, the mingling of races, that had long been going on, had produced,, in the locality where this art first appeared, a people in whose constitution were happily blended some of the finest characteristics of the Latin and Germanic stocks. It was this people who developed the Gothic style and gave to its marvellous constructive system an equally new and appropriate system of adornment. Gothic art is not an art of barbarians, as the pseudo-classicists of the Renaissance would have us suppose. It is far otherwise. It is the art of that civilised people which grew up, through generations of conflict and mutual interchange of thought, out of the fusion of Northern and Southern blood. This fusion produced a superior artistic race,—a race in which the genius of the North supplied an active imagination and a daring spirit of invention, while that of the South supplied a disciplined feeling for beauty and the traditions of ancient art.
The artistic genius of the Gothic builders showed itself not only in the proportions [12] of the great masses and component details of their monuments, but in the wealth of sculpture and painting with which they adorned them. Both of these arts were employed as auxiliaries; but it was sculpture rather than painting that received the highest development. Not that the Gothic artists had less aptitude for painting. Traces enough of their painting, and a vast wealth of manuscript designs, remain to show their capacity in this direction. But painting could hardly reach any full development in connection with a system of architecture which presented so little wall space whereon to paint, and which so strictly required, in the auxiliary arts, an absolute subjection to architectural expression. The art of producing brilliantly-coloured designs in glass to fill the vast openings of the new architecture was, indeed, a kind of painting, which the Gothic artists made peculiarly their own, and developed magnificently. But a twofold convention, that of architectural fitness on the one hand, and the far-reaching one growing out of the translucent medium on the other, limited this art to the strictest heraldic conditions. The dazzling brilliancy, too, of stained glass designs was overpowering to the effect of painting on an opaque surface. And hence, except in a subordinate kind of decoration, strong in colour, and heightened by gilding—like the borders of the pages of an illuminated manuscript—on small spaces and slender shafts, and even on sculpture, there was little call for the exercise of this branch of the painter's skill.
But sculpture did not require broad surfaces, and its effect within the building was not injured by the brilliancy of coloured glass, while on the exterior it was the most effective kind of enrichment. It was appropriate just where painting was not. Capitals, string-courses, archivolts, etc., all admitted and even called for enrichment by sculpture. The art of sculpture, accordingly, became, in Gothic architecture, an inseparable auxiliary, and almost an integral part of the fabric.
In this sculpture a singular correspondence with the spirit of the Gothic construction is manifest. As there is a living expression in the constructive system which distinguishes it from all other systems, so is there an expression of vitality in this Gothic sculpture which distinguishes it from all other sculpture. A fine appreciation of the life of natural organic forms, from which they largely drew their motives for ornament, is displayed by the Gothic carvers, and displayed in an unparalleled degree. Whether in mere ornament—the enrichment of capitals, the running patterns of string-courses, the voussoirs of archivolts,—or in figure or animal sculpture, this expression of life is alike conspicuous. It is true that in all good ornamental sculpture of the previous schools of art a greater or less degree of vitality had been expressed. Most Greek ornament, though severely conventional, owes its beauty to these living qualities of lines and surfaces. And in Greek, no less than in Gothic sculpture, these living qualities arise from a greater or less conformity with the characteristics of form in natural things. There may not have been, in the mind of the Greek carver when designing his ornament, any conscious reference to nature; but that the lines and surfaces of the best Greek ornaments possess, however abstractly, a degree of conformity with those of natural things will hardly be questioned. The profile of the Doric capital, the Ionic volute, and the acanthus foliage of the Corinthian capital are conspicuous instances; but in Gothic ornament this expression of life is more distinctly marked. In it the reference to nature is more distinct, more direct, and more systematic, than had ever before been the case. Even a likeness to individual species of vegetation soon makes its appearance in the growing style; and an extensive range of flora—answering, in some cases, to that of the locality in which the work was wrought—is used to adorn the Gothic building. But the life derived from nature which appears in Gothic sculpture is no more an independent development than is the constructive system. The elements of Gothic ornament may almost all be traced back to the arts of antiquity. These antique elements were taken up by the Romanesque designers, at first in a spirit of coarse and formal imitation, but finally with truer feeling which gave rise to a renewed animation and to extensive variation of types, by which the way was prepared for the further modifications of the Gothic artists, in whose hands they receive a living character, varied by a fertility of invention, altogether without precedent.
In connection with the qualities of vitality and likeness to nature, must be noticed the conventional character that coexists with them in Gothic design. This conventional character is a result, in part of the traditional elements on which their art was based, and in part also of the native feeling of the designers, who well understood that the difference between nature and art, especially in architecture, is one that ought never to be lost sight of. In its integrity Gothic art does not permit the limits of architectural propriety to be overstepped by imitative realisation. It is conventional in the strictest and truest sense; but it is never arbitrarily so. Its convention is the natural result of obedience to the limitations imposed by position, material, and architectural fitness. It is only in the decline of Gothic—a decline that sets in much earlier than has been commonly supposed—that anything like direct imitation of nature appears.
Throughout the period of its integrity the traditional principles of ornamentation are retained. They are often, indeed, applied in such new ways as almost to lose their identity; but they are never thrown aside. The ancient principles of ornamental design, the ancient grammatical forms of expression, are of universal propriety because they are based upon fundamental, and therefore authoritative, laws of relation and quantity. The combinations of elements may be endlessly varied, but the ruling principles may never be superseded.
And superseded they never are in true Gothic. Gothic sculpture being, as I have already said, like Gothic construction, an evolution out of older elements, it bears, through its whole duration, distinct traces of them. Thus in Amiens Cathedral there are string-courses adorned with running ornaments, the disposition of whose parts recalls the egg and dart design of the Greeks. Others are based upon the various conventional meanders and scrolls of classic design. But instead of the abstract forms of the antique details we have the generic types, and even many of the individual peculiarities of natural leaves and flowers. In the one motive a rounded foliate or floral boss answers to the ovate member of the ancient scheme, while a tendril with lateral leaves answers to the dart. In the others the meander or scroll is a living branch, into the spaces enclosed by the wavy or convoluted lines of which grow, as if of their own volition, leaves and fruits, giving place at happy intervals to fluttering birds, or springing, crouching, or reposing animals.
Everything is designed organically. Leaves and buds spring from growing stems, fruits depend naturally from their branches, animals live and leap. In this respect Gothic ornament is in striking contrast to what we find in the so-called revived classic art, where natural objects are treated inorganically, where fruits and flowers are represented as tied up into bunches, or are hung in formal festoons, and where even artificial objects enter largely, as leading elements, into the decorative composition. Everywhere in Gothic art is life, but life ordered by and obedient to the requirements of architectural congruity, so that the resulting conventional character becomes as conspicuous as the living naturalism. More life and abstract natural beauty it is hardly conceivable that human art could express. A nearer approach to imitative realisation would violate the nature of stone and defeat the ends of art. The artist is keenly appreciative of nature, but he equally perceives the purposes of his art. In judgment of what to take and what to leave he is unerring. The springy line and gracefully undulating surface are caught from nature and wrought into the stubborn stone; but the designer experiences no embarrassment in keeping within the limits of what stone can be made rightly to express.
This living and refined beauty, coexisting with architectural subordination, is as marked in Gothic figure sculpture as it is in that of the lower forms of ornament. And in figure sculpture, no less than in lower ornament, there are marked signs of Greek influence and kinship. [13] This shall be further considered, though it cannot be adequately treated, in future pages. It is enough here to remark that all of those fundamental principles of design which characterise the finest plastic art of Greece,—such as organic composition, breadth of masses, refined flexures of surfaces, quiet grace of contours, moderation of curvature in figures and draperies, and general dignity of pose and gesture—are constantly present in the works of the Gothic carvers. While in addition to these qualities there are in Gothic figure sculpture the same adaptation to position, and the same subjection to architectural effect, that we find in foliate ornament. And herein consists largely the difference, in so far as treatment is concerned, between Greek and Gothic design. Sculpture as an independent art reached a higher perfection in Ancient Greece and in Renaissance Italy. But as an architectural auxiliary there is no sculpture comparable to Gothic. Nor is Gothic sculpture rendered altogether inferior as sculpture by this subordination. On the contrary, this stern subjection brings out some of the grandest qualities that sculpture can attain. It enforces the omission of all that is trivial, and gives emphasis to what is significant and important. As instances of Gothic sculpture in which these qualities are especially marked may be mentioned, the statues of the west portals of Chartres, the bas-relief of the Assumption of the Virgin on the lintel of the main portal of the Cathedral of Senlis—to be more fully noticed when we come to treat of French sculpture,—and the statue of the Virgin in the portal of the north transept of the Cathedral of Paris.
It should be noticed also that there is in Gothic sculpture a structural fitness wherever occasion calls for it—as, for instance, in the corbelled projections which support the wide abaci of capitals. It is remarkable that a high degree of beauty often appears to result from such structural adaptation. Indeed, the beauty of the finest Gothic capitals is largely due to the forms which adapt them to their functions, and render them to the eye, as well as in reality, strong and efficient working members. With this functional form of the main mass every detail of ornament appears to act in sympathy, though it be only in the direction of its lines. There is an expression of upward impulse in the endlessly varied Corinthianesque foliation of the Gothic capital which carries out the principle of bearing up so emphatically marked in the bell. And to this the graceful reverse curves of the helices only add value by contrast. It is noticeable that in Gothic of the best character the sculpture of functional members is not such as to disguise their general contours. The bell of the capital, for instance, is never so much cut away or so loaded with projections as to injure the main mass.
This life and this beauty, based upon logical principle, extend through the entire Gothic system; and in nothing are they more marked than in the profiles of mouldings. The profiles of string-courses, for instance, which in the Romanesque style retain the level upper line peculiar to antique mouldings, and suitable to a southern climate, are in the Gothic gradually changed to a form in which the level line gives place to a steep sloping line which sheds water quickly, and is hence adapted to the stormy climate of the North. This steep right line is associated with curves of varying flexure beneath, forming simple and effective mouldings enriched in the sheltered hollows by sculpture. These profiles assume a great variety of forms, while they never fail to exhibit graceful lines and proportions. In capitals and bases a subtle sense of function and of beauty is always conspicuous, though these forms also are of endless variety. The profile of the capital is made up of lines that are adapted in all their parts, as they are not in any other style, at once to the shaft which the capital crowns, and to the load which it carries. The base also—almost always some modification of the Attic type—is equally admirable in its profile, giving, with artful grace, real and apparent stability to the shaft. Indeed, there is hardly a more beautiful thing in Gothic art than one of these base profiles. The proportions of its parts, the use of contrasting angles, and especially the character of the curve of the lower torus, are unsurpassed, if indeed they are equalled by any of the mouldings of antiquity.
In a definition of Gothic architecture none but the truest form of the art properly concerns us. The many offshoots, imitations, and modifications of Gothic, which subsequently sprang up in different parts of Europe, often no doubt possess great interest, and even sometimes great beauty, but they do not afford us a true illustration of the Gothic style. This truest form of Gothic, that which alone is really Gothic, or, in other words, really a new and consistent style, differing fundamentally in both its structural and decorative systems from all other styles, is, it may as well be said here, native to France only. Hence upon the Gothic of France our definition is necessarily founded.
This Gothic art, like every other great art, was, in its completeness, of short duration. After a considerable period of preparation and germination, a period during which the Romanesque—first in Lombardy, and afterwards in Normandy—had been reaching out more and more after new principles, a combination of happy conditions conspired gradually to bring it into full and fair being. Early in the twelfth century was brought about in Northern Gaul that fine balance of ethnologic, religious, social, and political influences of which the development of Gothic architecture is among the happiest results. But with the quickly succeeding disturbance of this nice adjustment of conditions the character of the art gradually changed, and a course of decline became inevitable and rapid. If we would truly know Gothic art we must study it in the vigour of its early life. Its characteristics in this state are what I have attempted briefly to describe, and shall, in the course of the succeeding chapters, endeavour more fully to illustrate.
The edifice which chiefly stimulated Gothic invention was the cathedral—the leading object at once of popular, municipal, and ecclesiastic enthusiasm. In it were centred all the most potent and active interests, religious and social; and the best genius of the time was expended upon it. The cathedral church especially was the outgrowth of the growing freedom from monastic and feudal oppression, and an expression of monarchical and communal organisation, as well as of religious faith and aspiration. So close, at this time, was the connection between things civil and religious that popular monuments could not fail to partake of the nature of both. History affords no parallel to the spirit which gave rise to the Gothic cathedral. The nearest approach to it was that which produced the Greek temple. Both were conditions of intense popular enthusiasm engaging with religious ardour in the construction and adornment of monuments for public benefit and enjoyment. It was the cathedral, the largest, the most comprehensive, and the most popular form of Christian church, that brought out the full development of Gothic architecture.
Nevertheless, the first steps of change from Romanesque to Gothic were taken before the great cathedral movement set in. They were taken in the monastic churches, and with them the study of this change must begin.
The vast new impulse in building which, in the eleventh century, extended all over Christian Europe, assumed a peculiar and potent character with the religious orders of the North. In Italy, while buildings of great extent and magnificence, such as the Cathedral of Pisa, were at this time begun, no new system was foreshadowed in their construction, no new principle was introduced. Italian art, excepting always that of Lombardy—which was not an outcome of native genius,—was, in the eleventh century, as strictly classic in principle as that of Christian Rome had been in the fifth. But north of the Alps, or rather north of the Loire, a new style of architecture was in process of development. The monastic orders of the North, less given than those of the South to seclusion, contemplation, and inaction, became very energetic builders. With them, at this time, mutual intercourse and interchange of ideas were general, a spirit of invention was active, and constructive enterprise was astir in all directions. [14] The immunity from pillage which the monastic establishments had enjoyed during the most troubled times had enabled them to accumulate wealth which, together with their enlarged relations with the masses of the people, suggested the need of more ample and more elegant accommodations. The churches of former times seemed poor and unworthy, and their rebuilding on a more extended and more magnificent scale became frequent.
These monasteries had early taken every means to qualify large bodies of men to practise the arts. They had organised and maintained schools where art and science were taught—where architecture, sculpture, and painting were cultivated under the guidance of traditions which regulated the forms of production, while they yet left some scope for the free play of new ideas. Under these conditions were made the first attempts to employ the pointed arch constructively in vaulting, and to infuse a new character into the old forms of ornament by ingrafting upon them motives derived from a more independent outlook into the world of nature. These monastic experiments were often awkward and unsuccessful, but each one of them suggested further improvements which were quickly undertaken; and however imperfect were the results reached, their animating spirit was always admirable.
But the monasteries, active and ingenious as were their inmates, were not the sources whence were to issue the most potent ideas and influences. The development of the Gothic system was not to be the work of the monk. There were limits to the freedom that might be exercised under the shadows of the cloister; and the architectural requirements of monastic routine and ceremonial were of comparatively narrow range. A freer spirit of enterprise, a wider experience of life, and a more majestic service were needed to call into activity the highest powers of invention, and fully to develop the genius of the Middle Ages. Yet there are few things more interesting, more instructive, or more beautiful in human history than the way in which these early cowled builders struggled against difficulties and disadvantages, and laid the foundations of an art which was, in the stronger hands of their lay successors, to culminate in the perfections of Chartres and Amiens.
One further point must be noticed, namely, that the architecture of the Middle Ages not only reached its highest perfection in the cathedrals, but that it was, in the strictest sense, an architecture of churches only,—that is to say, it was in church edifices only that the style was completely developed. The forms and features which were first brought into being in the church were afterwards applied, as far as they were suitable, to such civil, military, and domestic buildings as had any architectural character; but in such buildings there was no independent development. Broadly speaking, this has always been so. Architecture, inspired by religious faith and designed for religious uses, has ever preceded that designed for secular purposes, and has largely determined the character of secular building. We are apt to forget that the leading architecture of the Egyptians was that of the temple; that almost the only architecture of the Greeks was that of their temples; that all the best elements of classic Roman architecture were borrowed from Greek temples; that the civil architecture of the Middle Ages was that of the churches modified to meet civil needs; and that the original elements of modern architecture were developed in ancient temples and in mediæval churches.
Finally, the close connection that in all times of living art exists between the work of the hand and the ideas and emotions of the mind is pre-eminently displayed in the art we are considering. So much is this the case that not only is the stamp of thought and feeling impressed upon every fragment of sculpture in the manner that we have already noticed, but more than this, the church edifice was like a vast open page whereon were written in imagery, which the most illiterate could read, the sacred legends and traditions of the common faith. These legends and traditions must be reckoned first among the sources of inspiration which stimulated the imaginations and guided the hands of the artists who wrought upon the fabric. The considerable body of religious literature that had been produced in the early Middle Ages called out the warmest sympathies and the highest aspirations of the people, and filled their minds with devotion to the fabric whose erection was to be, so far as they could make it, a fitting expression of their beliefs and hopes.
In fine then, Gothic architecture may be shortly defined as a system of construction in which vaulting on an independent system of ribs is sustained by piers and buttresses whose equilibrium is maintained by the opposing action of thrust and counterthrust This system is adorned by sculpture whose motives are drawn from organic nature, conventionalised in obedience to architectural conditions, and governed by the appropriate forms established by ancient art, supplemented by colour design on opaque ground and more largely in glass. It is a popular church architecture,—the product of secular craftsmen working under the stimulus of national and municipal aspiration and inspired by religious faith.
I have said that this architecture in all its distinctive characteristics is native to France and to France only. I shall endeavour in the following chapters to illustrate this fact by a detailed examination and comparison of the pointed architectures of the different countries of Europe, first as regards their constructive, and afterwards as regards their decorative systems.
- ↑ Seven Periods of Church Architecture, p. 4.
- ↑ History of Church Architecture, p. 141.
- ↑ La Filiation généalogique de toutes les Écoles Gothiques. Par Jean-Francois Colfs. Paris, 1882.
- ↑ De Caumont, Architecture Religieuse, p. 387.
- ↑ See L'Architecture civile et religieuse du Ier au VIIe siècle dans la Syrie centrale. Par M. Le C te de Vogue. Paris, 1865-1877. The Basilica of Mondjelia, described on p. 98, presents in its nave arcades a singularly systematic use of monolithic arches. At first glance one would naturally pronounce the construction Romanesque. It is not until we scrutinise the joints of masonry that the trabeate principle of its construction is perceived.
- ↑ By Lombard buildings it is not necessary to understand buildings erected by the Lombards. The existence at the present time of work actually wrought by Lombard hands has been clearly disproved, and the designation Lombard, as applied to the churches of the eleventh century in North Italy, has been, therefore, objected to. But the style of these buildings is undoubtedly the result of Lombard influence, though the date of their erection was subsequent to the Lombard occupation. The conclusion reached by Sig. Quintino and others who have treated the subject, that the architecture in question is derived wholly from Roman and Byzantine sources, is certainly incorrect. For nowhere in either Roman or Byzantine design is there any precedent for that functional grouping of shafts and piers that is met with in buildings like San Michele of Pavia, and St. Ambrogio of Milan. The fact would seem to be that the Lombard influence upon architecture was strong enough to outlive the period of actual Lombard sojourn. After two hundred years of settlement the influence of such a people could hardly fail to have become in a measure permanent.
- ↑ See August Choisy, L'Art de Batir chez les Romains, p. 93, et seq.
- ↑ See L'Eglise Ste Trinité et l'Eglise Ste Étienne à Caen. Par V. Ruprich. Robert. Caen, 1864.
- ↑ See Choisy, L'Art de Batir chez les Romains.
- ↑ In Germany the Romanesque builders avoided the difficulties referred to in the text by planning their buildings with square compartments in both nave and aisles. One bay of the nave embraced, in this system, two bays of the aisles. This form, which is of Lombard origin, is the usual form in the Rhenish churches of the twelfth century.
- ↑ I call the rib which runs parallel with the long axis of the building the longitudinal rib, rather than by its common English name—wall rib—because in true Gothic there are no walls enclosing the ends of the vault compartments. The three ribs named in the text—transverse, diagonal, and longitudinal—are the only constructive ribs of any vault, hence they may be said to constitute a complete rib system. The additional ribs, liernes, tiercerons, etc., which appear in the later forms of vaulting, more especially in England, are mere surface ribs having no real function. The employment of such ribs may be considered a sign of misapprehension of Gothic principles.
- ↑ Though they wrought with a fine sense of proportion, there is, I think, no reason to suppose that the mediaeval architects were governed by mathematical formulas of proportion to any such extent as writers like Mr. Penrose, for instance, have maintained. The tendency to consider such formulas as essential to an artist dates from Vitruvius, and has been widely misleading. The formulas of Vitruvius are mechanical and arbitrary. Whatever their value for purposes of analysis, they have an inferior part in creative performance. For an artist, in his creative processes, works by an intuitive sense of laws of which he can be, at most, but partially conscious. He often transcends, and frequently even violates, the scientific formulas. Hence Bacon's remark: "There is no excellent beauty, that hath not some strangeness in the proportion."
- ↑ Nor is it impossible, in some measure, to account for this; though fully to trace the lines of connection might be difficult. The Greek elements in Gothic sculpture have been noticed, though not exhaustively treated, by M. Viollet-le-Duc. It ought to be made the subject of a special treatise by some competent writer. To treat the subject justly would require both scholarship and trained artistic faculty—such as are rarely united in the same individual.
- ↑ The monastic buildings were not only planned, and the work on them directed by the monks, but they were also, in many cases, largely constructed with their own hands. See Lenoir's Architecture Monastique, p. 36, et seq.